Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
A series of full-page advertisements in the Spokesman-Review and three other Washington publications last week have renewed a call to remove four Snake River dams.
The black-and-white ads, paid for by Patagonia, Inc., ask readers to call Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray and ask them to “help remove four deadbeat dams on the lower Snake River.”
These include Lower Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monumental and Ice Harbor Dam.
The ad copy states that at the four dams’ “costs far outweigh the small amount of electricity they generate and transportation they provide. Lower impact alternatives do exist and, in the long run, they’re a helluva a lot cheaper.”
Patagonia is an outdoor clothing company based in Ventura, Calif.
Adam Fetcher, the company’s Director of Global Communications, said the impetus for the ads came from Patagonia’s support of a set of documentary filmmakers (“Damnation,” 2014), who –along with representatives of other groups – presented an international petition of 70,000 signatures to President Obama earlier this year, seeking removal of the dams. The advocates were then told that the administration would like to hear from the local Senate delegation.
“These ads are simply the latest step to keep moving forward,” said Fetcher. “Dams are continually outlasting their value. They’re less effective in doing what they’re supposed to do.”
If the dams are removed, what would replace the energy source?
“Wind, solar and other kinds of things,” Fetcher said. “This would restore recreation on the river, restore a world-class salmon river… Orca whales need those salmon to survive.”
“They haven’t taken a number of things into consideration as far as I can see,” said Whitman County Commission Chairman Dean Kinzer. “There’s been no question that hydroelectric has been the lowest cost from the beginning.”
“There were cases when dams made sense,” said Fetcher. “But like all man-made things, they have a life span.”
Kinzer cited the elimination of barge transportation without the dams as a major issue.
“The state couldn’t keep the roads maintained with all of the truck traffic. I don’t know how they propose to mitigate that,” Kinzer said.
Construction of the Lower Snake dams and locks, with Lower Granite as the last one in 1975, was heralded as providing a shipping alternative for grain. The dam locks brought a truck and barge option for farmers and grain companies.
Aside from placing the ads, Fetcher indicated that Patagonia defers to the work of Save Our Wild Salmon, a national coalition which advocates for fish in the Columbia and Snake Rivers. Their platform includes newer energy alternatives, one of which is the growth of wind farms over the past decade.
“If wind turbines had to stand on their own, as an energy source, they wouldn’t be there,” said Kinzer, noting federal subsidies and lack of storage capacity.
“Supporting the groups that are close to the ground is really our most important value,” said Fetcher, who has worked for Patagonia since last year and was previously a staff member of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Besides the Spokesman-Review, the ads appeared in the Inlander, The Olympian and The Stranger, a city weekly published in Seattle.
The cost for the full-page ad in last Thursday’s Spokesman-Review was $2,800.
“It’s too early to say what the next step is,” said Fetcher.
“I hope the public has the common sense to say, come back when you have some answers,” said Kinzer. “If they come up with something better, we’ll take a look at it.”
Patagonia was founded in 1973 by California alpinist and blacksmith Yvon Chouinard, who for the past 30 years has committed one percent of company sales to support grass-roots environmental organizations.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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