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Sen. Smith and the Lower Snake Dams by Michael C. Blumm The Oregonian, December 20, 1999

On Dec. 3, 1999, Sen. Gordon Smith told the City Club of Portland that his opposition to the removal of four federal dams on the Lower Snake River was one of the defining moments of his year in in the Senate. Earlier, he had told the City Club that if the four Lower Snake dams were demolished, he would go down with them, chained to their facade.

Smith offered several reasons for his opposition to the dams' removal, including the observations that 1) virtually every modern amenity is the product of electricity, 2) control of floods, 3) protection of jobs, and 4) once one dam is breached, others will be vulnerable. Let's look closely at each of the senator's reasons:

• Electric losses. Breaching the Lower Snake Dams would cost about 5 percent of the region's electricity. Several studies, including one by the Bonneville Power Administration, suggest that these losses could be replaced rather painlessly over the next decade.

• Flood control. The four Lower Snake dams are run-of-the-river dams. They provide no flood control benefits, according to the Corps of Engineers.

• Job losses. Even Smith acknowledged that a recent analysis by Corps' economists showed net jobs gained from dam breaching, but he claimed those were temporary construction jobs. That overlooks the jobs in commercial and recreation fishing and other recreation-related jobs that would be created. The Corps' economists estimated that the economic benefits of a free-flowing river to be at least $400 million per year.

The biggest mistake that dam defenders like Smith make is their assumption that maintaining the dams is cost-free. Including the costs of maintaining an expensive salmon barging and trucking operation to help salmon avoid the dams, the current cost of operating the Lower Snake dams exceeds $200 million annually. Moreover, the Snake was once home to the largest salmon runs in the Columbia basin and, according to the Institute of Fishery Resources, dam-related salmon losses throughout the basin costs $500 million annually and 25,000 lost jobs.

The chief benefit the Lower Snake dams provide is navigation; they make Lewiston, Idaho, a seaport. But the cheap transportation they provide comes at a price: about a $30 million annual taxpayer subsidy.

A recent study by Washington State University professor Ken Cassavant indicates that rail improvements, which would cost less than the dams' current taxpayer subsidy, would increase farm transportation costs only one cent per bushel of wheat. Cassavant also predicts only modest increases in truck traffic, since truck hauls from farm to rail terminal are shorter than from farm to the Snake River ports. So Smith's dire warning to the City Club of significant increases in air pollutants causing global warming was sheer hyperbole.

Breaching the Lower Snake dams would provide a 220-mile stretch of free-flowing river, more than five times as long as the Hanford Reach, the only free-flowing area of the Columbia River, and home to the only self-sustaining salmon runs in the Columbia Basin. Many of the Snake River runs are now on what amounts to life support. Dispensing misleading economic information, as Smith did to the City Club, may help ensure that they go extinct before the public learns the economic truth.