Removing Snake River dams is misguided approach to saving orcas

The struggle to increase salmon populations and help Southern Resident killer whales will be won or lost through recovery projects across the state, perhaps most importantly in Puget Sound.

That simple, scientific reality should guide salmon recovery in Washington. Distractions, like the destruction of the Snake River dams, will end up harming salmon, orcas and those who care about them.

The science is clear that Puget Sound is the most important source of food for starving orcas. NOAA Fisheries and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife ranked their sources of food for orca and found that the Puget Sound, Strait of Georgia, the Lower Columbia and the Fraser rivers are the top priorities. The Snake River ranked ninth.

This is why NOAA Fisheries has repeatedly concluded that destroying the four lower Snake River dams would have a “marginal” impact on orca recovery, despite a very high cost.

We only need to compare the population trends on the Snake River and in Puget Sound to see where the problem is.

The average Chinook salmon population on the Snake in the last decade was the highest in half a century. By comparison, the recent report by the Puget Sound Partnership notes that Chinook populations in the Sound are not increasing and will not meet the 2020 goal.

Some people point to low runs in 2019 on the Snake as evidence that we need to remove the dams. Salmon populations run in a cycle, however, and we are seeing the same low runs across the region.

The overall trends on the Snake are positive. They are not in Puget Sound.

Despite this, some want to spend more than $1 billion dollars to destroy the dams, then add hundreds of millions more every year in electricity costs. These are not our estimates; they come from dam opponents, including Save Our Wild Salmon and the Northwest Energy Coalition. Estimates from the Army Corps of Engineers and others are even higher.

To put that into context, the amount of funding the state provides for salmon recovery in the Puget Sound and the coast has been about $50 million per year over the last five years, or less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the state’s operating budget.

We are woefully underfunding salmon recovery. Simply removing the dams would cost at least 20 years’ worth of salmon recovery funding. The additional cost for electricity each year would be more than we spend in 17 years on salmon recovery.

If we are going to help orcas and the primary salmon stocks in our state that the whales depend on, we must dedicate new and enhanced state and federal resources where they can be most effective – in Puget Sound.

This increase must not be a “bait and switch” strategy. Salmon recovery is critical across the state for tribal, commercial, local government and other stakeholders from the Strait of Juan De Fuca to the Grande Ronde River in southeast Washington.

Orcas suffer from threats beyond low food sources, including poor water quality, disturbance from vessels and toxics. Focusing solely on salmon with an emphasis on the Snake River is an incredibly misguided stab yet again to remove the four Lower Snake River dams.

It is admitted by everyone involved that destroying them would harm farmers, increase the cost of electricity for our state’s residents and increase CO2 emissions.

If the dams need to be removed, it must be driven by something that makes sense. Doing so to recover Southern Resident killer whales makes no environmental or economic sense, and the risks for salmon recovery far outweigh the minimal benefits for orcas.

Todd Myers is a member of the Puget Sound Salmon Recovery Council and environmental director of the Washington Policy Center in Seattle. Steve Martin previously served as executive coordinator of Gov. Jay Inslee’s Salmon Recovery Office.