Corps Chief Grilled About Plan To Remove Lower Snake Dams
Rep. Helen Chenoweth and Rep. John Doolittle want to know why removing lower Snake River dams to save salmon is being considered if there are no guarantees removing the dams would help.
Doolittle is the chairman of the House Power and Water Subcommittee. He and Chenoweth, R-Idaho, grilled Brig. Gen. Robert H. Griffin, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Northwest Division commander, about the corps’ study.
Their questioning came during a subcommittee hearing at Lewiston Saturday that attracted about 100, including a short rally by conservationists outside.
The hearing focused on a corps study of breaching the four dams downstream along the Snake from Lewiston and a drawdown of John Day Reservoir along the Columbia River. Both Chenoweth and Doolittle, R-Calif., asked Griffin why the corps is even studying removing the dams instead of pursuing other options.
The subcommittee chairman suggested the corps was threatening the region with dire economic damage in pursuit of a “speculative” answer. “Are you saying we are studying taking out these dams when what we will have left is less than a definitive answer?” Doolittle asked.
National Marine Fisheries Service regional director William Stelle said Doolittle’s worries about the science behind the study were unfounded.
“The evidence the general cited is solid as a rock,” Stelle said. Taking the best evidence available and using it to devise a plan is the way science works, he added. “It is an absolutely conventional scientific process.”
Chenoweth questioned whether the corps was within its authority to even study the issue. Griffin said the corps can study removing the four Snake River dams or leaving them intact and modifying them to help imperiled salmon runs. But before the corps could decomission the dams, it would have to go to Congress to change the law that authorized their construction, he said.
Doolittle then questioned whether the goal of rebuilding salmon runs is so great that it could justify disrupting the region’s economy. The issue of healthy salmon runs and a healthy economy are not black and white, Stelle said, adding, “I am utterly convinced we should have both.”
Samuel N. Penney, Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee chairman, also testified the salmon issue puts the nation’s credibility on the line. His tribe and others reserved the right to continue to catch salmon and are now being ignored as vital decisions are made, he said.
“I think the honor and integrity of the United States government is at stake,” Penney said.