Swimming Upstream

COURTESY IDAHO RIVERS UNITED

Can Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson’s plan to breach dams end the ‘Salmon Wars’?

BY HARRISON BERRY

Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson spent years talking to stakeholders about how to save the salmon in the Northwest. Now, he’s waiting for someone — anyone — to give him a better option than breaching four dams on the lower Snake River.

I listen to the experts, and what they’re telling me is that to save the salmon, the dams need to come out.

“Nobody who looks at this seriously believes you can save the salmon without taking out the dams,” he says. “I listen to the experts, and what they’re telling me is that to save the salmon, the dams need to come out.”

In February, Simpson, who represents Idaho’s second congressional district and is running for re-election in 2022, released a video outlining his plan, the Columbia Basin Initiative. If adopted, it would remove the Lower Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monumental, and Ice Harbor dams by 2031, making it easier for migrating fish to reach their spawning grounds. It would also spend billions smoothing over the effects of dam removal on electricity generation, inland shipping, and other things supported by the dams. Hailed by some as a bold move to save an iconic symbol of the Northwest, it has been an object of intense criticism from industry, water rights groups, Idaho’s executive and legislative branches, and other stakeholders who don’t like what they see in the crystal ball.

Courtesy Mike Simpson

The price tag on the Columbia Basin Initiative, in Simpson’s own words, is “very expensive.” At $1.4 billion, actual dam removal represents a small fraction of the $33.5 billion package. Ten billion dollars would go toward replacing electricity generated by the dams. Still more money would enlist agricultural entities to improve watersheds and cut agricultural nutrients that end up in waterways, send funds to directly affected communities like Lewiston/ Clarkston and the Tri-Cities area, and pay to rehabilitate or pivot away from affected industries. These line items are the products of long conversations that Simpson has had with people for whom the downstream consequences of dam removal could be dire. “That’s how we came up with the Columbia Basin Initiative. And that’s why, frankly, it costs $33 billion: because those dams do have a value,” Simpson says.

There are many incentives for stakeholders to buy into Simpson’s plan, but perhaps the most significant is a 35-year litigation moratorium. In 2031, when the last of the four dams would be breached, current litigation over migrating fish under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and the Clean Water Act (CWA) would be halted or stayed. In addition, $500 million would go toward liability protection for irrigation districts, energy interests, and other entities that own dams. It would effectively end decades of lawsuits against those groups over salmon.

Paul Arrington, Executive Director and General Counsel of the Idaho Water Users Association, thinks it’s an attractive proposal, but questions whether it would really bring an end to what many have called the “Salmon Wars.” A complex tangle of lawsuits, alliances, and hard-won agreements between governments, water users, energy producers, polluters, Native tribes, environmental advocates, and others, the Salmon Wars are a long-term problem that many see as nearly intractable. The Idaho Water Users Association represents water users from cities and agri-businesses to hydropower and aquaculture in the development, preservation, and use of the Gem State’s water resources — and if water quality or salmon advocates can’t sue them under the ESA, NEPA, or the CWA, Arrington says, they’ll find some other way.

“I don’t think the litigation moratorium will work. That’s a big carrot for the folks I represent: the ability to focus on what we need to do and not worry about litigation,” he says. “But there’s just a lack of faith and trust amongst the parties. The folks I represent have a difficult time trusting that these plaintiffs’ organizations would back down. Or they’d find different ways to sue.”

Arrington is also skeptical about whether the Columbia Basin Initiative can deliver on its economic and energy promises. The plan calls for a $600 million barge transportation expansion in the form of a Tri-Cities/Mid-Columbia Basin Intermodal Transportation Hub and a full $1 billion for waterway shippers, barging reconfiguration, and economic adjustment payments. Add to that another $1.5 billion for farmers to adjust their grain transportation. The issue is whether all that investment can help farmers get their products to market without jacking up food prices.

Courtesy Mike Simpson

A similar, though not exactly the same, principle applies when it comes to energy. The four dams facing removal would cut the region’s ability to produce electricity, even as the region divests itself from coal power. Again, the Initiative calls for billions in investment to replace the power generated by the four dams and power grid efficiency, but whether that can be done with solar, wind, or other green power sources is a matter of debate. Between logistics and the fact that so many people and organizations have a stake in water and electricity issues, Arrington says that it’s a heavy lift.

“The difficulty is that those who want the dams gone say, ‘Oh, it’s super simple. Let’s just do it,’” he explains. “But the [Bonneville Power Administration] and the co-ops will tell you it’s very, very complicated.” Ask Idaho Conservation League Executive Director Justin Hayes, though, and he’ll say that leaving the dams alone will not guarantee the sustainability of the physical infrastructure, legal environment, or political relationships of the status quo. In fact, change is the guarantee. Shipping, hydropower, agriculture, and much more have all been affected by efforts to save the salmon in the past, and the rate and severity of change will only intensify as salmon get closer to extinction.

Hayes says that the Idaho Conservation League has a part in driving that change. The organization is committed to saving salmon, and that has meant long, pitched battles with people and organizations whose activities can harm them. That’s what makes Simpson’s plan so attractive: Though it’s no promise that salmon will survive, it does remove salmon from the Salmon Wars, opening the region up to more productive conversations about a whole host of issues. In other words, it buys a better set of problems.

“[Simpson] wants to end the Salmon Wars. My observation is, that’s one of the drivers of the change. Litigation is in response to the fish circling the drain. We’re observing the same thing, and we want similar outcomes,” Hayes says. “We want fish saved, communities made whole with the resources they need to chart their futures; but people are actually going to have to get together and collaborate.”

Saving fish and supporting communities is exactly what Simpson expects his plan to do. Breaching dams is a big ask for the Northwest, but he says that he believes the larger problem is how the issue of saving salmon will continue to take the future of the region out of the hands of the people who live there and put it into the hands of judges enforcing the Endangered Species Act.

We’re either going to decide the future of theNorthwest or somebody else is going to do it, and it’s going to be imposed on us.

“The biggest challenge in all of this is that it involves change,” Simpson says. “I say to people, ‘Give me an alternative.’ We’re either going to decide the future of the Northwest or somebody else is going to do it, and it’s going to be imposed on us.”