August 10th, 2009
In a court hearing Friday, President Obama can put an end to the Bush administration’s scofflaw approach to the Endangered Species Act and help bring the Pacific Northwest’s wild salmon back from the threat of extinction. In the 17 years since wild salmon were declared endangered in the Columbia-Snake River basin, the federal government has gone so far as to put them on air-conditioned barges to move them past dams. But the $8 billion spent so far on such measures has been to little avail. The basic problem is the dams, which obstruct the movement of the salmon between the rivers and the ocean. These dams need to go.
