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Obama Did Little for Dam Breaching Advocates by Kevin Richert Idaho Statesman, September 18, 2009

The Obama administration's salmon recovery plan has kept Snake River dam breaching on the table -- but has moved it to about the farthest corner imaginable.

You'd think that this plan would be enough to satisfy the most ardent breaching opponents and dam status quo apologists. Apparently not.

Consider the overwrought reaction from Terry Flores of Northwest RiverPartners, a Portland group representing anti-breaching utilities, farmers, ports and businesses.

"Even talking about destroying the dams is nonsensical. Removal is an extreme and polarizing action that is not supported by the public or the science. ... It is time to stop listening to extreme advocates whose only real agenda is destroying dams and fundraising." Even the dams have their "extreme advocates."

Let's keep a little perspective about what the Obama administration announced Tuesday.

• First and foremost, the administration kept largely intact a salmon recovery strategy inherited from a less-than-salmon friendly Bush White House. The Obama administration plans to fight for this plan before U.S. District Judge James Redden, who has already rejected two previous salmon plans.

• The plan suggests more of the same for Idaho's Snake River sockeye salmon -- a run that has been listed as endangered since 1991, and would likely benefit most from dam breaching. The administration says it might study mortality rates for young sockeye leaving the Sawtooths, and might consider transporting adult sockeye from Lower Granite Dam near Lewiston to the Sawtooths.

  The sockeye plan centers on a continued "safety-net" hatchery breeding program. The feds say this program has been effective -- and the Idaho Department of Fish and Game is forecasting the largest sockeye return since 1956. It also represents an aggressive federal effort to save the sockeye, said Bill McDonald, regional director of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in Boise.

• As for the fate of Lower Granite and the other three lower Snake River dams, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will immediately work on a "study plan" to figure out the research needed to examine breaching. Yes, a study of studies.

The dam advocates got more than they could have reasonably expected from the Obama administration. And probably more than the science supports.

The rest of the region certainly got the message. "I agree with the president that we should do everything we can to save salmon before anyone even considers a discussion of dam breaching," Idaho Republican Sen. Jim Risch said Tuesday. "A discussion of breaching at this point is divisive and frustrates efforts we all agree upon." In his rush to side with Obama, Risch undercut Idaho's senior senator, fellow Republican Mike Crapo, who has said a regional negotiation on salmon recovery must include a discussion of breaching.

It is telling that Risch was so quick to praise the Obama salmon plan, when diehard salmon advocates were equally quick to criticize it. But there isn't much for advocates to celebrate.

To its credit -- and to no great surprise -- the new administration is much more concerned about the connection between climate change and salmon recovery. Climate change factors much more heavily into the Obama plan, Bonneville Power Administration chief Steve Wright said Wednesday.

On the plus side, the plan also acknowledges the need to fund "data-driven life cycle modeling" for Idaho's chinook and sockeye runs.

But this progress comes at a cost. This plan is a major setback on the breaching issue. No matter what some of the dam apologists would have you think.

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