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Twa Letter: Snake River Dams by John Twa Idaho Statesman, September 5, 2017

Terry Flores' Aug. 19 Guest Opinion criticized The Statesman's stance on Snake River dams. Flores willingly points out how well her lobby organization, Northwest Riverpartners, has bamboozled Idahoans (and the entire Northwest), while the private interests she represents rape Idaho of its legendary salmon runs.

Similarly to Big Tobacco telling us that smoking wasn't so bad for our health, special interests have spent lots of lobbying money to mislead us into believing that salmon and lower Snake dams are coexisting just fine. They have repeated this lie ceaselessly, even as the salmon circle the toilet bowl of extinction, and disappear from sight.

The lobbyists have distorted the truth about record salmon runs, 98 percent salmon survival through the dams, carbon-free power, flood control, and power reliability, deliberately muddying the waters so badly, that an honest and open discussion about recovering salmon becomes difficult. This is precisely their goal.

And if that weren't devious enough, billions of our dollars have been wasted on failed salmon recovery efforts. Hopefully the farmers, utilities, ports and businesses that support Northwest Riverpartners have no desire to take up salmon and steelhead fishing in their retirement. In the words of Floyd Dominy, they can eat cake instead.