I applaud Gov. Jay Inslee for establishing the Orca Recovery Task Force to improve declining populations of salmon.
Southern Resident orcas swim on the brink of extinction, and scientists predict that the species will be gone in three to five years. Orca scientists have found that these endangered whales are starving. Restoring the lower Snake River and its endangered chinook salmon provides our greatest opportunity to increase salmon abundance, feed orca, and help protect them from extinction.
Among the task force recommendations is permanently removing the Lower Snake River dams. Failure to do so would facilitate their extinctions.
Historically, the Columbia Basin had yearly wild salmon runs at 10-16 million. The 2017 counts at the uppermost dam on the Snake totaled 74,871 fish.
Over 20 years and costing over $3 billion, fish passage structures and strategies on the Lower Snake have failed. By maintaining these four dams, the federal government is not only allowing wild salmon to slide toward extinction, it is facilitating extinctions.
Power surplus now exists in the Pacific Northwest due to expansions of West Coast solar, wind, and natural gas production. The four dams on the Lower Snake supply only 5 percent of power to the Pacific Northwest, and it is only available during the spring when local power is not needed.
The need for the four dams to be transportation waterways has also decreased. From 2000-18, freight volume declined by 50 percent, and grain shipping dropped by 45 percent. Please act now to contact Gov. Inslee to support breaching of the dams on the Lower Snake River.
Laurie Kerr
Battle Ground
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