Federal agencies plan update of salmon and dams study

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.”

The 2020 study was completed in the waning days of President Donald Trump’s first term in office. With the former president poised to return to power next month, it's unclear how reopening the document will proceed or how long it will take to update.

A coalition of dam supporters that includes representatives of the agricultural, shipping and power industries is asking the federal government to backtrack on its decision to reopen the document, calling it “premature and unlawful.”

“The justification for this study is not clear and won't help any of the economic challenges millions of people in the Northwest including those in Idaho face from rising energy costs,” said Clark Mather, executive director of Northwest River Partners.

If the nation and region are to meet challenges posed by rising energy costs and forecasted growth in demand for electricity, hydropower will play a critical role, according to the coalition that also argues salmon numbers have improved and that climate change poses a bigger risk to the fish than dams.

Breaching the four lower Snake River dams would reduce the regional output of the Columbia River hydropower system by about 900 average megawatts and end tug-and-barge shipping between Lewiston and the Tri-Cities that farmers rely on. But salmon advocates and many scientists say it would lead to a four-fold increase in wild Snake River salmon and steelhead and allow the region to meet its salmon recovery goals.

Prior to 1850 and the over-exploitation of the runs by commercial fishing followed by development of the hydropower system as many as 16 million wild fish returned to the Columbia River Basin annually. By the 1990s, that number dipped to about 1.3 million, according to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. Over the past two decades the return has climbed to 2.3 million.

But today the returns are dominated by largely unprotected hatchery fish while wild fish that spawn in the mountain streams of central Idaho, southeastern Washington and northeastern Oregon struggle. For example, this year an estimated 7,500 wild Snake River spring chinook returned past Lower Granite Dam, according to the Nez Perce Tribe. Work by the tribe indicates that about 40% of the spring chinook populations that spawn in Snake River tributaries are so low they are deemed to be quasi-extinct.

“The reality is the federal agencies have never truly made visible the devastating effects of the dams on mainstem Snake and Columbia rivers have had and continue to have every day on the treaty obligations to Columbia River tribes and the Nez Perce Tribe. I think it's time for those consequences and those effects to be revealed and to truly guide agency decision making,” Wheeler said.

While the Biden administration has been more engaged in efforts to recover the fish than previous administrations, it has not formally endorsed breaching. In 2021, Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho released a $33.5 billion plan to breach the four dams and mitigate affected communities and industries. The idea, which has not been written into legislation, lacks support from his colleagues and has been countered by Republicans in Idaho, Washington and Oregon with bills to protect the dams.

The Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation published a notice of intent to update the study in Wednesday’s issue of the Federal Register. The two agencies are collecting public comments over the next 90 days and plan to hold public meetings on the effort in February.

Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com.