Progress?

To The Eagle,

I must comment on the article reprinted 12/27/24 from the Idaho Sun entitled “Officials fall short of salmon return goals in Columbia River Basin but see signs of progress.” The “progress” from very low returns in the 1990s involves the Northwest Power and Conservation Council only because they were forced to pass water past mainstem dams to move migrating juveniles out through the system by a federal court order.

Having attended countless meetings on salmon recovery over the past five decades I can witness that hydro, irrigation and navigation representatives were focused on pointing fingers at fish harvest down here in the lower Columbia River and hiding the fact that 90% of above-Bonneville salmon mortalities were not returning adults but out-migrating juveniles. Water passed through mainstem dams for salmonids in place of using it for hydro-power or irrigation was considered wastage, and “foregone opportunity.” Remember the phrase “protecting the rate-payers’ investment?”

Salmon hatcheries were built in the lower Columbia River area. Wahkiakum County had the Elochoman and Grays River hatcheries because the state saw little point in siting them above the Bonneville dam. The Mitchell Act, funded originally with revenues from Columbia River commercial fisheries, provided the research and planning needed to site and build hatcheries to make up for the huge mortalities at the dams. It has always been a source of wonder to me that when the industrial sector is forced to alter their operations by federal court, the narrative changes to how they are saving salmon.

Perhaps the most deserving of recognition for halting the decline and forcing serious recovery efforts are the four treaty tribes above Bonneville, who filed a lawsuit, U.S. v. Oregon, in 1968. They even had to overcome the argument made in federal court that just because they had treaty rights to catch salmon, it did not mean that there had to be salmonids to catch. It may be considered “progress” today, but we are still falling short on salmon recovery goals over fifty years since that lawsuit.