Take Action for Salmon & Steelhead in 2023!

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Tell the Sec. Jennifer Granholm & Sec. Brenda Mallory to take urgent action to restore Snake River Basin salmon & steelhead!

BACKGROUND: Our Northwest salmon and steelhead are on the brink of extinction and Idaho’s pristine river habitat is the best remaining in the region. Our rugged, high elevation landscape with cold, free flowing rivers in the Salmon River Basin are the beating pulse of salmon country.

The greatest opportunity we have to prevent extinction and restore abundance is to remove the four lower Snake River dams (LSRDs). We can do this while modernizing our energy system and investing in infrastructure in the Northwest.

A study by the Nez Perce Tribe on salmon in the Snake River basin, predicts that by 2025 over three-quarters of spring/summer Chinook populations and just under half of steelhead populations will have less than 50 returning fish to spawn – a threshold that, once crossed, means a population is on the cusp to absolute extinction.

Complacency from elected officials has been changing, slowly, as key leaders such as Representative Mike Simpson here in Idaho, as well as Patty Murray and Jay Inslee in Washington have committed themselves to recover salmon and doing the planning necessary for a regional clean energy and railway infrastructure shift away from the services provided by the four obsolete dams on the Lower Snake.

The Biden Administration has committed, as part of a hold in long-running litigation, to recover native fish populations, while honoring commitments with Tribal Nations, and meeting clean power needs and other services tied to the river that are relied upon by regional stakeholders.

The federal government also recently hosted several listening sessions in order to receive input from people who are not part of the ongoing settlement talks. The response from salmon advocates at the sessions was very positive and certainly got the attention of the agency officials present. The message was loud and clear: the majority of folks want to see dam removal and salmon recovery on a near-term timeline, and have made clear that our Tribes, river communities, and wildlife that rely on salmon cannot afford inaction.

If you missed these sessions, there will be further opportunities to provide comments. Meanwhile, you can take action for wild salmon and steelhead below.

Thank you for your support and advocating for wild salmon and steelhead recovery!

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Urgent action is needed to remove the four Lower Snake River dams

Dear Sec. Brenda Mallory of the Council of Environmental Quality, and Sec. Jennifer Granholm of the Department of Energy:

Thank you for continued leadership in salmon and steelhead restoration efforts in the Northwest and Snake River Basin.

The federal government can help the region take a monumental step forward on salmon recovery by rescinding the 2020 Trump era Biological Opinion (BiOp), completing a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) – after which a new Record of Decision that selects Lower Snake River dam (LSRD) breach as the preferred alternative, can be issued.

An EIS is a federal decision making tool that comprehensively discusses the impacts of a project, in this case the federal hydrosystem of dams. The 2020 BiOP, informed by a concurrent EIS, found that status quo management of the hydrosystem of dams on the Columbia-Snake would not reduce the likelihood of survival and recovery of endangered wild salmon and steelhead. This process fell in line with decades of illegal federal decision making surrounding salmon recovery that has been thrown out in court repeatedly – and has left the river system broken for migrating salmon runs with Northwest citizens footing the bill for billions of public dollars spent on inadequate recovery plans.

If the Biden Administration is serious about their 2022 commitment to develop “a durable long-term strategy to restore salmon and other native fish populations to healthy and abundant levels,” then rescinding the Trump Era BiOp is a crucial step it must take now.

Our Northwest salmon and steelhead are on the brink of extinction and Idaho’s pristine river habitat is the best remaining in the region. Our rugged, high elevation landscape with cold, free flowing rivers in the Salmon and Clearwater basins are the beating pulse of salmon country.

A Nimiipuu (Nez Perce Tribe) study on migratory fish, published in the spring of 2021, found that wild Snake River Basin populations of spring and summer Chinook were declining 19 percent every year, putting 77 percent of populations close to extinction by 2025. Historically, the Snake River Basin was the major producer of salmon and steelhead in the Pacific Northwest.

A rapidly warming climate and dwindling wild salmon runs means we have no time to waste.

The greatest opportunity we have to prevent extinction and restore abundance is to remove the four lower Snake River dams (LSRDs). We can do this while developing a clean energy system and investing in infrastructure in the Northwest via comprehensive regional planning. We need federal leadership now more than ever to open pathways resources towards replacing the dams and their services on a short-term timeline.

The Administration’s own National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that LSRD removal is an urgently needed “centerpiece action” for salmon and steelhead restoration in a 2022 report. Sen. Murray and Gov. Inslee of Washington state released a set of recommendations for salmon recovery efforts that urged action to occur now on replacing the services provided by the LSRDs in order to ensure that dam breaching may become a reality in the future. And of course, Congressman Mike Simpson remains steadfast in his commitments to recover wild salmon in Idaho via replacing the dams.

A federal “whole of government approach” to salmon recovery, that utilizes the resources and expertise of its agencies and collaborates with regional elected leaders, Tribal sovereigns, and fisheries managers is required to help the Northwest in this time of transition. The federal government must uphold its treaty-reserved obligations with Tribes and restore wild salmon via LSRD removal - Northwest ecosystems, cultures, and economies are counting on it.

August 2023 salmon TA

Subject: Secretary Haaland, Mallory & Granholm: Please fulfill the Administration's promise to recover salmon & steelhead in the NW region

Message:

Thank you for continued leadership in salmon and steelhead restoration efforts in the Northwest and Snake River Basin. Our Northwest salmon and steelhead are on the brink of extinction and Idaho’s pristine river habitat is the best remaining in the region. Our rugged, high elevation landscape with cold, free flowing rivers in the Salmon River Basin are the beating pulse of salmon country.

A Nimiipuu (Nez Perce Tribe) study on migratory fish, published in the spring of 2021, found that wild Snake River Basin populations of spring and summer Chinook were declining 19% every year, putting 77% of populations close to extinction by 2025. Historically, the Snake River Basin was the major producer of salmon and steelhead in the Pacific Northwest.

The greatest opportunity we have to prevent extinction and restore abundance is to remove the four lower Snake River dams (LSRDs). We can do this while modernizing our energy system and investing in infrastructure in the Northwest. We need your urgent action to push this across the finish line – now.

As you know, the Biden Administration has made a bold commitment to develop “a durable long-term strategy to restore salmon and other native fish populations to healthy and abundant levels,” and the recent NOAA report has identified dam removal as an urgently needed “centerpiece action” for salmon and steelhead restoration. Sen. Murray and Gov. Inslee of WA released a set of recommendations for salmon recovery efforts, that urged action to occur now on replacing the services provided by the LSRDs in order to ensure that dam breaching happens in the future.

But the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) continues to resist progress toward achieving a comprehensive regional plan that will restore a free-flowing lower Snake River, and it refuses to recognize the numerous environmental, energy, and economic benefits this would bring. BPA’s recent decision to allocate $50 million, just 10% of the $500 million in surplus revenues from its 2022 power sales, towards fish and wildlife funding is counter to the Biden Administration’s commitments to recover salmon populations to abundant levels, honor treaties and commitments made with Tribal Nations, and deliver clean, affordable, and reliable power in the Northwest.

It’s time for the Biden Administration’s promises to be kept, to align BPA with the rest of the Administration, and to act now so we can restore a free-flowing lower Snake River this decade, including enhancements of electricity transmission and grid services that will clean up the region’s power grid and help modernize the hydroelectric system. The Administration has failed in its oversight of BPA by allowing the status-quo of woefully underfunded fisheries management work to persist in this latest funding allocation decision. Such work is vital to ensuring the persistence of vulnerable Endangered Species Act-listed salmon, including Idaho’s wild Snake River salmon and steelhead populations.

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Tell the Sec. Jennifer Granholm & Sec. Brenda Mallory to take urgent action to restore Snake River Basin salmon & steelhead!

Urgent action is needed to remove the four Lower Snake River dams

Thank you for taking action!