Posted on 09/28/2009 3:34:54 AM PDT by Man50D
The Obama administration has ordered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to conduct studies on the possibility of removing four hydroelectric dams on the Snake River in Washington state in order to “protect” 13 species of salmon on the federal endangered species list.
The studies were part of a new “Adaptive Management Implementation Plan” created by a coalition of nine government agencies (which calls itself “the Federal Caucus”) that which manages the salmon population in the Columbia River basin. The plan aims at trying to reverse a decline in the salmon population in the Pacific Northwest.
The plan (or “biological opinion”), which was submitted to a federal court judge in Portland, Ore., on Sept. 15, is a revised version of a plan originally developed by the Bush administration. It explicitly raises the possibility of breaching the four hydropower dams on the Snake River in order to “save” salmon populations. The Bush-era plan did not recommend destroying dams.
In May, U.S. District Judge James Redden had directed the agencies to tear up their previous plan and submit another. Redden has been critical of past plans, dating back as far as the Clinton administration, because they did not consider the possibility of removing the dams.
Wild salmon swim from the ocean up the Columbia River and its tributaries in order to spawn, but are blocked from reaching those grounds by the series of dams, according to a lawsuit that was filed by the National Wildlife Federation, the Nez Perce Indian tribe and the state of Oregon against the Federal Columbia River Power System and the Bonneville Power Administration.
The envronmentalists and the state have been trying to force the government-run agencies to allow more water to “spill” over the dams to protect the salmon runs.
The Army Corps of Engineers “study plan” for blowing up dams on the Lower Snake River must be conducted by March 2010. According to Corps of Engineers spokeswoman Nola Leyde, it will lay out the scope of the project, a proposed schedule and a budget to complete subsequent technical studies.
“The study basically lays a roadmap for (what it will take) if breaching was a trigger that was hit,” Leyde said. “It doesn’t actually look at how you would do it or what you would do. What it does is it looks at how, it’s more of a process, how you would get to that process, because there are decisions that would need to be made by Congress -- and Congress would have to authorize.
“You’d be looking at everything from environmental impacts to impacts on species in the area, economic impacts, water quality, sediment,” she added.
Leyde noted that the Corps had previously examined dam-breaching in a 2002 study titled “Improving Salmon Passage," which found that dam removal was unnecessary.
“The bottom line on it was that NOAA Fisheries said it wasn’t necessary to breach the dams to recover the (salmon) stock,” she said.
In addition, she said, the previous study had concluded that there were “certainties in the problems that it could cause for fish.’
NOAA has also been ordered to study dam removal.
“By December 2012,” the plan says, “NOAA Fisheries, in coordination with the Action Agencies will develop a life-cycle model . . . for evaluation of the short-term, transitional and long-term biological effects of dam-breaching.”
Asked what such a study would entail, NOAA Fisheries spokesman Brain Gorman told CNSNews.com simply, “I have no idea.”
He added: “I’m under the impression that, first, the Corps of Engineers would do sort of a broad paper on what a study would look like.”
Gorman noted that an in-depth study of dam breaching would only be conducted if there is a “compelling reason to do it” – that is, no other option halts the decline in salmon population.
Opponents of dam-breaching want it left off the table entirely, while proponents of dam removal say that blowing up the dams should be more than a “contingency of last resort.”
U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-Wash.) opposes dam removal.
“I’m concerned that, bottom line, this administration decided to put dams on the table,” she told CNSNews.com, “and there have been some extreme environmental organizations that have been advocating for years that these dams be removed, and now they have an opening to continue to advocate for the dam removal.”
Terry Flores, executive director of the anti-breaching group Northwest RiverPartners, also disapproves of the government’s decision.
“We’re disappointed that this administration has put it back on the table, even for discussion,” she told CNSNews.com
“Dam breaching, by just keeping it on the table, even as a contingency, fires up folks whose only agenda is dam removal, and it really distracts the whole region from being able to, you know, put a hundred percent of its effort into implementing this plan,” Flores told CNSNews.com.
Michael Garrity, Washington state conservation director for the pro-dam-busting group American Rivers, disagreed. He doesn’t think the new plan goes far enough.
“We think removing the four lower Snake River dams (is) the most elegant solution to getting big numbers of fish back to the Columbia basin,” Garrity told CNSNews.com.
When asked about the effects of dam removal on the electricity supply, Garrity said: “It’s replaceable. It’s actually only about 3 or 4 percent of the system’s generation, and . . . the bulk of the energy that those four dams produce tends to come at times of year when there is surplus (energy) -- it’s sold at not real high prices to outside of the region, because the region doesn’t tend to need it when that electricity is generated.”
“It’s disappointing to see the Obama administration defending a plan with such weak standards,” Garrity said.
Congresswoman McMorris-Rodgers disputed the idea the energy provided by the dams was not needed or could be easily replaced.
“The four lower Snake River dams produce five percent of the hydropower in Washington state,” she claimed, “and if we breached these dams, it would take three nuclear plants, or six coal fired plants, or fourteen gas fired plants to provide the equal capacity.”
She also painted a brighter picture, saying that efforts already underway to improve conditions for salmon were actually working.
“We’ve seen where salmon and dams can coexist,” she said. “The salmon runs on both the Snake River and the Columbia River are up.”
This guy is a nutball!!!!
These people have lost their minds.
De-development
Redistribution of salmon. And then only let the indians fish, with no limit.
This calls for one of my favorites from “Johhny Dangerously”
These people are dangerously stupid fargin iceholes.
First, there was the Cash for Clunkers where perfectly good cars were destroyed for no reason and now we’re destroying dams and flooding people’s homes for fish. How about we just do an airlift of the salmon on Marine One between Hussein’s weekend outings.
“These people are dangerously stupid fargin iceholes.”
BASTAGES!
All that matters to The One is his systematic, deliberate, step-by-step dismantling in every way possible of the economy, foreign relations, defenses, energy supply employment and vital infrastructure of the United States of America.
These folks won't be happy until every vestige of civilized society is either removed or destroyed.
I would suggest that these folks are trying to take us back to the "Garden of Eden" however, they are mostly atheist folks.
Removal of dams and human habitation throughout the great lakes basin is one of the goals of the group headed by the great lakes czar.
Also, Michigan is one of the few states that hasn’t handed control of our wetlands to the feds. Jenny Granholm wants to change that.
What a beautiful,productive area to turn into a desert.
That's exactly what they want. Destroying dams not only destroys homes, but reduces the electricity generating capacity.
Last night, the power went out in the section of town where I live (it's an old system and occasionally parts of the grid go out) and when I was outside in the darkness with my neighbors, it occurred to me that all Obama really has to do to cripple this country and throw us down to Third World status is destroy our electricity supply.
I seriously think that's his objective.
Maybe I missed this, but do they have fish ladders for these locations???
no offense, but why are these fish more important that the folks that rely on the energy?
Hydro electric is clean, cheap and efficient. So why would they want to get rid of it? The crazies have taken over.
Why not! Next year when there is worldwide food shortages because the San Joaquin Valley is now a DESERT, we can rejoice that a minnow has been saved.
So then we can rejoice when the upper northwest US is having brownouts, salmon have been saved.
I’m for saving the salmon run, it’s an important part of our ecosystem, but there IS a compromise.
Wonder if and when the average person is going to come to the conclusion that they are environmentalists until they have to live like a bear in the wild and have to actually hunt for their vegan foods in the woods.
I’ve learned to mistrust claims about fish being seriously harmed by dams in many cases.
The alliance for the great lakes speaks with great pride about the removal of a small dam here in Michigan. They claim that the trout have returned to the river. The problem is that the trout were never gone from the river. A decade ago I used to go trout fishing both above and below the dam.
I wonder how those lame brained democrates who voted for the Zero will feel when their lights go out or better still, when they pay about a buck for every kilowatt that is produced under the heavily taxed cap and trade concept?
I guess the guy who favors removal of the dams does not know that electricity is fungible along the grid so while there maybe extra electricity for Washington State when the dams are producing, it goes to a near by state using fossil fuels.
Beam me up Scottie.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.