Writer In Favor Of Drawdowns Historian Says Snake River Salmon Doomed Without Faster Water When Migrating To Sea

Historian Keith Petersen calls himself a “child of the dams in the Pacific Northwest.”

His dad worked for an aluminum company, which depends on cheap hydropower. He went to school on an Alcoa scholarship. You won’t hear him bashing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

But the Pullman professor wants to set the record straight. He contends that the people who lobbied for and built the dams made a conscious decision to sacrifice wild salmon on the altar of economic development.

“When you hear someone saying we just didn’t know the dams would kill fish, you can rest assured they are uninformed,” Petersen said Thursday at a Northwest history symposium held at North Idaho College.

The difficulty of getting young salmon safely downstream past the dams was largely why the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation decided it would be fruitless to build ladders for adult fish passage at Grand Coulee Dam, Petersen said. That was in the 1930s.

For the next two decades, state biologists from Washington and Oregon fought construction of Ice Harbor - the first of the four Corps of Engineers’ Snake River dams - because existing dams were killing so many young fish.

“As early as 1954, even the corps came to recognize that,” Petersen said. “The Walla Walla District Commander told a group of Idaho sportsmen ‘We have yet to learn how to pass them downstream effectively.”’

For those who doubt his version of history, Petersen points to “50 pages of footnotes” for his new book, “River of Life, Channel of Death.”

While the book is largely an historical account of the Lower Snake River Dams, the author makes his own opinion clear.

He thinks the endangered Snake River salmon are doomed without reservoir drawdowns to speed up the water when young fish are migrating to the ocean.

“River of Life,” published by Confluence Press, won’t be in stores until July. But it’s already causing a stir.

Andy Brunelle, an Idaho member of the Northwest Power Planning Council, approved spending council money to promote the book, council spokesman John Barclay said Thursday.

Brunelle worked for Gov. Cecil Andrus, a strong advocate of drawdowns. But when Phil Batt succeeded Andrus in January, he appointed new council members. One of them, Todd Maddock of Lewiston, read the book manuscript and reversed Brunelle’s decision about promoting it.

“Todd felt it didn’t fit with the perspective this administration brings,” Barclay said. “He wasn’t very impressed.”

While Petersen is not impressed with the Corps of Engineers zeal to build the Lower Snake dams, he refuses to portray the agency as the evil killer of fish.

“The Corps of Engineers is the world’s best builder of fish ladders,” he said.

The corps’ Walla Walla district also stuck its neck out to build hatcheries, Petersen said. District officials got both their agency and Congress to approve what then was the world’s biggest fish and wildlife compensation program.

“If the dams killed fish, then the corps would build hatcheries that would produce more fish.”

The strategy failed. Petersen hopes a successful one will replace it.

“We must not give up on the Snake River.”

, DataTimes