OPINION: ‘Mama, where did all of our fish, electricity and jobs go?’

“Mama, why is it so hot in here? Why don’t you turn on the air-conditioner?”

“Son, we can’t afford it now. With the big power shortage, we can only run our electrical appliances a certain number of hours a day. So we have to save that for the very worst heat.”

“Where is Daddy? He could fix it.”

“Sweetheart, you know that your Daddy isn’t here. He lost his job. His company shut down when the dams were torn out. Now he is out of town looking for another job.”

“Can’t Uncle Joe come over and help?”

“Son, you know that he is gone, too, looking for a new job.”

“Mama, why is all this bad stuff happening?”

“Sweetheart, years ago some people started talking about tearing out four of the dams on our river, hoping that would save our salmon from going away forever and not returning. They told us that they could tear out the dams and replace them with giant windmills and solar panels. And we wouldn’t even miss them. Some people tried to warn us that this would be bad. But most people just didn’t pay much attention. Now, really, really bad things are happening and there is nothing that we can do. Everyone wishes that they had paid attention and learned what was going on. All this horrible stuff has happened, and the fish never even came back.”

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This isn’t a situation that I would wish on any parent. But I see it coming in the future for many families in the Pacific Northwest if people don’t wake up. Many people are not paying any attention to what is going on or they don’t understand how it will affect their lives. And some just don’t believe that this will ever happen.

It doesn’t take much effort to see the holes in the arguments of groups claiming that breaching our four lower Snake River dams will bring back the salmon runs. We already know — and previous results have proven — that we can have both good runs of salmon and cheap and dependable electricity from our dams. We know that heavy and unregulated fishing for salmon in the late 1800s and early 1900s took a heavy toll, depleting up to 95% of the salmon population before any Army Corps of Engineers dams were built. Decades earlier, many dams were built with no fish bypass systems, which cut off huge areas of spawning habitat.

Ever since we started counting our returning salmon in 1938, the numbers remained low and they never improved until the year 2001 when we had a 300% increase in fish numbers. This huge increase in fish numbers was because of better ocean conditions and improved barging and hatchery technology. And it was 25 years after the last of the four lower Snake River dams was built.

The giant increase lasted for almost 15 years until environmentalists mandated mass spilling of smolts, which resulted in a decrease of barging smolts from more than 90% down to 4%. It is well known that smolt survival “in river” is only 50% to the estuary whereas barged smolt survival is 98%. Advocates of breaching the dams argued that the increase wasn’t natural because of the hatcheries and barging. Fish numbers again plummeted as a result of this mismanagement.

The four lower Snake River dams have very efficient bypass systems for returning adult fish, resulting in a 99% survival rate. Bypass or collection systems for juvenile fish produce more than 96% survival at each dam. But there are thousands of miles of blocked or destroyed fish spawning habitat in Idaho behind Dworshak Dam and the three Hells Canyon dams, which have no adult or juvenile fish bypass systems. And there are hundreds of miles of lost spawning habitat upstream of Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams in Washington state that have no fish bypass systems.

Why aren’t we talking about those dams?

Radical environmental groups are choosing their goals carefully. They are picking the easiest targets in their mission to destroy all dams. When tearing out the four lower Snake River dams does not achieve their stated goal — which it won’t — they will go after the other dams. And since they will have set a precedent for the preservation of fish over dams, it will pave the way for tearing out the rest of the dams.

Power blackouts for our region are predicted by the year 2026 even with all the dams intact. At the same time President Joe Biden and the radical environmental groups are trying to force us to abandon our gas-powered automobiles and go to all-electric forms of transportation — while tearing out the dams that provide clean electrical energy. It all makes no sense.

There is a group in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley that is trying to stop this disaster from happening. We are determined to fight back and not just be victims. Our name is Citizens for the Preservation of Fish and Dams, Inc. We are a local nonprofit organization. Our board of directors and advisers includes people with many decades of experience in all aspects of fish and dams, including several retired fisheries biologists, fish passage specialists, an attorney, a hydraulic engineer, industry leaders, port commissioners, county commissioners and a well-known Idaho outfitter.

On Aug. 15, there will be eight presentations given at the Second Annual Pacific Northwest Fish Symposium at Walla Walla Community College, 1470 Bridge St. in Clarkston from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Admission is free. Please register at cfpfd.org, where you can also make a donation and/or become a member. Join us in our mission to save our fish and dams. Also, some lucky person will win a really nice door prize for attending. We look forward to seeing you at the symposium.

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