The Salmon Debate: Key Players David Clinton Believes Dams Get Too Much Blame

David Clinton and Harvey Morrison are fascinated by Snake River salmon. They each have spent many hours studying the endangered fish and the reasons for its decline.

They’ve come to very different conclusions.

Clinton is a power company executive and business coalition chairman. He believes the region’s hydropower system is being singled out unfairly as the culprit that’s driving the salmon to extinction.

Morrison is a Sierra Club activist and represents an environmental coalition. He’s convinced that dam operations are the main reason the fish are going extinct.

He says there’s ample evidence for making major changes in the hydropower system.

Although the Spokane River lost its salmon to dams nearly a century ago, both Morrison and Clinton hope people will take an interest in the issue.

Here’s a look at their positions and the organizations on both sides:

The other side of the story.

David Clinton wants it told.

“The public needs to know that hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on an experiment that’s probably going to hurt the salmon,” said Clinton.

The experiment in question is a government plan to help endangered Snake River salmon by drastically changing the federal hydropower system. It’s based largely on the notion that moving water more quickly through the Snake and Columbia rivers will revive endangered salmon populations.

That means releasing massive amounts of water from upstream reservoirs and possibly lowering downstream reservoirs.

And that means disrupting hydropower production, river navigation, irrigation and recreation throughout the Columbia River basin.

That’s why Clinton is worried, frustrated.

He’s chairman of the board of the Columbia River Alliance for Fish, Commerce and Communities. The group represents many businesses that will be affected by salmon recovery efforts.

Inland Power & Light Co. is among them. It buys electricity produced at the federal dams. The power bills of its 25,000 customers will rise to help pick up the salmon recovery tab, which could top $350 million a year.

Clinton manages daily operations for the Spokane-based company, which serves a 60-mile-wide strip of rural Eastern Washington and Idaho.

He often travels to Portland, headquarters for the Columbia River Alliance and the Bonneville Power Administration, which markets federal hydropower. When he heads home, he takes along reports so he can stay up-to-date on complex salmon science and strategy.

If he’s not reading about fish, he’s likely to be working with his hands. He and his wife, Sally, built their home. Now he’s fixing up the basement so the older of his two sons can have a room of his own.

Clinton, 41, isn’t a fisherman. His views differ sharply with the sportsmen and environmentalists who have organized to fight for salmon recovery. But he has something in common with them: a fascination with the migratory fish and the regional dilemma surrounding them.

“The more I look into this whole salmon recovery issue, the more I want to find out about it,” he said.

His son Christopher is fascinated, too. The 15-year-old chose the subject for debate class at Northwest Christian Academy.

“He wants to know what the fuss is about.”

If Clinton were debating, say, Harvey Morrison of the Spokane Sierra Club, he’d make these points:

Hydropower operations are far from the only reason Columbia River salmon are disappearing. Clinton says the media give in to the environmentalists’ agenda by ignoring the impact of hatchery practices, degraded spawning habitat and ocean conditions.

“I don’t like the lack of coverage we get on this. It’s always presented as ‘dams vs. fish,”’ Clinton said.

“Yes, things need to be done with the dams. But there seems to be a perception that you don’t need to do anything else.”

There’s something going on out in the ocean that dwarfs the impact of the Columbia River system on salmon. As proof, Clinton points to dropping salmon stocks in coastal rivers with no dams. He wants more studies focused on the place where salmon spend most of their lives.

“We might learn there’s something we can do about ocean conditions. If there’s nothing we can do about it, we need to stop fooling ourselves, stop spending half a billion dollars a year on the river that isn’t going to help.”

There’s not enough scientific evidence that the fish will be helped by upstream releases or downstream drawdowns.

“I have been very disappointed in the lack of objective science supporting multimillion-dollar expenditures. I had hoped to find a lot of scientists agreeing what needs to be done.”

He rejects the idea that the Columbia River Alliance is demanding an unreasonable amount of evidence.

“If we demanded proof, we would not recommend the salmon recovery plan here,” he said, tapping the booklet containing the alliance’s own plan. It is less drastic, and about half as costly, than measures endorsed by regional and federal recovery planners.

Clinton is adamant that he supports efforts to bring the big fish back. Reasonable efforts.

“I’m dedicated to salmon recovery,” he said. “We’ve gotta make this work.”

MEMO: See story about Harvey Morrison under the headline: The salmon debate: key players \ Harvey Morrison pushing for big changes at dams.

See sidebar that ran with this story under the headline: Salmon restoration