OPINION: Breaching fish-friendly dams is no solution to problem

“The sight of wild spawning salmon racing across the shallows of a pristine Idaho wilderness stream is a rare sight in the 21st century,” writes Jerry McGehee, 36-year veteran of fisheries biology/aquaculture for the state of Idaho. McGehee helped raise and transport more than 33 million steelhead and 65 million chinook smolts (juvenile fish) during his career. He is also a founding board member of our group, Citizens for the Preservation of Fish and Dams Inc.

He talked of witnessing this “primordial spawning ritual” for the first time in the late summer of 1984 and went on to discuss his training and time spent following remote mountain streams looking for “active spawning pairs of salmon or completed redds,” (a salmon spawning site).

He continued: “Several years later, I had opportunity to look over several miles of Alaskan spawning ground. The river bottom was so thickly covered with the spawned-out carcasses of salmon that the river current had lined them up on the bottom, from shore to shore, like shingles on a roof. This was the scene of an adequate annual replenishment of nutrients to a healthy and nourishment-rich spawning ground and early rearing area.”

McGehee returned home to his new duty station for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s Clearwater Fish Hatchery and developed a protocol to add nutrients to anadromous fish spawning grounds with spawned-out carcasses from their various spawning facilities. After 20 years, an evaluation titled “Idaho Supplementation Study” determined that their efforts were inadequate to restore a “self-sustaining natural origin salmon population in the Clearwater River study areas.”

Several issues that have seriously impacted the history and survival of salmon stood out dramatically in McGehee’s white paper.

First, according to the Oregon Fish Commission Reports, “from 1866 to 1970 a total of 1.73 billion pounds of chinook salmon destined for Idaho waters were removed from the Columbia River, creating a fairly sterile ecosystem to rear salmon and steelhead smolts.”

Other experts claim that commercial harvesting and loss of spawning habitat dramatically reduced the salmon returns before Bonne-ville Dam was built in 1938.

It has been guesstimated that around 10 million steelhead and salmon migrated up the Columbia River each year before Euro-Americans arrived. In 1939, after Bonneville was finished, only 500,000 crossed the dam. That is a 95% reduction.

Second, McGehee explains: “The Idaho Supplementation Study showed that under present conditions, there is no way that our efforts would reestablish a natural spawning population. The highest number of salmon and steelhead ever counted over Bonneville Dam and eventually into Idaho occurred in 2001 to 2015 while all eight dams downstream of Idaho were in place.” Now, fish barging has been cut back, and figures show that fish numbers are dropping dramatically. An Army Corps of Engineers representative, when asked if the funding for the hatcheries and barging would continue if the dams were removed, answered that at that time, they would no longer provide funding since the funding was mitigation for operating the dams. And since the dams would no longer exist, the payment of mitigation dollars would end.

Third, McGehee’s paper shows: “We have hundreds of miles of pristine waters in Idaho for anadromous fish spawning. These waters have been starved of nutrients and blocked for many decades from salmon and steelhead spawning access by dams without fish ladders.”

I brought this up in my last column, but I am going to repeat myself; Dworshak Dam, the Hells Canyon Complex consisting of Brownlee, Oxbow and Hells Canyon dams, Grand Coulee Dam and Chief Joseph Dam have absolutely no fish bypass systems. According to government figures, these dams cut off 80% of fall chinook spawning habitat, 70%-plus for spring and summer chinook and 65% for steelhead.

If fish survival is really the issue, why are we even talking about destroying the four lower Snake River dams, the most fish-friendly dams in the whole system, and ignoring the obvious problems?

Breaching the four lower Snake River dams is an action that will bring many consequences for fish and people. I have seen projections of energy shortages that could bring much higher utility rates and electrical blackouts, along with other great economic damage to our area, such as the loss of farming, industry and jobs. It is projected that more than 40,000 jobs are dependent on trade created by this river and its reservoirs.

It is also estimated that to replace the barge traffic currently used to transport agricultural products in eastern Washington and western Idaho would require more than 135,000 trucks annually or more than 35,000 rail cars at a cost of billions of dollars. Can you imagine the increased traffic on our highways and the amount of money that it would cost to build and maintain the infrastructure, not to mention the environmental impact?

Barging is the safest way to move cargo, with a lower number of injuries, fatalities and spill rates than rail or trucks. It also uses the least fuel and produces much less exhaust emissions.

It is also the safest form of transportation for fish survival. Close to 98% of juvenile fish transported in barges survive, compared with 40% to 50% mortality by spill and in river passage.

In summary, McGehee emphatically states: “The discussion of removing the four lower Snake River dams to save the Idaho salmon and steelhead has increased to a pulpit-pounding fervor. The message being given to the public is that the dams are the ONLY problem and breaching is the ONLY answer. Saving Idaho anadromous fish runs is a puzzle that is much more complex than just removing four lower Snake River dams. The highest number of salmon and steelhead ever counted over Bonneville dam occurred in 2001 while all eight dams were in place. Removing the four lower Snake River dams will NOT restore one square foot of habitat with nutrients for spring/summer chinook natural spawning.”

To read McGehee’s article in its entirety and those of other highly qualified individuals, go to cfpfd.org.

Dugger retired as a journeyman carpenter from Clearwater Paper. He lives in Lewiston.