Breach the Snake River dams? Only if you want more carbon and more expensive power

Idaho Statesman

Breach the Snake River dams? Only if you want more carbon and more expensive power

17 August 2023
By ROBERT BAKES

Ice Harbor Dam on the Snake River in Walla Walla County. BOB BRAWDY bbrawdy@tricityherald.com

Recently our local papers have been publishing opinion pieces suggesting the possibility or necessity of removing the four lower Snake River dams to protect Idaho salmon runs. And earlier this year the Idaho Press published an article reporting that the Biden administration has released two reports stating that removal of the four dams on the lower Snake River “may be needed to restore salmon runs to sustainable levels.”

The article lists the Biden administration’s estimate of the cost of dam removal to be between $11 billion and $19 billion dollars. It reported Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Sen. Patty Murray estimated the cost between $10.3 and $27.2 billion. Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson, a dam removal advocate, admitted it would cost $34 billion dollars.

Whatever that cost of removal is, it would cause an 8% loss of the Bonneville Power Administration’s emission-free electricity that those dams generate. That electricity is inexpensive and carbon dioxide- and particulate-free. Replacing hydroelectric power with alternative sources of generation, mostly coal and natural gas, would not only increase electricity rates but would substantially increase carbon dioxide and particulate emissions.

And there would be no assurance that the salmon runs still won’t continue to decline because of other factors such as warming conditions in the ocean and commercial overfishing. Whatever the cost of removing the dams would be, it would be a huge multi-billion-dollar gamble that never-the-less could fail to slow down the salmon’s decline.

Removal would require a huge construction project to remove all the concrete and earth material in those dams, and then transport all that waste material away from the river to a disposal site. That would cause thousands of tons of carbon dioxide to be emitted into the atmosphere. Then it would require building more coal- and gas-fired power plants to replace the dams’ 8% of the Basin’s hydro-power electricity.

Solar and wind can help some during the sunny and windy spring and summer months, but they don’t produce any significant electricity during the short, overcast and foggy windless days in the Pacific Northwest winters.

There are other much cheaper alternatives that may be just as effective in preserving the salmon runs — maybe more.

One would be to permanently remove the sea lions that congregate at the base of Bonneville Dam, the first dam on the Columbia River. Those sea lions decimate thousands of migrating salmon that gather around the base of the dam as they try to find the fish ladder over the dam.

To try and alleviate that loss of salmon, the government currently captures some of those sea lions and trucks them back down to the southern Oregon coast where they came from. In about a week they are back.

So instead of catching them and trucking them back to the Southern Oregon coast, they should be euthanized. Sea lions may be a protected species under the Endangered Species Act. But so are the salmon. So why should sea lions be allowed to decimate the salmon without any consequence?

It might take an act of Congress to remove them from the Endangered Species Act, but it will take an act of Congress to take out the four dams on the Snake River as well.

The cost of eliminating the sea lions would be just a tiny fraction of the cost of removing the dams. It would save the carbon dioxide those trucks emit while driving back and forth. And it would protect the 8% of carbon-free, low-cost electricity that the dams contribute to the Pacific Northwest’s economy.

Another alternative to saving the Columbia River salmon would be to eliminate commercial fishing for salmon in a 50-mile radius around the mouth of the Columbia River, like the federal court is considering doing in Southeast Alaska.

Dam removal would also mean that the wheat raised in the Northwest could no longer be barged to the coast but would have to be trucked all the way. That would make basin wheat less competitive in the global market and cause more carbon dioxide emissions.

So, when you look at all the adverse consequences that removing the dams would cause, the benefits of retaining them clearly outweigh any benefit gained by removing them to enhance the salmon runs. Robert Bakes is a native Boisean who previously served as an Idaho deputy attorney general and as chief justice of the Idaho Supreme Court.

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