Opinion

Recently, Gov. Ferguson signed legislation raising fees for hunting and fishing licenses by nearly 40% and increasing the Discover Pass from $30 to $45. In a time of severe statewide budget deficits, revenue generation through Washington’s recreation economy is a reminder of the other recreation-based economic opportunities that we are missing out on throughout the state as a result of our nearly extinct salmon and steelhead populations and sick waterways, namely the lower Snake River.

In the U.S., the sports fishing industry generates $230.5 billion annually and supports 1.1 million jobs. In rural areas especially, spending on gear rentals, guide services and licenses can serve as a huge force of economic stimulus. Currently, however, many communities along the lower Snake are missing out. Many salmon and steelhead populations are too close to extinction to be fishable, and the river itself has been dammed into a series of too hot reservoirs – sometimes with toxic algal blooms – that most recreationists choose to avoid.

I urge our members of Congress to move us on a pathway toward healthy rivers, abundant salmon and thriving local economies through comprehensive solutions like the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative. Let’s duplicate the Klamath, where salmon are already rebounding less than two years later, numerous rapids have been uncovered and recreation is ballooning. If we instead continue to allow salmon to go extinct, it would be a failure by the government to uphold its treaty obligations and prevent us from realizing a massive economic opportunity.

Chris Pinney

Walla Walla

Spokesman-Review: Investing in salmon would boost regional economy

May 25, 2025
By Stan Kuick, Richland

Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s recent remarks on the Lower Snake River dams and claim that dam removal would be “going backward” ignores decades of research showing that restoring a free-flowing Lower Snake River is essential to recovering Columbia Basin salmon populations.

Large dams are no longer being built in the U.S. In fact, they are being removed, especially in the Northwest, with a 100% success rate in improving fish runs.

These four dams are not irreplaceable. They produce about 3% of the region’s energy, mostly in the spring when demand is low, and studies show their output can be replaced with cleaner, more seasonally appropriate alternatives like solar energy. Barge traffic on the river has dropped 50% since the 1990s, despite large subsidies, and expanded rail infrastructure will offer a competitive alternative. Irrigation needs can be met with a restored river.

If we are to “think boldly,” as Secretary Wright suggests, we must move forward, not backward, by breaching the four Lower Snake River dams and replacing their services with available alternatives. A free-flowing Lower Snake River will be a rafting and paddling paradise, a hiking destination with trails along a finally healthy river and a mecca for salmon fishing.

May 11, 2025

Could you imagine fishers catching salmon to their heart’s content? There was a time when salmon were so abundant that smoked salmon stands on the side of the road were common. Today, salmon are in such short supply on the Lower Snake River, all Washington anglers are limited to catching a combined total of 407 spring chinook.

The fight for salmon continues with increasing barriers.

In January, Rep. Newhouse and Sen. Risch proposed legislation that, if successful, would prevent lower Snake River restoration and push critically endangered salmon and orcas closer to extinction. Rep. Baumgartner supported this bill.

This bill isn’t about solving problems – it’s about silencing progress. It ignores decades of scientific consensus, tribal leadership and community voices calling for bold action to restore salmon, protect orcas and modernize our energy system.

Let’s be clear: Lower Snake River Dam removal isn’t a radical idea – it’s a practical one. It’s how we build a resilient energy grid that works in the face of climate change, invest in 21st-century transportation and irrigation infrastructure and bring life back to a river system – while honoring our commitments to tribal nations who’ve stewarded this land for millennia.

Let’s not get dragged backward. We need our elected leaders to stand up for the future – not for outdated systems that are killing our salmon and hurting our economy.

The Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative is a roadmap forward. The Newhouse-Risch bill is a dead end.

Erica Tuell

Spokane

By Chris Vertopoulos
Published: May 17, 2025

Since its enactment five decades ago, the Endangered Species Act has served as a lifeboat to our nation’s most imperiled fish and wildlife and the irreplaceable benefits they bring to our communities.

Its success stories are numerous. The bald eagle, humpback whale and California sea otter are among those animals that likely would not be here today were it not for this law’s critical protections. All told, some 1,700 animal and plant species have been safeguarded by the ESA since it was signed into law.

This law is especially important to our fishing communities and businesses in the Northwest, where many wild and hatchery salmon and steelhead populations are in decline today as a result of lost and degraded habitat. Without the continued protections of the ESA, many fisheries experts fear we’ll lose additional stocks forever.

Such losses would be incalculable. Salmon define our Northwest culture and support our special way of life. They’re a keystone species that more than 100 other species benefit from and rely upon. In short, their extinction would devastate our region’s fishing businesses, communities, culture and environment.

That’s why it’s imperative that we do everything in our power to block the latest efforts to weaken this much-heralded law. Of particular concern is H.R. 1897 — the ESA Amendments Act of 2025 — introduced recently in Congress by Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark.

H.R. 1897 would eviscerate the ESA, prioritizing politics over science and undermining elements of the law that have made it a conservation success with broad public support. It would extend the timeline for listing decisions, require delistings to be fast-tracked, shift key implementation decisions from the federal government to the states and place significant new administrative burdens on increasingly understaffed and underfunded federal agencies.

A cornerstone of the ESA is the scientific consultation process — a legal requirement that the federal government consult with state wildlife agencies before it takes actions that could harm an ESA-listed species or its habitat. H.R. 1897 would upend this process. Among other damaging provisions, it would dismantle one of the ESA’s core tenets: habitat protection. By allowing projects that harm habitat to proceed unchecked, the bill would sever the connection between, for example, salmon and the cold, clean, healthy rivers they need to thrive.

Consider the implications of weakening the ESA for our region where our iconic native fish are running out of time.

The Columbia-Snake River Basin was once the most prolific salmon landscape on the planet — home to millions of wild salmon and steelhead. Today, those runs have been reduced to just 1 percent to 3 percent of their historic levels; according to fisheries experts, some runs are just two generations from extinction — that’s 6 to 10 years.

What would our rivers be without salmon? What would this mean to Northwest Tribes, for whom fishing is a way of life? And what about salmon-dependent small businesses, from guide/charter operators to bait and tackle shops, hotels and gas stations? Our region’s economy, culture and identity are tied to salmon.

Now is not the time to weaken a law that works. Americans overwhelmingly support the ESA. We care deeply about our nation’s fish and wildlife, and we all want our children and grandchildren to be able to experience the wonders of this rich natural legacy.

Please join me: Call on Congress to listen to the American people, reject this disastrous bill and defend our way of life in the Northwest. Our region’s imperiled salmon and steelhead populations are running out of time. It’s up to all of us to defend our values, our communities and our fish and wildlife before it’s too late.

Chris Vertopoulos was born and raised in Vancouver, where he lives today. He has owned and operated a fishing guide service for more than 30 years.

The Columbian: Local View: Now is not the time to weaken a law that works

Salmon can be seen swimming up a Klamath River tributary. After the removal of the last of four dams along the Klamath River in 2024, salmon have reached stretches of the river that have been devoid of the fish for decades.Shane Anderson/Swiftwater Film

May 07, 2025
By Russell “Buster” Attebery and Joseph L. James
Guest Columnist | The Oregonian

Attebery is chairman of the Karuk Tribe and James is chairman of the Yurok Tribe.

Last year, we watched as the last of four dams were removed from the Klamath River in a historic endeavor. Karuk and Yurok citizens sighed in relief, grateful that decades of tribal-led activism, scientific research and litigation had succeeded in reopening 400 stream miles of spawning habitat for salmon and other species.

The tears of joy came just a few weeks later, when research cameras showed the first of more than 6,000 fish traveling past the first dam site. Spawning salmon were crossing into Oregon’s Spencer Creek, a tributary of the Klamath, for the first time in 112 years. The salmon had remembered the way, for it is embedded into their DNA just as it is in our ancestors’ – a testament of shared memory and spiritual connection between our people and the river.

Millions of baby salmon are now emerging into this free-flowing river above the former dam sites. Just as our ancestors worked in harmony with these waters for millennia, we continue this sacred relationship by restoring the ecological foundations that sustain the river’s health and our traditional foodways.

We’ve hand-planted countless native trees, flowering herbs and grasses to blanket the 2,200-acre footprint of the bygone dams and reservoirs. New vegetation is stabilizing the soil, attracting pollinators and reestablishing the food web along this expansive stretch of the Klamath. Water temperatures are cooling down as the natural flow regime takes hold.

The removal of the dams along the Klamath River – the largest such project in the country – is part of an ongoing national and necessary debate about the impact and consequences of dams on our natural world. The early signs from the Klamath only add to the evidence of success. From Oregon’s Rogue River to the Penobscot in Maine, rivers are recovering across the U.S. in response to the removal of antiquated dams. Tribes are leading many of these projects.

Several thousand dams were constructed in the U.S. at the beginning of the last century, when the long-term environmental impacts were largely unknown – except to tribal people, who correctly predicted that segmenting river systems would be detrimental to fish, wildlife and humans. These unintended outcomes disproportionately harmed tribal communities.

Extending from Southern Oregon to Northern California, the Klamath River was once the third most productive salmon-bearing watershed in the western continental U.S. Prior to European colonization, the Klamath supported one million salmon annually. The former dams were largely responsible for a 95% reduction in the river’s salmon stocks. The Klamath was once home to large populations of steelhead, sturgeon, eulachon and Pacific lamprey, which suffered similar declines. These fish stocks are the foundation of our traditional culture, ceremonies and food sovereignty.

In our culture, we feed our elders first, a practice that honors those who carry our knowledge, history and sacred wisdom. Over the last 10 years, our tribes have not even been able to harvest enough salmon for our elders, let alone meet our ceremonial and subsistence needs. The removal of the dams brings us new hope for future generations. These are hardships that have been repeated in many communities due to dams.

Many Yurok and Karuk citizens spent decades advocating for dam removal and deserve ample credit for this amazing accomplishment. Our people suffered in this fight. We are forever grateful for their passion and determination as they battled time, distance and a lack of resources to make our voices heard. But they also needed the support of several nonprofit organizations and the commitment of Oregon and California state governments to bring this project to fruition. It is incumbent on other states to recognize their obligation to rectify the harms that dams have caused.

Our next priority is fixing the upper basin tributaries that sustained tens of thousands of salmon and steelhead before the dams. These historical spawning streams flow through 500,000 acres of farms and ranches, including 230,000 that comprise a federal irrigation project as well as off-project agricultural lands. Last year, the Yurok Tribe, Karuk Tribe and the Klamath Tribes of Oregon, along with the Klamath Water Users Association and Bureau of Reclamation, signed a memorandum of understanding to design and implement mutually agreeable initiatives that balance the needs of fish and agriculture. Over the last decade, we learned that building lasting relationships with our upper basin partners, rather than fighting them in court, produced the best results for the river and our salmon.

In 2024, Congress allocated tens of millions of dollars to a coalition of upper basin farmers and tribes to revitalize fish habitat and help make farms and ranches more resilient. These local stakeholder-driven projects will strengthen the regional rural economy. We are waiting for these already-obligated funds to be delivered to support a future in which we can thrive together.

We stand united and hopeful that we will continue to restore our beautiful Klamath Basin. There is still a lot of work ahead of us. We live in uncertain times, but for our salmon relatives, the future is finally looking bright.

The Oregonian: Opinion: A surge of salmon – and hope – after Klamath dams’ removal

The electricity provider’s move to join an Arkansas-based market could prove costly to PUD ratepayers.

By Mitch Cutter and Donald Miller / For The Herald

The Bonneville Power Administration — the Northwest’s wholesale public power supplier and the owner of 75 percent of the Northwest’s electrical transmission grid — should be leading the way toward a successful, smooth transition to abundant, clean energy resources that can fulfill growing demand for power.

Instead, the BPA is about to make an unforced error that will harm ratepayers, decarbonization efforts and the entire region.

Energy markets are critical for the unfolding clean energy transition. These markets can be used to share resources to increase reliability, keep prices low and maximize the efficiency of wind and solar electricity. Larger markets, with more participants and diverse geography, allow more efficient sharing of resources. In the West, two of these markets are emerging: the larger Extended Day Ahead Market (EDAM), which covers California, Nevada, and parts of Oregon and Idaho; and the smaller Markets+ construct, based in Arkansas.

For many of us, debating the pros and cons of energy markets seems wonky. But the ramifications of BPA’s decision to join one market or the other are huge, running from Everett to Boise, Idaho and beyond. That choice will affect the future of the Northwest for generations to come. Leveraged properly, a large Western energy market could help replace fossil fuels and drought-susceptible Northwest hydropower with a diverse portfolio of renewable energy. Choosing the wrong market translates to escalating energy bills, unreliable energy supply, and large-scale power failures that will upend communities and destabilize the regional economy.

This is why energy experts agree: EDAM — as opposed to Markets+ — is the clear choice to deliver a reliable, economic and environmentally friendly energy mix for the American West. EDAM is the best choice for the Northwest region as we seek to meet the growing energy demand resulting from data centers and population growth. EDAM’s larger market will allow broader usage and development of lower cost, carbon-free power sources that will aid in decarbonizing the energy system and lowering electricity costs for consumers.

But instead of joining much of the West in EDAM, BPA has proposed joining the distant and far-flung Markets+. The agency made this choice knowing it will lead to higher costs for its customers and could increase the risk of blackouts.

That may seem like a surprising choice, but let’s not forget: BPA has a long history of getting the big things wrong. For instance, BPA pressured the Washington Public Power Supply System to build five nuclear plants, a fiasco of cost overruns and chronic delays that ended with just one operating plant and the largest municipal bond default in U.S. history in the 1980s (remembered as the “Whoops” debacle). Ratepayers today are still paying for the multi-billion dollar debt incurred by Bonneville’s misstep.

In addition, ratepayers continue to pay for the largest, most expensive species recovery program of all time. BPA spent more than $25 billion since 1980, but not one wild fish run listed under the Endangered Species Act has recovered. Bonneville doesn’t seem to mind profligate spending of ratepayer dollars.

Now BPA wants to stick it to its customers once again. This became abundantly clear last year, when it contracted with consulting firm E3 to evaluate its market options. E3’s study concluded that EDAM offered $69 million to $221 million more in annual system operations cost benefits than Markets+. Those benefits would flow to customers: BPA charges electricity rates based on its own costs. Seattle City Light, one of its largest customer utilities, estimates that BPA’s decision to join Markets+ and forgo the benefits of EDAM will cost Seattle ratepayers $6 million to $21 million per year. Snohomish County PUD is similar in size to Seattle City Light and gets about 80 percent of its electricity from BPA, so ratepayers here would be affected similarly.

Bonneville’s missteps have raised alarms. U.S. Senators in Oregon and Washington have voiced concerns, warning BPA to make a carefully considered choice, noting that with growing climate uncertainty, “BPA’s decision to join a day-ahead market is monumental; BPA must be able to demonstrate that it is in the best interests of communities across the Northwest that are reliant on BPA for both power and transmission services.”

Seattle City Light is also troubled by the potential for more blackouts. In a Nov. 24, 2024 letter to BPA, the Seattle utility cited concerns that Markets+ holds “a higher likelihood of reliability challenges for BPA, its customers, and the western U.S. The forecasted increases in load, the changing needs and challenges of the region, and the likely increased reliance on imports underscore the need for greater visibility, coordination and optimization, not less.”

BPA’s actions may not be surprising, but it’s not too late for the agency to correct its course. Its path to join Markets+ will cost more to customers and consumers, decrease grid reliability, and threaten environmental and clean energy goals.

Northwest utilities, including Snohomish PUD, should encourage BPA to join EDAM’s larger market, reap the benefits for customers to keep rates low, and welcome more renewable energy into the Northwest. As in the WPPSS debacle, the consequences of a bad markets decision will last a long time. In a time of rising prices for just about everything, we can’t afford another misstep.

Don J. Miller is a member of Snohomish County Indivisible and Mitch Cutter is Salmon & Energy Strategist at Idaho Conservation League. 

Everett Herald Guest Opinion: BPA Should rethink decision affecting ratepayers