(PNW Ag Network)
On June 18th the effort to remove the Lower Snake River Dams took another step forward as The Biden Administration authorized the creation of a task force to look at breaching the four energy producing dams.
It comes on the heels of the mitigation agreement signed in September of last year by the Biden Administration, the Governors of Washington State and Oregon, as well as tribal representatives from the Colville, Coeur d’Alene, and Spokane Tribes. That agreement also paused litigation filed against the Government (National Wildlife Federation v. National Marine Fisheries Service) for ten years.
The new task force, which includes three federal agencies as well as the White House Council on Environmental Quality, expects to have a draft study completed by the end of 2024 of what it would look like if the dams on the Lower Snake River are breached.
Congressman Dan Newhouse’s 4th District encompasses much of the Lower Snake River and it’s dams said:
This is what happens when a president bends to the will of unelected bureaucratic environmentalists that have no knowledge of how the world works outside of their D.C. bubble. Why are our local stakeholders and leaders not included on, or even informed of, a taskforce designed to fundamentally alter our region’s economic landscape?
Newhouse didn’t hold back with his thoughts on the motivation behind this move:
This is nothing more than a disingenuous ploy for this administration to check a political box in the name of environmentalism and tribal relations. Their only “task” is breaching our carbon free, renewable, and affordable energy base that supports the lives of the people of Central Washington.”
Congresswoman Cathy McMorris-Rodgers who represents the 5th District, which would also be significantly impacted by a breaching of the dams weighed in as well:
This bad faith report is just the latest in a long list of examples that prove the Biden administration’s goal has always been dam breaching. They continue to undermine the honest regional dialogue we need to determine the future of the Columbia River System with a politically-motivated report that — in their own words — ‘is based on limited sources’ and uses ‘examples to support the conclusions.’
The dams provide a navigable river system that currently is the second largest transport system for corn and soybeans for export from the U.S. as well as wheat and a number of other crops vital to Washington State (and the Nation’s) economy. The Evergreen State alone hauls in $21 billion a year from agriculture, a figure that would certainly be impacted by removal of the dams.
It would also impact any climate/carbon goals as not only would you have the removal of clean, renewable hydro power produced by the dams, but you would add almost 24 million additional miles of trucks driving on roadways to make up for the inability to barge crops. Also being ignored in the approach from the Biden Administration is predation, ocean conditions, over fishing, and pollution.
The Silver Lining
With all that said…The Federal Government moves slower than molasses going uphill during a blizzard on Mt. Everest. The likelihood of anything significant coming from this task force before November is slim at best. Regardless of what the task force decides, Congress is the only entity that can authorize the removal of the dams and that vote isn’t coming any time soon. Add to it the potential of a change in who occupies the White House and all of this could well be moot.