Study: Replacing Barging Not Hard Farmers Don’T Need To Fear Breaching, Professor Says

Replacing Snake River barge traffic with land-based alternatives would be relatively cheap and easy, according to a report released Friday.

The report, written by a former top official for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was sponsored by American Rivers, an environmental group that advocates breaching four Snake River dams in southeastern Washington.

Breaching the dams, one salmon-saving option being considered by the federal government, would make barging impossible between Pasco and Lewiston. Palouse farmers rely on the barges as the cheapest way to carry 3.8 million tons of grain to market.

“The agricultural community fears that removing the dams will make transporting grain too expensive. But this fear need not come to pass,” said Edward Dickey, who was appointed by President George Bush as assistant secretary of the Army’s civil works division. He later was chief of planning for the Corps of Engineers.

Now a professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland, Dickey contends in his report that rail and road improvements needed to end barging should be considered part of the cost of restoring Snake River salmon runs. Worst-case estimates put the cost of making the switch at about $162.5 million from the federal government and $108 million from the state, he wrote.

The cost includes restoring railroad tracks removed after barging became the preferred form of transportation, Dickey wrote. The government could require railroads using those publicly funded rails to provide low rates for farmers.

Dickey notes that taxpayers now subsidize river transportation at a cost of about $10 million a year.

“In the long term, improvements to (rails and roads) will save money by eliminating the ongoing navigation subsidy,” Dickey wrote.

Using a term once applied to President Ronald Reagan’s economic policies, Sen. Slade Gorton criticized the report as “more voodoo economics from another D.C.-based special interest group.”

Gorton, R-Wash., noted in a statement that by focusing on traffic, Dickey didn’t take into account about $291 million worth of annual electrical generation that would be lost if the dams are removed. Nor does the study consider the possible loss of irrigation to 37,000 acres of farms, or the added pollution generated by putting more trucks on the road, Gorton wrote.

Gorton’s statement contends most Northwest residents don’t want the dams removed. However, a recent survey by Boise State University showed Idahoans split on the matter. There has been no similar survey in Washington or Oregon.