Computer Study Says Breaching Dams Best For Salmon Scientists Say Method Twice As Good As Barging Around Snake River Dams

Fri., Dec. 11, 1998

From Staff

A report by a group of scientists studying the feasibility of breaching Snake River dams concludes fish species have a much better chance of recovery without them.

The release of a computer modeling study Thursday called Plan for Analyzing and Testing Hypotheses - PATH - substantiates and expands on what scientists said in September.

The report concludes that breaching the four federally owned lower Snake River dams - by removing portions to allow the river to flow unimpeded - improves chances of restoring threatened and endangered fish populations by nearly 2-to-1 over the increased use of barges to ferry fish around dams.

The report prompted strong reactions from both sides of the breaching debate.

Chris Zimmer of Save Our Wild Salmon in Seattle said it’s time for the region to accept that removing the four dams between Pasco and Lewiston is best for fish. “The science is giving us a pretty clear pattern. The next question we need to ask is how do we make this work,” he said. “We need to start the region and nation down a path that forges some kind of agreement that makes this happen.”

But Nola Conway, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which owns and operates the hydroelectric dams, said PATH is but one of 22 such segments of a major study the National Marine Fisheries Service will send to Congress next year.

The corps has set an April deadline for releasing a draft of a $20 million study of the engineering and potential economic effects of breaching the dams. A final report, with recommendations to NMFS, is expect by the end of 1999.

The fisheries service, which is in charge of salmon recovery, is scheduled to recommend next year whether the dams should be breached, an action that must be authorized by Congress.

The alternatives include additional barging of young smolts around dam turbines, improved surface fish collection systems, or major improvements in the way the dams are operated.

Bruce Lovelin, who heads Columbia River Alliance, a Portland, Ore.-based group of commercial river users, criticized the report, saying it contains technical flaws that are biased against dams.

Lovelin called for a report by a minority of PATH scientists who think the process was flawed.

The lower Snake River dams are the Lower Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monumental and Ice Harbor.

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