University of Nebraska Press author Mike Barenti kayaked nine hundred miles along the Columbia and its tributaries during the summer of 2001 and wrote a book about his journey entitled Kayaking Alone: Nine Hundred Miles from Idaho’s Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Along the way, he got an up-close-and-personal view of the endangered salmon issue. Now, nearly seven years later, people in the Pacific Northwest and all over the country are still talking about the fate of the salmon. While politicians continue to play “bait and switch,” little has been done to reach a consensus on what should and can be done to protect the salmon from extinction. In today’s blog post, Mike Barenti lays out the main facets of the debate and issues a call to action.
Talk to enough people around the Northwest about salmon, a part of the country where people always talk about salmon, and eventually somebody will say “we have to save the Columbia River’s salmon.” Of course as the old saying goes, only death and taxes are inevitable, and at least in the Northwest, some people claim even taxes are optional. The truth is we don’t have to save the salmon; doing so represents a social and political choice, not a requirement.
In the summer of 2001, I kayaked nine hundred miles from central Idaho’s Redfish Lake to the Pacific Ocean to find out for myself just where salmon fit in the regional culture of the northwest corner of the country that I call home, and what obligation we, as a region and country, have to protect salmon. The trip lasted almost two months and took me down the Salmon, Snake, and Columbia rivers, three rivers now mired in controversy. I examined those rivers for answers to my questions. I paddled alone for much of the trip, but met many people along the way, and I also listened to what those who lived near and depended on the river had to say. At the end of the trip, I sat down to write a book called Kayaking Alone: Nine Hundred Miles from Idaho’s Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.
While writing, I had long conversations about the rivers’ salmon with a close friend who also is a fisheries biologist. Over the years, billions of dollars have been spent on restoring salmon populations throughout the Columbia River and its tributaries. But our money has bought us very little. Instead, the Columbia’s salmon seem perpetually on the verge of extinction. Despite all the money spent and the claims that we all want to see the region’s salmon thrive, we in the Northwest, and in the rest of the country for that matter, have never really decided whether or not we are willing to make serious changes in the way we live and act for the sake of the salmon. So we stumble along with expensive half measures struggling to answer that most basic question: do we want to save the Columbia’s salmon?
In discussions with my biologist friend, I would say we need to debate until we reach some kind of consensus about what we are willing or not willing to do for the salmon. If what we are willing to do isn’t enough, that’s a kind of answer. Consensus would mean taking real action to restore salmon or it would mean the possible extirpation of the river’s wild salmon. My biologist friend always asked how we would conduct this debate, who should participate since salmon represent a national resource, and how we would know when consensus was reached. I never had a good answer.
The federal government has, in its own way, grappled with these same issues. In particular, the government has struggled to find a way to operate dozens of dams in a way that will let salmon if not thrive, at least achieve stable populations. Thirteen of the Columbia’s salmon and steelhead runs are now listed as threatened or endangered. As required under the Endangered Species Act, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) submitted a report in 2000 explaining how it planned to manage the Columbia’s hydro system in a way that would allow salmon to recover. The National Wildlife Federation sued NMFS, a federal judge in Portland found the plan, called a biological opinion, didn’t do what it was supposed to do, and ordered the agency to try again. In 2004, NMFS submitted a second plan; again the judge threw it out and ordered the agency to write a new plan.
In October of 2007, NMFS submitted a draft version of its third biological opinion to U.S. District Judge James Redden. And not long after that, the Portland, Oregon-based judge made it clear the new plan didn’t protect salmon either. He also made it clear there would be no fourth chance for NMFS. According to The Oregonian, Redden indicated that if the final plan didn’t pass muster, he would consider appointing a panel of scientists to help him manage the river. Some groups say the only way to restore some of the Columbia’s salmon is to remove four dams on the lower Snake River in eastern Washington, and in the past Redden has said that dam breaching was an option the court might consider. Though he has recently backed away from dam breaching, Redden might take other actions that will seem just as drastic and just as controversial.
The twenty-eight federal hydroelectric dams spread around the Columbia and its tributaries have many uses. Obviously, they generate cheap electricity for power-hungry cities, but they also impound irrigation water that grows Idaho potatoes and Washington apples and make Idaho and eastern Washington part of the Pacific Rim by creating a series of reservoirs that allow barges to move between deepwater Pacific ports and inland river towns. The remedies the judge has mentioned for protecting salmon—taking water stored behind irrigation dams and sending it down river and lowering the reservoirs on the main stem Snake and Columbia rivers to speed salmon to the sea—would mean less water for farms and barges and hydroelectricity.
Right now, various groups around the Northwest are waiting and speculating on what Redden will do. The final NMFS plan is due March 18, 2008. I talked to a NMFS biologist who said politics makes any major changes to the biological opinion almost impossible. Most people following salmon and hydropower have reached the same conclusion, and they expect Redden to do something drastic. Politicians and business groups will howl, environmentalists will cheer, and the government certainly will appeal if that happens.
I don’t like the courts intervening in what’s essentially a political matter, and normally would chafe at a judge managing the Columbia and its salmon, but in this instance there are few other choices. Not because we have to save the salmon, but because we must have the debate we have put off for so long. A drastic ruling might finally bring the matter to a head, providing a framework for debate and a way to know when we have reached a decision.
Under the Endangered Species Act, the Secretary of the Interior can convene a panel, referred to euphemistically as the “God Squad,” to decide the fate of an endangered species. The God Squad can remove a species’ protections, leaving its existence solely to chance and whim. If sometime after March 18th Redden does what most expect, and if his decision brings the protests most anticipate, discussion about the God Squad will start. If this happens, it will set off a real and deep public debate. Either the public will side with those advocating serious action to save salmon or with those arguing to end the salmon’s protection. The risk of course is that, if we have already chosen sides in the fight over the Columbia, its salmon, and its dams, our side might loose. But I see no other option right now. We don’t have to save the Columbia’s salmon, but eventually, we will have to make a decision.
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Read more on the Columbia River salmon issue in this article from The Oregonian:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1197345328250200.xml&coll=7
Mike Barenti is a writer and journalist who has worked as a reporter for the Yakima Herald-Republic and the Idaho Falls Post Register and has taught English and creative writing at various colleges. He has published work in such journals as River Teeth and Ascent.
Kayaking Alone: Nine Hundred Miles from Idaho’s Mountains to the Pacific Ocean
By Mike Barenti
To read an excerpt from Kayaking Alone, click on the link below.
UNP blog 