News Articles

April 2, 2024
By Lynda V. Mapes

Orca scientist Rob Williams always thought conservation was a knowledge problem, that once science showed why a species was declining, people would fix it.

But new research published Tuesday concludes otherwise. Even in the case of one of the world’s most charismatic species, the endangered southern resident killer whales that frequent Puget Sound are facing an accelerating risk of extinction, a new population analysis shows.

Despite all we know about them and why they are declining, this beloved species is hurtling toward extinction in plain sight — a peril scientists that published the paper memorably call “Bright Extinction,” oblivion happening right before our eyes.

“There is no scenario in which the population is stable,” said Williams, co-founder and chief scientist at the research nonprofit Oceans Initiative, and lead author on the paper published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment. “We have a generation or two where the population is not fluctuating around zero, it is fluctuating around a decline, then it accelerates to a faster rate of decline to extinction. That is without all the threats that are worsening. That was a real eye-opener. This is what the status quo will do.”

In their model, the scientists found the southern residents declining in population until falling off a cliff in about 50 years — two killer whale generations — with only about 20 of their family members left within a century. Accounting for increasing threats would make the picture even worse.

This, Williams has had to face, is not a problem of adequate information. Instead, it’s a matter of inadequate action. “I assumed if only we had the right data, we would make the right decisions. But … not only do we know their biology and the threats they face,” he said of the southern residents, “we have known these things for a very long time.”

Climate change accentuates the extinction risk.

Warming water in the ocean disrupts ocean food webs that feed Chinook salmon — the primary prey of these orcas. And warming rivers hurt salmon survival and reproduction. Other threats, including ocean shipping traffic and other noise that disrupts orca hunting, and habitat destruction also are intensifying. Alteration of the environment is making it, at this rate, a place in which these coevolved animals can no longer live.

Carl Safina, an author of many books on the intelligence of animals, including the southern residents, and ecologist and professor for nature and humanity at Stony Brook University in New York, sees in the doom of species extinction and looming loss of the southern residents a moral test for people.

“This is like a slow-motion collision; this is where we see the brick wall or the cliff, it’s clear, the road is dry, it’s 11 a.m. on a Sunday morning and we are going 8 miles an hour, and it’s half a mile away, and then a quarter of a mile away and then we see it, and our smart sensors start beeping, and then we hit the accelerator and crash … Why do we do that?”

Laws alone clearly are not enough: The Endangered Species Act, which turned 50 this year, calls for preservation of all species, no matter how humble. Yet here is one of the most intelligent animals in all the oceans, and its top predator, barely hanging on.

What’s needed, Safina said, is a fundamental shift in how we all live here.

“Socially, we need an ethic that values the life on this planet and that sees us as stewards.”

So dire is the state of the southern residents — there are only 74 left — that it may be time to consider more drastic interventions, including preventive vaccination of at least some of the most biologically valuable members, the papers’ authors state. A plan also needs to be mustered to be ready for a catastrophic event, such as a disease outbreak requiring a veterinary response across the U.S.-Canada border.

To give the southern residents a better chance at hunting success, the paper recommends some profound changes. Voluntary slowdowns already in place for ships have been found to cut noise levels by nearly half, according to the paper, which in turn results in increased hunting activity by killer whales. Yet at the same time, multiple development projects are underway that will increase shipping traffic in the region, with completion of the second TransMountain tar sands oil pipeline terminating at the port of Vancouver and a major expansion of the shipping terminal at Roberts Bank, the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project, planned right at the Fraser River delta where orcas hunt.

It may be time to consider mandatory ocean noise budgets, caps or limits to allow killer whales to hunt scarce prey more effectively, the paper found.

A fresh look at fisheries management also is needed, according to the paper, to leave more fish in the sea for orcas. Moving fisheries in Alaska and British Columbia away from Chinook rearing grounds and migration routes in the sea to river mouth and estuarine locations would result in an immediate increase of Chinook critical to orcas of up to 25%, according to the paper.

Such a fishery could also help recover a Chinook population more like what orcas evolved with. By not harvesting immature fish in marine fisheries and allowing large females to pass through to spawning grounds, a size increase in the Chinook of up to 40% could occur over a 50-year period, according to the paper. That would provide more of the big Chinook orcas need and prefer. Freshwater habitat restoration could also continue to support wild Chinook abundance, instead of releasing more hatchery fish into the sea.

Hatchery fish compete with wild fish for food and spawning area. They also can weaken wild Chinook fitness by interbreeding or disease, noted study author Misty MacDuffee, salmon biologist with the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, a science nonprofit. She sees no pathway to orca recovery without fisheries reform and other changes to protect the orca’s preferred food.

Another recent paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Ecosphere examined the relationship between the availability of prey and southern resident population ups and downs, to investigate how those relationships might have changed over time.

The work confirmed the essential link between the southern residents and their preferred food. “Prey still matters,” said Eric Ward, an author on the paper and scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center. The paper also found that the northern resident orcas — whose population is increasing — could be affecting the southern residents’ survival because of competition for the same food in shared waters.

Joe Gaydos, science director of the SeaDoc Society, a science research and education nonprofit and author on the Nature paper, said the population analysis was a wake-up call as to just how at risk the southern residents are, without a change in course. What he hopes now is that decision-makers and the public will use that information to ramp up efforts to save a species that defines much of the wonder of the region.

“We have done a lot of great stuff for southern residents, and we need to do more,” Gaydos said. “It’s like when people go to the doctor in their 60s and say, ‘Should I eat better and stop smoking and drinking and exercise?’ and the doctor says, ‘Yes, and you need to do all of them, and you should have done it 20 years ago.’ That is what this paper is saying.

“We don’t have time. We are talking about making some big changes in the next couple of generations of killer whales, or we are out of time.”

That does not make this new work documenting the southern residents’ accelerating extinction risk a give-up-hope paper, Gaydos said, but the opposite.

“Now is the time to show the money, and to make the effort.” For one thing, we owe it to these animals, Gaydos noted.

The southern residents are in such deep trouble in part because of the capture era, during which a third of the whales were taken for sale to aquariums and other entertainment venues.

“We just need to do what we need to do, make it happen, it is on us, we got them here. We are the reason they are endangered,” Gaydos said of the southern residents. “First with the captures and later with the salmon and the contaminants we made; those are not naturally occurring, and those are our boats out there.”

Tim Regan, former executive director of the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission, who is not an author on the paper, says it’s not over for the southern residents. “I personally am one that would say it is never too late,” Regan said. Other species, from elephant seals to whooping cranes, have made remarkable comebacks, even from dire straits.

The southern residents are the top predator in these waters, and they are symbolic of the wonder of our natural surroundings and a commitment to other forms of life that we cherish, Regan said.

“They are such a beautiful reminder of the nature of other species. If we don’t care about them, I don’t know what we would care about.

“You can’t be blamed for failing, but you can be blamed for not trying.”

Seattle Times: 'Extinction risk to southern resident orcas accelerating as researchers raise alarm' article link

By Courtney Flatt
February 23, 2024

Cell phones and cameras popped above a packed room to capture the moment Friday each of six sovereigns – the Nez Perce, Yakama, Warm Springs and Umatilla Tribes and the governors of Washington and Oregon – signed the historic Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative, held securely in a maroon binder.

The hard-fought agreement put an end to decades of court cases over efforts to protect salmon and steelhead, while dealing with complex problems in the Northwest: energy transitions, irrigation and transportation.

This agreement, combined with other funding, will bring more than $1 billion to wild fish restoration and a 10-year break from court cases, according to the Biden administration.

The tribal, state and federal leaders officially signed the historic agreement Friday in Washington, D.C. Supporters say the plan will protect salmon and help ensure an environmentally-just future in the Northwest.

“When one side is being burdened, like we are with the lack of salmon in the system, then it's our obligation to come to the other sovereigns and say, ‘Hey, what's happened here is affecting our salmon runs and, therefore, our treaty rights. Therefore, we need to sit down and talk about how we can fix this,’” said Shannon Wheeler, Nez Perce Tribe Chairman.

An entire system shouldn’t burden one group, he said.

At the ceremony, Gerland Lewis, Chairman of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, said this level of commitment from the federal government is unprecedented.

“Our fishers have empty nets and our homes have empty tables because, historically, the federal government has not done enough to mitigate these impacts,” Lewis said.

Treaties with the federal government ensure tribes have the right to fish in usual and accustomed places, forever. Since the dams were built, tribal leaders say the federal government hasn’t held up its end of the bargain.

“Now, we have an opportunity to do better and to have the tribes at the table,” Lewis said.

The work isn’t new, said Corinne Sams, Fish and Widlife Committee Chair for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.

“All we’re doing is collaborating and partnering, which we should have been doing all along,” Sams said.

Moreover, this agreement is “charting a new and exciting path,” said Brenda Mallory, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

“We will find pathways to secure a better future for all the Northwest,” Mallory said.

A better future for tribes includes more salmon, said Jonathan Smith, Chair of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation.

“We are working hard to improve the lives of our tribal members but it is difficult when the primary source of wealth – the natural resources of the Columbia River and the landscape – has been taken from us,” Smith said.

In December, the Biden administration announced an agreement with tribes and the states of Oregon and Washington to restore healthy and abundant fish populations, grow tribal carbon-free energy projects and look into ways to replace the benefits provided by the four Lower Snake River dams.

Those benefits are numerous, from transportation upriver to Lewiston, irrigation to farmlands near the Tri-Cities, and carbon-free energy supplied by the dams.

However, the benefits have a cost, Wheeler said. Tribes and biologists say removing the four dams is one big action that needs to happen to keep wild salmon runs from extinction on the Snake.

“When you turn on your lights, when you charge your phone, when your heater goes on or your cooling system goes on, you don't understand that what you're doing is actually affecting salmon. We’ve just become accustomed to it,” Wheeler said in an interview.

Now, more than ever, Northwesterners need to come up with innovative ideas and solutions, he said.

Especially as the climate continues to change, salmon have a matter of years, not decades, said Collin O’Mara, president of the National Wildlife Federation.

“The politics are one thing,” O’Mara said. “But the science is always unforgiving. We have to make sure we're acting according to the science.”

While the agreement didn’t ensure the removal of the dams, it is widely seen as a pathway to help understand how to do just that. Studies on replacing transportation, irrigation and energy benefits from the dams will help Congress make a decision on the fate of the Snake River dams.

However, several Congress members who represent districts where the dams are located have stood strong in keeping the four dams in place.

"The Biden administration has crossed the line with its blatant, hypocritical assault on the Lower Snake River Dams," said Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., in an earlier statement.

Over the last couple of years, a flood of reports and recommendations have supported breaching the four dams, as long as a plan is in place to help everyone that uses the services the dams provide.

In 2022, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, also a Democrat, issued a report that found removing the dams would benefit fish – but it couldn’t be considered until people found a way to replace the dams’ benefits.

A federal report, from the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, the agency charged with managing threatened and endangered fish, released a month after the much anticipated Murray-Inslee report. It also recommended breaching the dams to save fish.

There has also been a growing chorus from tribal governments and their supporters. They’ve asked the federal government to uphold its end of treaty obligations that have been in place since 1855: for tribes to be able to fish in usual and accustomed places in perpetuity, which diminishing salmon returns have denied them.

Wheeler said the administration has listened.

Last September, the Biden administration released a memo directing all federal agencies to work towards “healthy and harvestable” salmon populations in the Columbia River System. That distinction would improve salmon numbers beyond being removed from the Endangered Species List.

Now, Wheeler said, it’s time for more candid conversations.

“We roll up our sleeves and, you know, we come together and, and we get to work,” Wheeler said. “We’d like to change things that are going to be positive for the future generations and fundamentally build those foundations. So that the future generations can make decisions without feeling the problems of the past that haven't been corrected.”

NWNews: Tribes, governments sign historic agreement that's a 'path forward' for salmon, dams article link

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, third from left, stands with Chair Gerry Lewis of the Yakama Nation, fourth from left, as they and others pose for a photo following a ceremonial signing ceremony in Washington, Friday, Feb. 23, 2024. The ceremonial signing is an agreement between the Biden administration and state and Tribal governments to work together to protect salmon and other native fish, honor obligations to Tribal nations, and recognize the important services the Columbia River System provides to the economy of the Pacific Northwest. (AP Photo Susan Walsh) 

By Matthew Daly
February 23, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration, leaders of four Columbia River Basin tribes and the governors of Oregon and Washington celebrated on Friday as they signed papers formally launching a $1 billion plan to help recover depleted salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest.

The plan, announced in December, stopped short of calling for the removal of four controversial dams on the Snake River, as some environmental groups and tribal leaders have urged. But officials said it would boost clean energy production and help offset hydropower, transportation and other benefits provided by the dams should Congress ever agree to breach them.

The plan brokered by the Biden administration pauses long-running litigation over federal dam operations and represents the most significant step yet toward eventually taking the four Snake River dams down. The plan will strengthen tribal clean energy projects and provide other benefits for tribes and other communities that depend on the Columbia Basin for agriculture, energy, recreation and transportation, the White House said.

“Since time immemorial, the strength of the Yakama Nation and its people have come from the Columbia River, and from the fish, game, roots and berries it nourishes,’' Yakama Nation Chairman Gerald Lewis said at a White House ceremony.

“The Yakama Nation will always fight to protect and restore the salmon because, without the salmon, we cannot maintain the health of our people or our way of life,’' Lewis said, adding that Columbia Basin salmon are dying from the impacts of human development.

“Our fishers have empty nets and their homes have empty tables because historically the federal government has not done enough to mitigate these impacts,’' he said. “We need a lot more clean energy, but we need to do development in a way that is socially just.’'

Lewis was among four tribal leaders who spoke at the hourlong ceremony at the White House complex, along with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and an array of federal officials.

The agreement, formally known as the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative, “deserves to be celebrated,’' said Jonathan W. Smith, chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation.

The settlement “takes the interests of all the stakeholders in the Columbia Basin into account,’' he said. “It lays out a pathway to restore salmon and steelhead to healthy and abundant levels and moves forward with the necessary green energy transition in a socially just and equitable way.’'

Corinne Sams of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation called the signing ceremony a historic moment, not just for the tribes, but also for the U.S. government “and all Americans in the Pacific Northwest. My heart is big today.’'

The Columbia River Basin, an area roughly the size of Texas, was once the world’s greatest salmon-producing river system, with at least 16 stocks of salmon and steelhead. Today, four are extinct and seven are listed under the Endangered Species Act.

Dams are a main culprit behind the salmon’s decline, and federal fisheries scientists have concluded that breaching the dams in eastern Washington on the Snake River, the largest tributary of the Columbia, would be the best hope for recovering them, providing the fish with access to hundreds of miles of pristine habitat and spawning grounds in Idaho.

Conservation groups sued the federal government more than two decades ago in an effort to save the fish. They have argued that the continued operation of the dams violates the Endangered Species Act as well as treaties dating to the mid-19th century ensuring the tribes’ right to harvest fish.

Friday’s celebration did not include congressional Republicans who oppose dam breaching and have vowed to block it.

Dams along the Columbia-Snake River system provide more than one-third of all hydropower capacity in the United States, said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Washington Republican who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In Washington state, hydropower accounts for 70% of electricity consumed.

The Snake River dams “helped transform Eastern Washington into one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world,’' including 40% of America’s wheat, Rodgers said in a statement.

Rodgers denounced “secret negotiations” led by White House senior adviser John Podesta, which she described as “an attempt to breach the Lower Snake River dams.’' Podesta and other officials have “ignored the concerns of people who live in the Pacific Northwest and who would be significantly impacted if these dams were breached,’' Rodgers said.

Podesta and other speakers at the White House ceremony looked past those concerns, with few even mentioning the dams.

“President Biden understands that the Columbia River is the lifeblood of the Pacific Northwest, for its culture, for its economy and for its people,’' said Brenda Mallory, chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

“The historic agreement is charting a new and exciting path to restore the river, provide for clean energy and live up to our responsibilities and obligations to tribal nations,’' Mallory said. “I’m confident we will secure the vision ... of securing a restored Columbia River Basin, one that is teeming with wild fish, prosperous to tribal nations, (with) affordable clean energy, a strong agricultural economy and an upgraded transportation and recreation system.’'

White House, tribal leaders hail ‘historic’ deal to restore salmon runs in Pacific Northwest article link

By Jennifer Yachnin
02/23/2024

But Biden administration officials acknowledged it is just a first step in a long process.

Top Biden administration officials and Native American leaders on Friday celebrated a $1 billion settlement agreement to restore Pacific Northwest salmon populations, while acknowledging it will take years of continued collaboration to achieve its goals.

A cadre of Biden administration officials — including John Podesta, the president’s chief clean energy adviser; White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory; and Laura Daniel-Davis, the Interior Department’s acting deputy secretary — met for a signing ceremony at the White House along with Native American tribal leaders and two governors.

“This is only the beginning,” Podesta said Friday. “In a sense, this agreement really is just a handshake: a set of solemn mutual commitments, ones we worked very hard to create.”

He added: “It will take all of us committing to this partnership now and for years to come to lift the words off the page and bring this agreement to life.”

The White House announced the “Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative” in December as a settlement agreement in the long-running legal battle over hydropower operations on the Snake and Columbia rivers. Plaintiffs in the case who signed the settlement include the Nez Perce, Yakama, Warm Springs and Umatilla tribal nations, as well as the states of Oregon and Washington.

The settlement will fund studies on how to address transportation, irrigation and recreation uses of the Lower Snake River if a series of four hydropower dams were to be replaced on the waterway in a bid to improve conditions for salmon and steelhead populations. While the agreement sets up a pathway to removing the dams, Biden administration officials have emphasized that only Congress has the authority to do so.

Proponents of dam removal argue the structures must come down to lower water temperatures and reconnect habitats for the salmon and steelhead. A NOAA Fisheries study in 2022 described removing the dams as a “centerpiece” in the bid to restore fish populations.

A federal judge issued a five year stay in the lawsuit earlier this month — with the potential for the pause to go up to 10 years — to allow the settlement to be put into place.

“Our work is far from finished,” said Daniel-Davis. “But this agreement is a turning point and our collective efforts to restore this ecosystem for our shared and abundant future.”

The agreement has drawn criticism from some Republican lawmakers, including House Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers from Washington state, who argues that breaching the Lower Snake River dams would disrupt barge traffic and irrigation projects in the region.

Earlier this week, McMorris Rodgers asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to weigh in the impacts of breaching the Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite dams on the Snake River.

White House officials have emphasized that only Congress wields the authority to order the dams’ removal.

“I’m confident that with that we will secure … a restored Columbia River Basin,” Mallory said Friday. “A healthy basin creates security and resilience for all, and I want to be there to witness that moment when we see it all come together.”

Proponents of the agreement, including Nez Perce Tribe Chair Shannon Wheeler, told E&E News that while concerns raised by McMorris Rodgers and others are valid, those fears should not prevent change.

“The concerns that some of the Northwest delegation may have … can be answered and will be answered,” Wheeler said.

He added: “We can do business differently, but you have to give it an opportunity, otherwise the demise of the salmon will continue.”

Collin O’Mara, CEO and president of National Wildlife Federation, agreed that the worries about what dam removal would mean for crop irrigation and transportation in the region, as well as energy production, are reasonable. But he said the memorandum is intended to balance all those needs while restoring the salmon population.

“This is a great first step, but there’s additional work that needs to be done in the years ahead,” O’Mara said.

The settlement directs the Department of Energy to work with tribes to stand up new energy infrastructure in the region, which would go toward replacing 3,000 megawatts of capacity lost if the dams are removed but does not specify how to address other aspects of the waterway.

“I do think there are investments that need to be made to make sure folks in agriculture, in shipping, in some of the other industries that depend on the system as it is today are made whole,” O’Mara said.

He noted that solutions could be drawn from existing studies on the river basin produced in recent years, pointing to a proposal floated by Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson, and a report issued by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) and Sen. Patty Murray (D).

Jonathan Smith, chair of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, described the agreement as ensuring “salmon, steelhead and energy for all.”

“This settlement deserves to be celebrated. It takes the interests of all the stakeholders in the Columbia Basin into account,” Smith said. “It lays out a pathway to restore salmon and steelhead to healthy and abundant levels and moves forward with the necessary green energy transition in a socially just and equitable way.”

E&E News: White House celebrates $1B deal to save Columbia River Basin salmon article link 

Feb. 23, 2024
By Isabella Breda

Leaders of four Pacific Northwest tribal nations Indigenous to the region on Friday inked a historic agreement with the U.S. that lays out the future of the operations of hydropower dams in the Columbia River Basin, including the dams on the Lower Snake River.

At the White House Friday, the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs and Yakama tribes, and states of Washington and Oregon signed a memorandum of understanding, outlining a series of commitments from the federal government.

It’s not an agreement for dam removal; in fact, removal of the Lower Snake dams, a long-running and controversial goal of tribes and other groups, is put off for years. But it’s the end of an era.

“We need a lot more clean energy, but we need to develop it in a way that’s socially just,” Yakama Nation Chairman Gerald Lewis said at the White House Friday. “The last time energy was developed in the Columbia Basin it was done on the backs of tribal communities and tribal resources.”

“Now we have an opportunity to do better and to have the tribes at the table.”

Tribal nations helped draw up a road map for the future of the region’s energy and salmon. Under the $1 billion-plus agreement, tribes will help restore wild fish and assist in the construction of at least 1 to 3 gigawatts of clean-energy production.

The agreement stems from years of mediated negotiations in a decades long court battle over dam operations. A stay of litigation is in place for up to five years and could continue for as long as 10.

In a key compromise, the agreement also reduces water spilled over the dams for summer and fall run fish, including fall Chinook, one of the more robust salmon runs on the river, and a mainstay of tribal and sport fisheries. That allows the Bonneville Power Administration to sell more power from the dams into the lucrative California power market.

However, spring spill would be boosted, to help spring Chinook by providing something more like a spring freshet for young fish migrating to the sea.

It comes as climate change turns more mountain snow to rain, throwing imperiled salmon and steelhead into hot water, and straining access to a steady stream of hydropower.

Meanwhile, BPA this month reported a net revenue loss of $102 million for the first quarter of the 2024 fiscal year due to dry winter conditions and high power prices in the Pacific Northwest.

Some river users welcome the change.

“Let’s just get on with it,” said Darryll Olsen, board representative for the Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association, in an interview. “We never thought that pounding the table and saying hell no, was going to get anybody anywhere.”

The irrigators delivered a report to Gov. Jay Inslee this week putting a price — $750 million — on irrigated land values impacted by dam removal.

Inslee and Sen. Patty Murray commissioned a report on replacing the benefits of the dams — energy, transportation and irrigation — released in August 2022. The report estimated an infrastructure program totaling $10.1 billion to $31.3 billion could replace the dams’ services.

They vowed dam removal could not happen without replacing those services first.

On Friday, Inslee said future generations — Indigenous and non-Indigenous — deserve to experience the joy of seeing salmon in the Pacific Northwest.

“This is only the beginning,” said White House senior adviser John Podesta. “In a sense this agreement really is just a handshake … it will take all of us committing to this partnership now and for years to come to lift the words off the page and bring this agreement to life.”

Seattle Times: PNW tribal nations, states sign historic Columbia Basin agreement with U.S. article link

Republicans call it a secret and radical agreement, while Biden officials say it will bring stability, help fish and communities

By Eric Barker of the Tribune
Jan 31, 2024

Senior members of the Biden administration and Republican members of Congress painted vastly divergent pictures Tuesday of the agreement that could pause litigation over Snake River dams and salmon for the next decade.

During a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Energy, Climate and Grid Security, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of eastern Washington called the Columbia River hydropower system the beating heart of the Pacific Northwest and a marine super highway that powers the region and helps inland farmers reach global markets. But she described the agreement the administration struck late last year with Columbia River tribes like the Nez Perce and a coalition of fishing and conservation groups as a nefarious pact negotiated behind closed doors.

“CEQ cut a secret backroom deal to please radical environmentalists who are profiting from a campaign to tear out our dams,” she said while questioning Brenda Mallory, chairperson of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. “You ignore the science and the law, and there will be consequences for that.”

Likewise, guests invited to testify by the Republicans described the agreement as a precursor to breaching four dams on the lower Snake River and said doing so will devastate farmers, cost ratepayers dearly and leave the energy system that fuels the Northwest vulnerable to blackouts.

Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, said the Snake River dams provide affordable and reliable power that is always there and can help the region get through periods of extreme heat and cold. As an example, he pointed to last month’s arctic blast that brought below-zero temperatures to the Northwest and spiked energy consumption.

“As demand went up, the wind stopped blowing,” he said. “Wind production across the BPA system dropped from Jan. 11 to Jan. 13 by 94%. As the cold intensified, hydropower filled the gap, increasing output by roughly 50% during the same period, keeping the lights on and furnaces and space heaters running.”

Mallory and other administration officials said the agreement doesn’t breach the dams but replaces uncertainty spawned by litigation with a decade of hydropower certainty, helps the federal government meet its obligations to the tribes and will collect information that can inform Congress if it ever considers removing one or more of the dams.

“Let me be clear, the agreement does not usurp congressional authority on whether to breach any dams,” she said. “It does not exponentially raise rates on Bonneville (Power Administration) customers. Instead, it will benefit fish and communities. It will provide stability and contain costs for ratepayers and navigation interests. And it will provide a roadmap of information and investments needed to realize a resilient Columbia River Basin in partnership with tribes and states rather than in conflict.”

The agreement comes after decades of litigation challenging the government’s contention that dams can be operated in a manner that doesn’t jeopardize survival of salmon and steelhead protected by the Endangered Species Act. The Nez Perce and other plaintiffs have won every iteration of that litigation but until now haven’t convinced the federal government to take a new approach.

After the latest round of lawsuits, the Biden administration agreed to enter mediated talks with the plaintiffs that, after two years, produced the agreement. It pauses court proceedings for up to 10 years, commits the BPA to spend $300 million to restore salmon habitat and complete needed upgrades to Snake and Columbia River salmon and steelhead hatcheries. In addition, the government pledged to help the tribes develop up to 3,000 megawatts of renewable energy projects that can be counted as replacement for the power generated at the Snake River dams. Lastly, the government said it would study how best to replace the transportation, irrigation and power generations at the dams.

Jeremy Takala, chairperson of the Yakama Nation’s Fish and Wildlife Committee, said his tribe is far from a radical environmental group and called the agreement a “historic opportunity to help save our salmon and secure a just and prosperous future for everyone in the Columbia Basin.

“Healthy and abundant runs of salmon, steelhead would not just benefit Indian people but the larger population as well,” he said. “Thousands of jobs in the sports fishing and even commercial industry will last with diminished salmon rounds. Those jobs and the millions of dollars in income and even taxes would return with a healthy fishery. And those economic benefits need to be factored into this discussion.”

BPA Administrator John Hairston said the agreement doesn’t commit his agency to purchase power produced at projects developed by the tribes and he noted the agreement helps the agency by ending summer spill at the dams on July 31 instead of the middle of August.

Jeremy Baumann, director of policy and implementation at the Department of Energy, said the agreement doesn’t commit the federal government to pay for tribal energy projects. Instead, he said the government would provide technical assistance to the tribes as they pursue development of their own energy projects.

“We can’t vary from the competitive rules that apply to virtually all DOE funding,” he said.

Lewiston Morning Tribune: Dam deal’s in eye of beholder article link