Join Save Our Wild Salmon for four Thursdays in June for our Wild Salmon Speaker Series.

This online speaker series (using zoom technology) will feature in-depth conversations with several experts and leaders to discuss different aspects of salmon and steelhead recovery efforts - with a focus on the Snake River Basin.

Join us on June 4, 11, 18 and/or 25 from 5:00 to 6:00 pm PST to learn about the challenges and opportunities of restoring the lower Snake River and its endangered fish by removing four federal dams. We'll explore ways to solve today's Snake and Columbia river salmon crisis in a manner that also ensures clean, reliable and affordable energy and prosperous communities and cultures.

These conversations and audience Q&A will be moderated by SOS' Sam Mace and Joseph Bogaard.

Please RSVP by sending a note here: speakerseries@wildsalmon.org

Please forward/share this announcement to people who may be interested. See links to Facebook event pages listed below.

Have questions? Reach out to carrie@wildsalmon.org

Sean O'Leary joined the NW Energy Coalition in August 2016 as the Communications Director. He and other Coalition staff members work heavily on developing and enacting policies to assist the Northwest electric system transition in ways that are affordable and just to new clean energy resources. That effort includes the replacement of power and grid services currently provided by the four lower Snake River dams. Prior to joining the Coalition, Sean was the author of “The State of My State”, a blog, newspaper column, and book that explored environmental and economic issues in his home state of West Virginia. Sean is also a playwright with half a dozen professionally produced plays to his credit.

Dr. Adam Domanski is a Project Director at ECONorthwest who specializes in environmental and natural resource economics, natural resource damage assessment, applied econometrics, and nonmarket valuation. He has extensive experience valuing changes to public and environmental goods using quantitative methods and has applied these tools to evaluate impacts to housing, transportation, and environmental resources. Prior to joining ECONorthwest, Adam was an economist with NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration and was responsible for assessing ecological and human use injuries resulting from oil spills and chronic hazardous twaste contamination. He also served as the Acting Deputy Director of NOAA’s Marine Debris Program and represented the Agency at the 2017 G20 meetings in Germany. Adam is a member of the American Economic Association and the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.

Bob Rees (on left) is a 30-year veteran professional Fishing Guide in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Once a biologist, Bob understood the risks involved with initiating a business reliant on wild salmon and steelhead. For close to two decades, he has fought for habitat protections, proper dam operations and beneficial climate action legislation to benefit wild salmon and other coldwater fishes. He serves on the board of the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition, and fights for the future of wild salmon and the communities dependent on them.

 Aaron Liebermann (on right) has been the Executive Director of the Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association since 2018. Before moving into this role, Aaron was the Operations Manager for Orange Torpedo Trips, an outfitter that he worked with as a guide for over a decade.

Elliott Moffett is a member of the Nez Perce Tribe and one of the founders of Nimiipuu Protecting the Environment. Elliott is a tribal environmentalist who wants to see the river, fish and way of life that he used to know be returned to him and his community. He remembers fish runs that were robust when he was a kid and that have steadily dwindled throughout his life. He tells stories of having to chose not fish some years because he knew that his 'brother salmon was not healthy.' Now he advocates for restoring the lower Snake River because, "My brother salmon can't speak for himself, so I am choosing to speak for him."

Scott Hauser began working for the Upper Snake River Tribes (USRT) as the Environmental Program Director in February, 2012. In 2016 he was promoted to the position of Executive Director. A graduate of the University of Idaho (2002 and 2004), he holds undergraduate degrees in History (focus on the environment) and Political Science (focus on natural resources policy and law) and a master’s degree in Environmental Science. Following graduation and prior to working at USRT, Scott worked for the U.S. Forest Service as both a hydrologic technician and fire ecology technical researcher/writer and an environmental scientist at an environmental consulting firm in Montana. In Scott’s time with USRT, he has worked on many projects relating to salmon and steelhead and currently is a member of the Idaho Governor's Salmon Working Group and NOAA Fisheries Marine Fisheries Advisory Committee Columbia Basin Partnership Task Force.

Please forward/share this announcement to people who may be interested. Here is the Facebook event page for sharing with your social media networks.

MEET YOUR HOSTS:

SOS Inland Northwest Director Sam Mace first got involved in efforts to protect Snake River wild salmon and steelhead 20+ years ago working for the Idaho Wildlife Federation. She’s worked for SOS since 2004. Sam lives in Spokane with her dog and her sweetheart, and spends her free time fishing, hiking and gardening.

SOS Executive Director Joseph Bogaard began working for Save Our Wild Salmon as an organizer in 1996. He first got hooked on Northwest salmon restoration efforts while in graduate school where he authored a paper in the mid-1990s, exploring the then-relatively recent Snake River salmon listings under the Endangered Species Act, and how it might impact Northwest lands and waters, its energy system and tribal and non-tribal communities. Joseph lives outside of Seattle with his wife Amy and their children.

TAKE ACTION: SUPPORT POLITICAL LEADERSHIP AND A REGIONAL SOLUTION FOR SALMON, ORCAS AND COMMUNITIES: Link to Save Our Wild Salmon's Action Page

LINKS TO RELEVANT INFORMATON AND REPORTS:

• Federal Agencies' Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS, Feb. 2020): Federal Action Agencies' Website

• Factsheet re: the Draft EIS (Save Our wild Salmon, April 2020) PDF

• Economic Study on Lower Snake River Dams: Economics Tradeoff of Removal Executive Summary (ECONorthwest, July 2019) Executive Summary and Full Report, 2019

• ECONW 2020 assessment of DEIS (April 2020) PDF

• Lower Snake River Dams Power Replacement Study (NW Energy Coalition, 2018) PDF

• NW Energy Coalition's assessment of 2020 DEIS (April 2020): 4-page comment summary and full comment letter

• Sportfishing fact sheet assembled by the Northwest Steelheaders, NW Guides and Anglers Association, and the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association (Jan. 2020) PDF

•  Presentation materials - June 18 webinar on recreational fishing community impacts from Bob Rees.