A new element in the anti-dam argument

The debate over the Snake River dams has raged for years. To breach or not to breach has been the question swirling around them. Corrective moves to help save the salmon and steelhead runs and court action have marked the story.

An article in a recent Lewiston Tribune has brought the debate back to the surface, and poor fish runs have renewed calls for breaching the dams.

Despite evidence that many factors contribute to declining runs, the dams remain the center point of the argument.

The advocates of breaching the dams do not equivocate. The only answer to saving the fish runs is eliminating the Snake River dams altogether.

Those who want and need the dams, however, see for the most part both sides of the issue. Many of those who want to preserve the dams also consider the health and survival of the migratory fish important.

This acceptance that there are two valid objectives gives some hope that there will be resolution without destroying the dam system altogether.

Those who want to save the fish above all else seem not to consider the importance of the dams to the area. Despite their ecological bent, they seem to ignore the transportation and environmental impact of thousands of trucks moving wheat that now goes down river on barges. Further they do not seriously consider the importance of the dams to the entire region, including power, irrigation, farm-to-market transportation and recreation.

Now a new element has been added to the anti-dam argument. This new element is climate change.

Climate change has been given as another reason for breaching the dams. Our climate will become too hot. There will be too little rain. As a result, it is said, the fish will need a natural course to survive.

Climate change, in fact, may be a compelling reason for keeping the dams.

With the predicted changes in the weather, the vast pools of water behind the dams could be essential for non-polluting power generation and irrigation as well as transportation.

The argument over the dams needs to be how to preserve the benefits of the dams and at the same time preserve the fish runs.

It is not beyond us to accomplish both.

Climate change is nothing to ignore. Mitigating the impact of it should be a clarion call for the entire world. Yet, wholesale destruction of important infrastructure that in itself does not contribute to it is not the answer to combating it.

Gordon Forgey

Pubisher