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Semanko's Words Don't Make Sense by R.L. "Nick" Nicholson Idaho Statesman, June 30, 2007

Recently, we were once again subjected to wit and wisdom of Norm Semanko, who represents the Idaho Water Users Association. In case you have forgotten, Norm is one of the would-be's who ran for Gov. Butch Otter's vacant seat in Congress and finished fifth with about 10 percent of the votes.

He has a nasty tongue and freely tosses about insults like "myopic snake oil blathering" when referring to us who care about the environment. He becomes especially irate about saving our wild fish runs and protects the four fish-killing dams in Washington as though he owns them. He protects Washington dams at the expense of Idaho's fish.

Semanko's attacks on Mitch Sanchotena's op-ed don't make much sense. He quotes a Washington congresswoman's misused statistics to claim it would take four nuclear, six coal-fired, or 14 gas-fired plants to replace the hydropower peaking-capacity of the four dams. Due to lack of fuel, the four dams have never in 32 years run at peak capacity and they never will. During this heat wave they are averaging less than 15 percent of capacity

Oh, by the way, Mitch's op-ed never mentions replacement power, just advantages to saving our wild fish runs. Snake oil? Hmmm.

Related Pages:
To Extol Value of Dams is to Disregard Credible Information by Mitch Sanchotena, Idaho Statesman, 6/7/7