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Ways Around a Dam: Zero-Cost Burden of Removal is Possible by Mark Heckert Seattle Times, January 14, 2004

While acknowledging the federal government's failure to recover salmon in the Snake and Columbia rivers ("Northwest salmon, lost in the yellow zone," Jan. 7), The Times editorial continues to parrot the government's publicity machine about recovery progress to date.

Fish decline from Snake River dams has been extraordinarily costly to recreational and commercial fishing, related manufacturing and service-oriented businesses, taxpayers, Northwest tribes, not to mention the lost, sustainable business opportunities that salmon and steelhead recovery would mean to Snake River communities in Washington and Idaho.

Sensible and reasonable investments in new energy sources, rail infrastructure and other mitigation actions and subsidies — that ensure a zero-cost burden to agriculture from dam removal — is the appropriate and necessary way to recover salmon to abundance, sustain farming, grow the economy and save tax dollars.

Government wastes millions of dollars on measures that don't benefit farmers, utility ratepayers, or, in the end, fish. The National Marine Fisheries Service and the vast majority of biologists agree that Snake River dam removal is the key to recovery.