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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.
On December 15th, 2023 the White House reiterated their commitment to salmon recovery, announcing a substantial development in the long standing litigation between the federal government and Tribes, conservation organizations, and the states of Washington and Oregon toward the removal of the four Lower Snake River dams. This promising demonstration by the Administration is a commitment to honoring treaty rights of Columbia Basin sovereign Tribes, preventing salmon and steelhead extinction, and transitioning the region to real, clean energy solutions. After three decades of court battles, fishing, conservation, and renewable energy organizations, along with Tribes and states, have agreed to a multi-year pause in litigation.
This new initiative, the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative (CBRI), developed by Washington, Oregon, and four Columbia Basin Tribes, provides a comprehensive new roadmap for salmon recovery, including a call to replace the energy, transportation, irrigation, and recreation services provided by the lower Snake River dams so they can be breached. The Biden administration is supporting the bold new blueprint with federal commitments and a Memorandum of Understanding pledging to continue working together on next steps.
However, Idaho Rivers United, along with our other litgants, will not stop working until dam removal is approved by Congress. We need your support to continue to speak up and ensure that decisive, urgent and bold action will be implemented and build on these initial steps. The fish don’t have any more time to waste.
BPA has continuously placed its twin mandates of hydropower sales and recovering salmon at odds, to the detriment of native fish populations. However, they needn’t be conflicting mandates – BPA must move away from an over-reliance on the hydrosystem and prioritize non-hydro renewables, conservation, energy storage, and demand response in order ensure its generating portfolio is resilient to climate change impacts on water supply and timing, and better aligned with the position of the federal government on recovering wild salmonid stocks to abundance.
The mindset of federal agencies involved in power sales and hydrosystem management – BPA and the Army Corps – must change from one of seeing salmon recovery and river health as an impediment to maximized hydropower generation.
We do not have to choose between salmon recovery or hydropower generation and agricultural production. With planning and engagement by federal agencies in the region, we can have a diverse, reliable, and clean energy grid alongside abundant runs of salmon, while meeting federal Treaty and trust requirements to Tribes – all to the benefit of our communities and local economies in Idaho and the Northwest.
Thank you for your support and advocating for wild salmon and steelhead recovery!
Dear Administrator John Hairston (BPA), Chair Brenda Mallory (CEQ), Lieutenant General Scott A. Spellmon (Army Corps), and Sec. Jennifer Granholm of the Department of Energy:
In the wake of the recent news out on December 15th, 2023 from the White House which reiterated their commitment to salmon recovery, announcing a substantial development in the long standing litigation between the federal government and Tribes, conservation organizations, and the states of Washington and Oregon toward the removal of the four Lower Snake River dams.
This promising demonstration by the Administration is a commitment to honoring treaty rights of Columbia Basin sovereign Tribes, preventing salmon and steelhead extinction, and transitioning the region to real, clean energy solutions.
This new initiative, the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative (CBRI), developed by Washington, Oregon, and four Columbia Basin Tribes, provides a comprehensive new roadmap for salmon recovery, including a call to replace the energy, transportation, irrigation, and recreation services provided by the lower Snake River dams so they can be breached. The Biden administration is supporting the bold new blueprint with federal commitments and a Memorandum of Understanding pledging to continue working together on next steps.
Highlights of the CBRI:
Regionwide investments in energy replacement, including Tribally-owned projects to develop 1,000-3,000 megawatts of clean, renewable, salmon-friendly power to replace the power provided by the dams.
Provides a roadmap for removal of the Lower Snake River dams, within two fish-generations (roughly eight years).
Invests heavily in updating the region’s transportation, irrigation, and recreation services
Appropriations for continued habitat restoration and protection across the Columbia River Basin.
The status quo of hydropower development and operations along the Columbia-Snake River corridors has directly contributed to the precipitous decline of wild Snake River salmon runs, and continues to present a bottleneck for effective salmonid recovery.
Such equitable treatment of salmonids alongside the production and marketing of hydropower from the FCRPS, that the aforementioned Power Act of 1980 calls for from Bonneville Power Administration, has not occurred over the last 40-plus years. Wild salmon and steelhead stocks throughout the Columbia Basin were listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in the 1990s, including every species returning to the Snake River Basin, as a direct result of the impacts of migration through the FCRPS. Many of these stocks continue to be in generational decline and in jeopardy of extinction.
BPA has continuously placed its twin mandates of hydropower sales and recovering salmon at odds, to the detriment of native fish populations. However, they needn’t be conflicting mandates – BPA must move away from an over-reliance on the hydrosystem and prioritize non-hydro renewables, conservation, energy storage, and demand response in order ensure its generating portfolio is resilient to climate change impacts on water supply and timing, and better aligned with the position of the federal government on recovering wild salmonid stocks to abundance.
BPA’s time involved in management and mandated funding of fish and wildlife in the Basin has seen the agency do the bare minimum required, and sometimes less – resulting in decades of salmon recovery stuck in the same place, with the agency unwilling to work proactively on a system that can protect fish and provide a reliable, affordable power supply to customers. Salmon recovery projects across the Basin are increasingly urgent, yet in recent years BPA has flatlined fish and wildlife funding. The mindset of federal agencies involved in power sales and hydrosystem management – BPA and the Army Corps – must change from one of seeing salmon recovery and river health as an impediment to maximized hydropower generation.
We do not have to choose between salmon recovery or hydropower generation and agricultural production. With planning and engagement by federal agencies in the region, we can have a diverse, reliable, and clean energy grid alongside abundant runs of salmon, while meeting federal Treaty and trust requirements to Tribes – all to the benefit of our communities and local economies in Idaho and the Northwest.
Thank you for continued leadership in salmon and steelhead restoration efforts in the Northwest and Snake River Basin.
Learn more about IRU's salmon and steelhead recovery efforts here.
Find the most recent White House press release here, the Memorandum here and the Fact Sheet here.
IRU has been Idaho’s leading voice and force for salmon and steelhead for over three decades. As one of our first established goals as an organization, it is at the core of our mission and values. Stay up to date and learn more about our work on this campaign here.