Constituent Response from Congressman DeFazio

Below is Congressman DeFazio's response to this action alert. Though well written, DeFazio response is full of misleading statements and red herring arguments.  We posted this response to his March 2011 oped in the Oregonian which contain many of the same assertions as below.  Read our response to that here.

Dear Constituent,

Thank you for contacting me about your support for salmon recovery in the Columbia Basin.  I appreciate hearing from you on this issue.

Up to 15 million wild salmon and steelhead once returned to the Columbia and Snake Rivers.  Returns fluctuate, sometimes dramatically from year to year, but will probably never consistently reach the level of those historic runs.  The causes of this historic decline are complex.  They include losses from hydroelectric dams, habitat degradation, overfishing, hatchery impacts on wild stocks, and long periods of poor ocean conditions that has reduced the food available for these fish during the years they spend at sea.

We are still awaiting a final decision by Judge Redden on the 2008 Biological Opinion and its adherence to the Endangered Species Act (ESA). I am generally supportive of the 2008 Biological Opinion because it pulls together the largest coalition of stakeholders onto one plan. The plan has dedicated resources to implement fish recovery projects and each project will get an independent scientific review.

The federal plan is unique in that it recognizes that salmon restoration is complex and costly and will require significant involvement from all the stakeholders for any plan to have success. For example, some argue that the lost power of the lower four dams on the Snake River can easily be made with alternative energy. While I support more alternative energy sources like wind and solar, it is also true that the dams provide an important function for wind turbines. Since wind is somewhat unpredictable, a backup generation source is necessary. The Snake River dams currently help to integrate 2,800 megawatts of wind capacity in the Pacific Northwest and are expected to help integrate 6000 megawatts of wind power by 2013. In a similar vein, it's important to estimate the increased CO2 emissions if the dams were replaced with natural gas. Replacing the dams with gas-fired generation would add 4.4 million metric tons of CO2 to the air every year.

Finally, while average per-dam survival for juvenile fish is 95-100 percent, the removal of the four lower Snake River dams will not significantly increase the amount of additional fish tributary habitat because the private dams upstream have no fish passage. For example, these private dams block approximately 80% of historic Fall Chinook spawning habitat, thus the claimed benefits of removing these dams are not certain.

I support aggressive measures aimed at restoring declining Columbia and Snake River salmon runs.  However, I simply do not believe that federal action directed at dismantling our hydropower system in the Northwest is the way to achieve this goal.

Thanks again for writing.  Please keep in touch.

Sincerely,

Rep. Peter DeFazio
Fourth District, OREGON