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Turnabout Turned About by John McKern Lewiston Tribune, September 12, 2021

Poor water quality due to upstream water use and a century-and-a-half of
poor harvest management are the true causes of the status of the salmon.

The Lewiston Tribune’s Aug. 14 Turnabout is fraught with misinformation. Blaming the lower Snake River dams for the status of Snake River salmon is like blaming the last straw for breaking the camel’s back.

The truth is that the lower Snake River dams provide very high survival for both upstream migrating adult salmon and downstream migrating juvenile salmon.

Blaming high water temperatures on those four dams is bogus, too. Up to 80-degree water coming from eastern Oregon rivers and southern Idaho coming through Hells Canyon flows over cool water from the Clearwater River in Lower Granite Reservoir, while a few feet down, temperatures less than 70 degrees are provided.

Using mass spill to bypass juvenile salmon subjects them to extreme pressure changes as 30 of the 34 spill gates pass water 40 feet deep with instantaneous pressure loss. Adult fish falling back through narrow slots under the gates are injured and subjected to high gas supersaturation that leaves them and juvenile fish compromised and subject to injury or predation.

Using smolt-to-adult return rates is bogus because in high ocean survival years, fishery agencies liberalize harvest, depressing SARs, and in poor ocean years, harvest is limited by the fishery agencies, but poor ocean conditions cause lower SARs.

Loss of spawning habitat to upstream dams and irrigation use, poor water quality due to upstream water use and a century-and-a-half of poor harvest management are the true causes of the status of the salmon.

Related Pages:
Refutes Dugger by Don Chapman, Lewiston Tribune, 9/9/21
Army Corps Does Not Agree by Keith Carlson, Lewiston Tribune, 9/9/21
Agrees with Dugger, Bentz by Steven Erson, Lewiston Tribune, 9/2/21 Breach the Lower Snake River Dams and We Will Lose Our Fish by Marvin F. Dugger, Lewiston Tribune, 8/1/21
Sound Science and Experience Refute Dugger's Fish Story by Steve Pettit & Richard Scully, Lewiston Tribune, 8/14/21
Saving Salmon is a Ruse for Breaching Our Dams by Marvin F. Dugger, Lewiston Tribune, 3/14/21
What About the Dams? by Marvin F. Dugger, Lewiston Tribune, 11/3/19