Plan Breaches Subject Of Removing Dams Proposal Would Help Salmon Migration But Dry Up Port Of Lewiston

Every spring in the Pacific Northwest, just as sure as the grass turns green, salmon begin their annual migration from the mountains to the sea.

As the young, 3-inch salmon tumble more than a vertical mile down creeks and rivers on their way to the sea, the Northwest salmon wars ignite on shore. At issue is how to prevent the endangered Snake River chinook salmon, which spawn in the Idaho wilderness, from becoming extinct. Several factors have combined to reduce their number more than sevenfold over the last 20 years.

The unresolved question is how to improve their survival as they make their way along a 350-mile stretch of the Snake and Columbia rivers that has eight hydro-electric dams. The official start of the salmon migration to the sea, about 800 miles, began April 15.

The solution preferred by the Clinton administration, which was the same one backed by the Reagan and Bush administrations, is to suck the salmon out of the water at the dams and sluice them into barges for the trip to the sea. Officials with the National Marine Fisheries Service say the barges provide the safest passage for the salmon.

Studies show that about 70 to 90 percent of the juvenile fish are killed by hydroelectric turbines, predators and in other accidents as they attempt to make their way to the sea. So fewer and fewer of them survive to make their way back up the rivers to spawn.

But noting the precipitous decline of the fish runs after a decade of barging, salmon advocates and Indian tribes want the fisheries service to let baby salmon swim to the sea on their own. As a compromise, the regional director of the fisheries service, Will Stelle, said last week that the agency would allow half the salmon to swim free this year.

But a far more ambitious plan to save the salmon is being pushed by Reed Burkholder, a 50-year-old musician and piano teacher here who remembers the excitement of catching several large salmon as a teenager. For the last two years, he has been pushing a plan to have the government breach four federal dams on the Lower Snake, letting the river flow free in that area. The proposal calls for carving a new river channel around the four dams.

It is an alternative that the operator of the dams, the Army Corps of Engineers, has been seriously studying for a year.

“We have to tear out the dams,” Burkholder said. “We’re losing money, and we’re losing fish. It’s stupid.”

Burkholder argues that almost as much money is spent annually on efforts to restore the salmon population as it would cost to remove the dams. Industry groups oppose the plan, because tearing down the dams would mean that a 150-mile stretch of the Snake between Lewiston and Pasco, Wash., would no longer be navigable. The hundreds of millions of dollars of grain, pulp and paper products and petroleum now shipped on the river would have to be carried by truck or rail, at a cost two to three times as much.

Burkholder’s position is gaining support, as the Northwest enjoys a surplus of low-cost electricity. He has made 32 presentations to government agencies, civic groups, service clubs and Indian tribes in the last year.

Thirteen Northwest Indian tribes, who have rights by treaty to catch chinook salmon the year round, along with several environmental organizations and a taxpayers’ group now support breaching the dams.

The fisheries service officials are expected to make a decision on the proposal in 1999.

But Congress could have the last word, and the most powerful lawmakers from the Northwest have never wavered in their support of the region’s commerce over salmon preservation. These lawmakers include Sens. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., and Larry Craig, R-Idaho.

Gov. Phil Batt of Idaho, also a Republican, said he would like to have more salmon making their way to the sea by river but a spokesman for the governor said the idea of drying up the Port of Lewiston was “nonnegotiable.”

Burkholder and his supporters say they hope to appeal to the fiscal conservatives in Congress who do not have financial ties to the Northwest.

They say it would cost $525 million to breach the four dams, while the debt-ridden Bonneville Power Administration, which markets the electricity created by the dams, spends $425 million a year on hauling the young salmon to the sea by barge and other efforts to bring back the fish. In addition, the Army Corps of Engineers has proposed spending more than $200 million over the next five years for fish screens, new fishcollection devices, adult fish ladders, new turbines and other equipment on Snake River dams.

Despite these efforts, the count of adult salmon on the Snake River has dropped to less than 4,000 from more than 28,000 over the last 20 years, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.

“We are just continuing to spend money down a rat-hole,” said Bob Heinith, hydropower coordinator for the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission.

Industry groups agree that the fish-recovery efforts have failed. But they consider the dam-breaching proposal as “a terrible idea,” said Bruce Lovelin, executive director of the Columbia River Alliance, which represents shipping, irrigation and utility interests. The groups say that it would destroy the Snake River waterway and eight inland ports; increase irrigation costs for some farmers and reduce the Bonneville authority’s power revenues by an estimated $208 million a year, or about 10 percent.

The authority’s revenues are important because the agency owes the United States Treasury about $16 billion, much of it from taking over the debt of the Washington Public Power Supply System, which went bankrupt after starting construction on five nuclear reactors whose power was not needed.

Industry groups using the rivers clearly have the most to lose. About 60 percent of the grain exported to Pacific Rim markets is shipped down the Snake.

The Pacific Northwest Grain and Feed Association put a value of $500 million on the grain shipped on the Snake River this year. “If you take away the barging option, we go from being one of the strongest allies for salmon recovery to one of the biggest casualties,” said Jonathan Schlueter, the association’s director.