Recently, a letter to the editor was published on the lower Snake River dam’s turbines, claiming that a new generation of turbines is delivering fish survival rates of about 98% during passage through the dams. The writer seemed to think that meant the fish were safe.
All species of salmon and steelhead in the lower Snake are threatened, endangered, or extinct. New turbines do nothing for the problems of heat causing toxic algae blooms in slack-water above the dams, or length of time for downward migrating young smolts to get to the sea, while avoiding predation from gulls and cormorants. A free-flowing river flushes the smolts down the river in a faster and more natural process than an expensive, taxpayer funded engineered and high maintenance, government/corporate scheme to “save” salmon through an unhealthy, slow, and hot river.
A dammed lower Snake River will never be safe for salmon. What every reputable scientific agency, NOAA, NMFS, tribal and state fisheries managers have found is that the dams and their cumulative impacts are the main cause of decline in salmon. The alternatives of hatcheries and spill are not sufficient on their own. If we are to save the salmon, save the southern resident orcas that need them to survive, we must follow the science. The Biden administration funded salmon recovery through the Columbia River Basin Agreement, the current administration withdrew. Breach the dams.
Ernie Robeson
Spokane
