As part of the Biden administration’s settlement plan to restore salmon in the Columbia and Snake River system, the Department of the Interior on June 18 released a report documenting the “historic, ongoing and cumulative impacts” of federal dams on Columbia River Basin Tribes.
The report is being touted as “the first time that the U.S. government has comprehensively detailed the harms that federal dams have and continue to inflict on Tribes in the Pacific Northwest.”
The 73-page report outlines the impacts of 11 dams on eight of the basin’s Tribal Nations. Regarding the Lower Snake River dams, the document notes the Army Corps’ construction of the Ice Harbor Dam in 1961 and the completion of the Lower Monumental Dam, Little Goose Dam, and Lower Granite Dam over the following 14 years.
“Each of the lower Snake River dams, like the lower Columbia River dams, was constructed with fish passage facilities, while nevertheless inundating Chinook salmon spawning habitat,” the report states. “The dams also flooded historical Tribal housing, fishing, cultural, and burial sites. Construction of the dams coincided with ‘precipitous declines in abundance’ of spring/summer Chinook salmon in the Snake River’s largest tributary, the Salmon River, which previously supported one of the Basin’s largest returns of that species.”
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., called the administration’s report a “sham” in a written statement published on June 18.
“This bad faith report is just the latest in a long list of examples that prove the Biden administration’s goal has always been dam breaching,” she said. “They continue to undermine the honest regional dialogue we need to determine the future of the Columbia River System with a politically-motivated report that — in their own words — ‘is based on limited sources’ and uses ‘examples to support the conclusions.’”
Accompanying the report is the announcement of a new task force to coordinate salmon recovery efforts across federal agencies. The task force will be co-chaired by Acting Deputy Secretary of the Interior Laura Daniel-Davis, Deputy Secretary of Energy Dave Turk, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Assistant Administrator for Fisheries Janet Coit. Other agencies on the task force include the Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Transportation, the Office of Management and Budget, and the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
NGFA will continue to monitor the results of the Biden administration’s settlement deal and work with lawmakers and other stakeholders to maintain the critical waterways network in the Pacific Northwest.
Background: The Biden administration on Dec. 14, 2023, announced its $1 billion plan with environmental groups, four tribal governments and the states of Washington and Oregon. The settlement proposes that the administration help fund and conduct studies on “how the transportation, irrigation, and recreation services provided by the four Lower Snake River dams could be replaced, to help inform Congress should it consider authorizing dam breach in the future.”
NGFA has issued statements opposing any actions by federal or state governments that could result in breaching the Lower Snake River Dams, emphasizing the severe economic harm to the entire U.S. agricultural value chain. In written testimony submitted on Jan. 30 to the House Energy and Commerce Energy, Climate, and Grid Security Subcommittee, NGFA expressed the concerns of the agricultural industry regarding the settlement deal.
The Columbia-Snake River System transports nearly 30 percent of U.S. grain and oilseed exports. The required infrastructure capacity to replace the dams simply does not exist, and it is highly unlikely that it could be created in an economically viable amount of time. Dam breaching would increase transportation and environmental costs in the U.S. by at least $7.3 billion over 30 years, according to research from the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association.