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Biden Admin's Draft Plan Called the 'Greatest Single Threat' Yet to Snake River Dams by Annette Cary Tri-City Herald, December 1, 2023

The commitments in the draft agreement go beyond creating
a roadmap for breaching the lower Snake River dams

Kennewick, WA -- A new draft agreement negotiated by the Biden administration poses the "single greatest threat" to date to the Northwest's hydropower system, says the head of the Public Power Council.

Scott Sims, the council's executive director, and other critics of the draft agreement said it does not address severe impacts on ports, farmers, river users and barging operators or the resulting increase in harmful emissions if dams are removed.

The draft agreement, which was negotiated as part of a long-running federal lawsuit, does not directly call for tearing down the four lower Snake River dams in Eastern Washington.

But it outlines projects with costs potentially totaling billions of dollars to get ready for a decision to remove the dams and to boost threatened salmon populations elsewhere in the Columbia River basin system.

The executive directors of Northwest RiverPartners, the Public Power Council and the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association said in a joint statement that the agreement would undermine clean energy and climate goals, negatively impact the Northwest's economy and food production, raise electricity rates and threaten grid reliability.

They say their organizations were shut out of what they recalled "secret" negotiations for the federal government draft agreement.

The draft was negotiated by the federal government in closed-door sessions with the states of Washington and Oregon and four tribes as part of the long-running lawsuit in federal court over management of the hydroelectric system on the Columbia and Snake rivers and tributaries.

The lawsuit challenges the most recent federal plan for hydropower operations of the four lower Snake River dams in Eastern Washington and Idaho for not doing enough to save threatened salmon as pressure has mounted to tear down the dams.

The draft agreement was completed after the Biden administration said in August that it was committed to development of "a durable, long-term strategy to restore salmon and other native fish populations to healthy and abundant levels, while honoring federal commitments to Tribal Nations, delivering affordable and reliable clean power, and meeting the many resilience needs of the basin's diverse stakeholders across the region, including those that use the rivers for irrigation, transportation, water supply, and recreation."

Jim Matheson, chief executive of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, said the "secret deal" is an example of proposed government actions with devastating real-world consequences.

"(It) would jeopardize reliable electricity for millions of Americans in the Pacific Northwest," he said.

"Not only does this expose a severe lack of understanding about the importance of keeping the lights on, it also reveals the administration's misplaced desire to undermine our nation's essential portfolio of carbon-free hydroelectric resources without considering the cost," he said.

The executive directors of Northwest RiverPartners, the Public Power Council and the Pacific Northwest Waterways said the draft agreement fails to meaningful address those goals. It undermines the future of clean energy mandates and potentially will raise the cost of electricity in the Northwest.

The commitments in the draft agreement go beyond creating a roadmap for breaching the lower Snake River dams, establishing a plan that could demolish the capabilities of the entire federal hydroelectric system for the Columbia River and its tributaries, they said.

The federal government would provide funding for four tribes in Washington and Oregon to develop new clean energy production, but those "replacement resources" would not come close to the reliable performance of hydro projects, they said.

The agreement as written "hands the keys to anti-hydro parties whose stated objective is to dismantle the entire system," said Kurt Miller the outgoing executive director of Northwest RiverPartners.

The federal government would be required to defer to the tribes and the two state governments without consulting those who rely on the benefits of the dams, including serving 3 million electricity customers.

Shifting shipment of agriculture products and other goods from river barges to trucks and train would increase harmful emissions by more than 1.25 million tons a year, they said, comparing it to adding one large coal-fired power plant to the electric grid every two to three years.

The true cause of salmon declines is a warming, acidifying ocean, which the draft plan does not address, they said.

The draft agreement is based on one unscientific policy document of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, they said, pointing out that a NOAA peer-reviewed study predicts chinook salmon will approach extinction within the next four years if the ocean continues to warm at its current rate.

WA, OR, ID lawmakers want answers

Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., and three other Republican Northwest lawmakers sent a letter Wednesday to Biden saying the "vague and imprecise" language in the 34-page report makes it susceptible to misinterpretation.

They had earlier requested a copy of what they called the "secret" agreement from a White House agency and made it public Wednesday.

"It is imperative that our constituents, whose livelihoods depend on the Columbia River System, have a comprehensive understanding of this document's contents so they can anticipate and prepare for the wide-ranging impacts that will inevitably be felt across the region should the commitments detailed in this document be realized," said the letter signed by Newhouse and Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash.; Russ Fulcher, R-Idaho and Cliff Bentz, R-Ore.

They want to know more about the draft plan's program to fund new clean energy production by four of 40 Northwest tribes to potentially replace hydropower now produced by the lower Snake River dams.

Would the federal government advance efforts to breach the four Snake River hydroelectric dams in Eastern Washington after securing this "replacement" power, they asked.

And is it the administration's official position that the dams should ultimately be breached, they asked.

They also asked whether the proposal to sell the tribally produced electricity to the Bonneville Power Administration would reduce BPA's independence in setting rates for electricity widely used in the Northwest.

They questioned whether studies of replacement electricity required after breaching the hydropower dams would consider that the dams, unlike clean energy sources such as solar and wind, can dependably produce electricity around the clock.

The draft plan said that the "science is clear" on the need to remove dams based on "Rebuilding Interior Columbia Basin Salmon and Steelhead," a 2022 report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration.

Were other scientific reports or studies considered, the representatives asked. And why weren't many factors considered that harm salmon, like polluted water in the Puget Sound, they asked.

The federal lawsuit that resulted in the draft agreement is paused until Dec. 15 to allow plaintiffs in the lawsuit to discuss the draft agreement and next steps on the dams with select tribes and litigation parties and to approve proposed actions and commitments.

On Dec. 15 the plaintiffs and federal defendants will either request a multi-year stay of the lawsuit to implement the proposals and commitments in the draft agreement or they will return to court, according to Earthjustice, which is representing a coalition of fishing, conservation and renewable energy groups in the lawsuit.

Related Pages:
Letter to NOAA Shows How Far Snake Dam Opponents Will Go to Control the Narrative by Editorial Board, Tri-City Herald, 6/22/23