Free the Snake
The Snake River was once the lifeblood of incredible runs of wild steelhead. Renowned for their size and the resilience they demonstrated on their arduous migration, Snake River wild steelhead made their namesake and tributary rivers like the Clearwater, Grande Ronde, and Salmon hallowed waters. Tragically, these once prolific runs of steelhead are now a fraction of what they once were. While there are many reasons for this decline, the four lower Snake River dams - Lower Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monumental and Ice Harbor - are undoubtedly the number one culprit.
The loss of Snake River wild steelhead has been dramatic and precipitous. In 1962, prior to the construction of the four lower Snake River dams, more than 43,000 wild B-run steelhead were counted crossing a small dam on the Clearwater River, just a few miles upstream of the river’s confluence with the Snake. In 2017-2018, the B-run on the Clearwater totaled fewer than 400 fish, a decline of roughly 99 percent. Unfortunately, this level of dramatic decline is not an aberration as other Snake River tributaries such as Washington’s Grande Ronde River, Oregon’s Imnaha River, and Idaho’s Salmon River have experienced similar declines.
Making matters worse, not only are the lower Snake River dams largely responsible for this wild steelhead collapse, they also provide very little societal benefit. While many dams provide substantial value in the form of energy production, flood control, and irrigation, the lower Snake River dams were built primarily for barging transportation and only generate minimal energy and irrigation value. Even back in the 1960s, the cost-benefit analysis of the proposed dams was controversial. And now in 2020, the benefits of the dams are even more suspect as freight volumes on the lower Snake have declined 69 percent over the last twenty years. As a result, the Army Corps of Engineers, which built the dams, currently categorizes the lower Snake River waterway as “a waterway of negligible use”.
The lower Snake River dams have been largely denounced by the public since day one, and the movement to breach these days grows stronger by the day. It is widely recognized that removing these dams poses the best opportunity for recovering wild steelhead and salmon in the Snake River watershed, especially since efforts to mitigate the dams’ impacts on wild fish have failed miserably. Over the last two decades, the government has spent more than $16 billion trying to mitigate the dams’ impact on wild steelhead and salmon, but not a single endangered population in this watershed has been recovered. Additionally, five consecutive federal salmon plans have been ruled inadequate and illegal by three different judges. These failed efforts make it increasingly clear that the only path to recovery is breaching the dams.
Despite diminishing barge traffic, decades of wild fish decline, a mountain of scientific evidence deposing the dams, multiple court rulings, and billions of dollars wasted on failed wild fish recovery, the federal government still refuses to budge on dam removal. However, the tide is starting to turn as the effort to remove these dams is gaining momentum as a slew of former dam removal opponents join the fight to breach the dams.
As a member of the coalition that is fighting on the frontlines to free the Snake, we believe we are closer than ever to breaching these destructive dams. Not only will doing so restore the lower Snake River and provide Idaho’s endangered wild salmonids an unprecedented chance of recovery, but it will also save taxpayers billions of dollars, create thousands of jobs, benefit local communities, improve recreational opportunities, and help ensure we meet our Treaty obligations to Native American Tribes in the Columbia Basin.
