Two federal agencies that operate dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers are reopening a 4-year-old study that rejected dam breaching to help save wild salmon and steelhead.
The Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation plan to update the 5,000-page Columbia River System Operations Environmental Impact Statement to consider new information that has emerged since the document was finalized in 2020.
The study that looked at the 14 federal dams on the two rivers to measure their impact on salmon and steelhead concluded that breaching the four lower Snake River dams would help the fish but the resulting reduction of regional hydropower generation and the elimination of tug-and-barge shipping between Lewiston and the Tri-Cities would be too costly.
Instead, the federal agencies adopted a plan that banks on spilling water at the dams combined with other actions to prevent threatened and endangered wild Snake River salmon and steelhead from blinking out.
Soon after, the Nez Perce Tribe, Oregon and conservation groups sued the government charging the plan did too little to help the fish. It was the latest round in a decades-old legal fight between the wild fish advocates and the federal government.
That battle took a new turn when the Biden administration agreed to settlement talks with the plaintiffs that eventually led to a 5-to-10-year pause in the litigation and greenlighted studies and alternative energy development efforts that could pave the way for future breaching of the Snake River dams.
One part of the agreement included a commitment by the government to consider updating the 2020 environmental impact statement on the dams to wrap in new developments, such as the recent restructuring of the 60-year-old Columbia River Treaty that will change the way spring flood risk mitigation is managed; the federal government’s tribal circumstances report released in June that said development of the dams caused substantial and ongoing harm to Native American tribes in the basin; a 2022 NOAA Fisheries report that said wild Snake River salmon can’t be recovered to healthy and harvestable levels without dam breaching; and a series of studies that are just getting underway that are part of the settlement agreement and generally examine ways to replaces services provided by the dams if they were to be breached.
“It’s clearer than ever that we need a major course change, with new information showing many salmon populations in the basin hovering near extinction,” said Earthjustice Senior Attorney Amanda Goodin in a news release. “The information available now provides us with all we need to chart a successful path forward. We know we can avoid extinction and rebuild salmon and native fisheries to a healthy and harvestable abundance if we commit to the centerpiece actions they need, including breaching the four lower Snake River dams and replacing their services. We also know we have no time to lose.”
Shannon Wheeler, chairperson of the Nez Perce Tribe, said a new look at the issue is critical and a chance to boost salmon recovery.
“We are reassured to see strong support in the Northwest that no salmon extinction occurs on our watch. This should be a fundamental feeling for all people in the Northwest and we are hoping it is.”