Lower Snake River Dam Removals: A Path Forward
Dams differ. Some are more harmful than others. Some provide fewer public benefits than others. On balance, some still make some sense today. Others don’t.
Few if any make less sense today than the four federal dams on the lower Snake River. They were controversial from the start. Their disastrous impacts on salmon, other native fish, and the people who depended on them were widely anticipated, and they were indeed immense upon completion of the first dam more than sixty years ago. Their public benefits then and especially now pale in comparison. They have brought salmon in the Snake and its tributaries upstream to the very brink. They can and must be removed quickly.
Few if any make less sense today than the four federal dams on the lower Snake River. They were controversial from the start. Their disastrous impacts on salmon, other native fish, and the people who depended on them were widely anticipated, and they were indeed immense upon completion of the first dam more than sixty years ago. Their public benefits then and especially now pale in comparison. They have brought salmon in the Snake and its tributaries upstream to the very brink. They can and must be removed quickly.
Salmon Habitat Map, Our Northwest Opportunity.
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Pacific Rivers is a member of Save Our wild Salmon (SOS), a coalition that has focused since 1991 on recovery of the salmon of the Columbia and Snake River Basins. A top priority today is to secure a firm commitment to replace the services of the four Lower Snake River dams and restore a free flowing river.
Decades of the coalition’s research and advocacy led to serious talks among regional leaders in recent years, which in turn led to a historic agreement last year and good momentum toward dam removal this year. This is the story of the past, present and future of the Lower Snake River (LSR) dams. |
Location and Impacts
Located in Southeast Washington, the LSR dams are major obstacles for Snake River salmon. The habitat upstream of these dams includes over 5,000 miles of the Salmon and Clearwater Rivers in Idaho, the Grand Ronde River in Oregon, the Tucannon River in Washington, and their many clean, cool, high-elevation tributaries. These river basins include vast mountain ranges and wilderness areas; their salmon habitat is some of the highest quality and most climate-resilient left in the lower 48 states.
But salmon cannot get safely to and from it today.
Northwest salmon and steelhead all swim in the same ocean, but their mortality rates increase significantly with the number of dams and reservoirs they encounter. Endangered Snake River salmon and steelhead must traverse eight reservoirs created by federal dams on their migration to the ocean and again on their journey back upstream as adults. They suffer higher mortality rates and lower smolt-to-adult return ratios than salmon that spawn in other parts of the Columbia River Basin.
Snake River salmon runs plummeted after the completion of the first of the four dams (Ice Harbor Dam) in 1962. They have fluctuated since in response to positive factors including habitat and flow improvements and negative factors including periodic poor ocean conditions and advancing climate change. The constants have been difficulties each and every year for salmon migrating through these four dams and the 140 miles of still, hot water behind them. Despite billions of dollars spent on projects to improve other conditions for salmon upstream and down from these four dams, Snake River salmon populations have never come close to their recovery goals.
In 1992, Snake River spring/summer Chinook salmon were placed on the federal endangered species list. Since then, numbers of returning adults have continued to fluctuate, with some years better than others, but the long-term trends have been deeply troubling. In its 2023 Status of the Species report on Snake River spring/summer Chinook salmon, the National Marine Fisheries Service stated “...The consistent and sharp declines in 15-year population trends for all populations are concerning…Productivity is below recovery objectives for all of the populations and has been below replacement for nearly all populations since 2012…The vast majority of the extant populations are considered to be at high risk of extinction.”
Located in Southeast Washington, the LSR dams are major obstacles for Snake River salmon. The habitat upstream of these dams includes over 5,000 miles of the Salmon and Clearwater Rivers in Idaho, the Grand Ronde River in Oregon, the Tucannon River in Washington, and their many clean, cool, high-elevation tributaries. These river basins include vast mountain ranges and wilderness areas; their salmon habitat is some of the highest quality and most climate-resilient left in the lower 48 states.
But salmon cannot get safely to and from it today.
Northwest salmon and steelhead all swim in the same ocean, but their mortality rates increase significantly with the number of dams and reservoirs they encounter. Endangered Snake River salmon and steelhead must traverse eight reservoirs created by federal dams on their migration to the ocean and again on their journey back upstream as adults. They suffer higher mortality rates and lower smolt-to-adult return ratios than salmon that spawn in other parts of the Columbia River Basin.
Snake River salmon runs plummeted after the completion of the first of the four dams (Ice Harbor Dam) in 1962. They have fluctuated since in response to positive factors including habitat and flow improvements and negative factors including periodic poor ocean conditions and advancing climate change. The constants have been difficulties each and every year for salmon migrating through these four dams and the 140 miles of still, hot water behind them. Despite billions of dollars spent on projects to improve other conditions for salmon upstream and down from these four dams, Snake River salmon populations have never come close to their recovery goals.
In 1992, Snake River spring/summer Chinook salmon were placed on the federal endangered species list. Since then, numbers of returning adults have continued to fluctuate, with some years better than others, but the long-term trends have been deeply troubling. In its 2023 Status of the Species report on Snake River spring/summer Chinook salmon, the National Marine Fisheries Service stated “...The consistent and sharp declines in 15-year population trends for all populations are concerning…Productivity is below recovery objectives for all of the populations and has been below replacement for nearly all populations since 2012…The vast majority of the extant populations are considered to be at high risk of extinction.”
The decline of salmon upstream of the LSR dams has harmed more than 100 other species that depend on them, from bears in the Salmon River’s high wilderness headwaters to orcas in the sea. Experts say there may be just one or two generations of salmon left – in other words, less than a decade – to prevent a catastrophe for the salmon, ecosystems, people and cultures of the Northwest.
Recent major developments 2021 |
Photo courtesy of the Backbone Campaign.
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In February 2021, Idaho’s Congressman Mike Simpson put forward a bold, comprehensive “Columbia Basin Initiative” proposal to save the region’s endangered salmon and steelhead. It was designed to make whole all of the industries and communities in Idaho, Washington and Oregon that would be affected by removal of the LSR dams. Simpson’s proposal was for $33 billion in regional investments in clean energy, efficient transportation, water quality, technology development, agriculture, and community development. Pacific Rivers did not think the proposal was perfect, but we did endorse it as a very important starting point for serious regional discussion, as it was by far the most specific and in-depth one yet offered by any public official for a comprehensive approach to saving the region’s salmon.
In November 2021, Washington’s Senator Cantwell and other regional leaders secured an initial $2.8 billion investment in salmon and ecosystem restoration projects as part of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
In late 2021, Washington’s Senator Murray and Governor Inslee initiated a process “...to examine whether there are reasonable means for replacing the benefits provided by the four Lower Snake River Dams, sufficient that breaching of the dams could be part of a comprehensive salmon recovery strategy for the Pacific Northwest.”
2022
In February, the Northwest Energy Coalition released a white paper titled “Smart Planning Will Drive Replacing the Power from Lower Snake River Dams”. The Executive Summary stated“The energy services of the four lower Snake River dams are important for the region, though increasingly variable due to climate change impacted water conditions. They can be replaced with a diverse set of clean energy technologies that will perform better and are rapidly declining in cost.” It also stated “Clean energy resources in the region that are available or under development are more than sufficient to meet commitments to retire fossil fuel projects as well as replace the energy services of the four lower Snake River dams.” The full paper documented the basis for these conclusions in detail. It is well worth a read, as is the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s February 2024 update on the very impressive progress made toward our region’s clean energy goals in the last four years.
In June, Senator Murray and Governor Inslee released a draft report to serve as a “platform for public input” throughout the remainder of their process, prior to making their recommendations about whether, when and how to breach the dams. The 118-page report stated clearly that replacing the benefits of the LSR dams is possible. It identified specific, detailed methods for doing so. The report’s estimated range of total costs of those projects was from $10.3 to about $27.2 billion.
On August 25, Murray and Inselee issued a statement explaining their decision that all the benefits of the LSR dams should be replaced or at least mitigated before they would consider breaching to be feasible. While we had hoped for more from them at that point, we did take heart in much they had to say, including:
2023
Budgets reflect priorities. In April of last year, the Washington state legislature confirmed that Tribal treaty rights and saving lower Snake River salmon are important state priorities when it allocated $7.5 million in its 2023-25 budget to fund the planning to transition the energy, transportation, and irrigation services currently provided by the LSR dams.
Also last year -- as a result of federal mediation to resolve decades of court battles among plaintiffs and the U.S. Army Corps of engineers – six sovereigns signed an historic agreement for a collective Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative (CBRI) – a comprehensive package of actions to address “the urgency of the salmon, climate, energy, and Tribal justice crises facing the Columbia River Basin.” The Six Sovereigns are the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, the Nez Perce Tribe, the State of Oregon, and the State of Washington. One of six overarching strategies of the CBRI is to “Replace the benefits of the LSR dams with due urgency to enable breaching to move forward, and ensure interim fish measures are adequate to minimize additional generational decline of fish populations.
In September, the White House announced a Presidential Memorandum which recognized that since 1855 the U.S. government’s construction and operation of dams in the Columbia Basin has “severely depleted fish populations” and caused “substantial harm to Tribal Nations and other communities reliant on salmon and steelhead.” President Biden stated that “It is the policy of my Administration…to restore healthy and abundant salmon, steelhead, and other native fish populations in the Basin.”
On December 14, the Six Sovereigns announced that the Biden Administration had “embraced the United States’ treaty and trust obligations to Tribal nations, while also considering all other interests – energy consumers, irrigators, fishers, recreationalists, and farmers, to name a few.” The Administration announced a ten-year partnership of federal agencies with Tribes and States to “restore wild salmon, expand clean energy production, increase resilience, and provide energy stability in the Columbia River Basin.” This partnership, accompanied by a set of commitments from the federal government, represent the first steps of implementing the CBRI.
2024
On February 23 of this year, leaders of the four tribes, the governors of Oregon and Washington, and federal officials celebrated their CBRI agreement and an initial $1 billion investment in salmon restoration projects at a White House signing ceremony.
In November 2021, Washington’s Senator Cantwell and other regional leaders secured an initial $2.8 billion investment in salmon and ecosystem restoration projects as part of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
In late 2021, Washington’s Senator Murray and Governor Inslee initiated a process “...to examine whether there are reasonable means for replacing the benefits provided by the four Lower Snake River Dams, sufficient that breaching of the dams could be part of a comprehensive salmon recovery strategy for the Pacific Northwest.”
2022
In February, the Northwest Energy Coalition released a white paper titled “Smart Planning Will Drive Replacing the Power from Lower Snake River Dams”. The Executive Summary stated“The energy services of the four lower Snake River dams are important for the region, though increasingly variable due to climate change impacted water conditions. They can be replaced with a diverse set of clean energy technologies that will perform better and are rapidly declining in cost.” It also stated “Clean energy resources in the region that are available or under development are more than sufficient to meet commitments to retire fossil fuel projects as well as replace the energy services of the four lower Snake River dams.” The full paper documented the basis for these conclusions in detail. It is well worth a read, as is the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s February 2024 update on the very impressive progress made toward our region’s clean energy goals in the last four years.
In June, Senator Murray and Governor Inslee released a draft report to serve as a “platform for public input” throughout the remainder of their process, prior to making their recommendations about whether, when and how to breach the dams. The 118-page report stated clearly that replacing the benefits of the LSR dams is possible. It identified specific, detailed methods for doing so. The report’s estimated range of total costs of those projects was from $10.3 to about $27.2 billion.
On August 25, Murray and Inselee issued a statement explaining their decision that all the benefits of the LSR dams should be replaced or at least mitigated before they would consider breaching to be feasible. While we had hoped for more from them at that point, we did take heart in much they had to say, including:
- “While we have heard disagreement and intensity of feeling, we have also seen clear areas of common agreement. People of every perspective share a desire to see progress on the underlying issues and relief from the uncertainty created by litigation for the communities that rely on the river.”
- “We have heard a new willingness to consider changes to the Lower Snake River Dams, in whole or in part, that would have been inconceivable just a few years ago. And we have heard universal recognition that protecting salmon, acting against climate change, strengthening our region’s economy, and addressing the centuries of injustice visited upon the region’s Tribes should be core components of any path forward.”
- "The present moment affords us a vital opportunity to build on these areas of agreement, and we firmly believe that the region cannot afford another fifty years of confrontation, litigation, and acrimony over the Lower Snake River Dams.”
- “There are clean energy generating resources moving their way through regional approval processes that, if built, will replace the generating capacity of these dams – severalfold, by some estimates.”
- “Some assert that energy scarcity and environmental calamity are inevitable results of changing our approach to hydropower on the Lower Snake River Dams, and that doing so will derail the Pacific Northwest’s decarbonization goals as we confront the climate crisis. We believe that is an oversimplified binary choice, and it is one that we do not accept or see as inevitable.”
- “The clean energy provided by the Lower Snake River Dams constitutes only a small fraction of the new generating and transmission capacity that our region must build – just over 3.4% according to the most recent E3 report. As such, replacing that capacity does not meaningfully alter what we must already accomplish.”
- “Action is needed now to make breaching a viable future option.”
2023
Budgets reflect priorities. In April of last year, the Washington state legislature confirmed that Tribal treaty rights and saving lower Snake River salmon are important state priorities when it allocated $7.5 million in its 2023-25 budget to fund the planning to transition the energy, transportation, and irrigation services currently provided by the LSR dams.
Also last year -- as a result of federal mediation to resolve decades of court battles among plaintiffs and the U.S. Army Corps of engineers – six sovereigns signed an historic agreement for a collective Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative (CBRI) – a comprehensive package of actions to address “the urgency of the salmon, climate, energy, and Tribal justice crises facing the Columbia River Basin.” The Six Sovereigns are the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, the Nez Perce Tribe, the State of Oregon, and the State of Washington. One of six overarching strategies of the CBRI is to “Replace the benefits of the LSR dams with due urgency to enable breaching to move forward, and ensure interim fish measures are adequate to minimize additional generational decline of fish populations.
In September, the White House announced a Presidential Memorandum which recognized that since 1855 the U.S. government’s construction and operation of dams in the Columbia Basin has “severely depleted fish populations” and caused “substantial harm to Tribal Nations and other communities reliant on salmon and steelhead.” President Biden stated that “It is the policy of my Administration…to restore healthy and abundant salmon, steelhead, and other native fish populations in the Basin.”
On December 14, the Six Sovereigns announced that the Biden Administration had “embraced the United States’ treaty and trust obligations to Tribal nations, while also considering all other interests – energy consumers, irrigators, fishers, recreationalists, and farmers, to name a few.” The Administration announced a ten-year partnership of federal agencies with Tribes and States to “restore wild salmon, expand clean energy production, increase resilience, and provide energy stability in the Columbia River Basin.” This partnership, accompanied by a set of commitments from the federal government, represent the first steps of implementing the CBRI.
2024
On February 23 of this year, leaders of the four tribes, the governors of Oregon and Washington, and federal officials celebrated their CBRI agreement and an initial $1 billion investment in salmon restoration projects at a White House signing ceremony.
In June 2021, Julian Matthews, Elliott Moffett and other members of the Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) Tribe gathered at Lower Granite Dam with stories about why a free-flowing river is critically important for Tribal sovereignty. Their messages were amplified with an illuminated banner that said “Honor Treaties” and spotlights projecting messages to save wild salmon, respect treaty rights, and remove the four dams on the Lower Snake. Photo by Ben Herndon.
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Looking Ahead
These major developments over the last three years have created much new hope for removal of the LSR dams. However, much remains to be done to secure their breaching in time to recover Snake River salmon. Removal of these federal dams requires an act of Congress, where some members are strongly opposed. We must continue to support those who are working hard to find solutions to the Snake River salmon crisis that are effective, comprehensive and timely. We also need to address mistaken ideas being circulated by some dam removal opponents. They include:
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- “There is no way to replace the value of these dams for flood control.” There is no value to replace. These dams were not constructed for flood control. They were constructed for barge transportation. They never have provided any significant flood control benefit. They never can.
- “Removing the LSR dams will be a disaster for farmers in southeast Washington.” Only one of the four reservoirs is used for irrigation. Murray and Inslee are fully committed to replacing its irrigation capacity before dam breaching. Their report shows how.
- “These dams are necessary for transportation of the region’s products to market.” The Lower Snake is actually one of the least-used major navigable waterways in the United States. Barge traffic on it is heavily subsidized with taxpayer dollars. Even so, as other means of transport have become more economically competitive, barge traffic on the Lower Snake River has declined significantly over the last twenty-five years. This trend will accelerate with CBRI investments. Other regions bring products to market without killing species central to their identity, culture, economy and way of life. Ours can too.
- “Wind, solar, battery and efficiency programs can’t possibly replace the power the LSR dams provide.” They already have, and much more is coming. The LSR dams produce an average of about 925 average megawatts (aMW) over the course of the year and can produce just over 2,200 megawatts (MW) for short periods. By comparison, between April 2000 and February 2024 alone, more than 41,093 MW of new wind, solar and battery power came on line in the Western Electric Coordinating Council region, allowing retirement of 4,164 MW of older (mainly gas) facilities with 36,929 new MW to spare -- 40 times the average average output of the LSR dams, and 17 times their peak potential. All in the last four years. With the West’s energy transformation well underway and accelerating, the LSR dams can be retired as well, just as many other outdated power facilities already have been.
- “We need the steady power that these dams provide throughout the seasons more than ever today for baseload and for peak demands.” The small production of the LSR dams is not steady. It is highest in the spring, when other sources are abundant; in fact, BPA has a large regional excess of hydropower in the spring. The LSR dams are only capable of providing their most power when we can’t even use it. We can do without them.
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Graph from Save Our wild Salmon.
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- “The CBRI was a backroom deal.” It was the product of a mediation process through the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service to pause decades of litigation over the Lower Snake River Dams. Mediation of disputes is a standard procedure in litigation. Now, two states and four tribes are working together as never before to restore salmon. They need no permission to do so. Others are welcome to join the effort if they wish. We hope they will.
It is truly now a race to save Snake River salmon. We will continue to advocate, provide updates and action alerts by email and social media as there are developments and opportunities. Please stay tuned and get involved.