A regional effort to oppose the removal of four Snake River hydroelectric dams recently got a boost from local Lower Columbia ports.
Commissioners from the ports of Longview and Kalama recently joined the Inland Ports and Navigation Group, a subgroup of the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association that specifically focuses on fighting dam removal.
Each port will pay $9,000 this year to cover the group’s legal costs for advocating to keep the dams. The subgroup now has 17 member organizations across the state, including the Port of Vancouver, several inland ports and private entities.
The subgroup is listed an intervenor in the drawn-out case over the federal government’s plan to manage salmon recovery on the Columbia and Snake rivers. In May, U.S. District Judge Michael Simon rejected the government’s fifth plan to manage endangered salmon and ordered the three federal agencies responsible for the dams to prepare a new plan and take a hard look at all options, including dam removal.
The three agencies recently completed a scoping comment period on an environmental impact statement for the new plan. On Monday, Judge Simon ruled that starting next year, the government must spill more water from dams on the lower Columbia and Snake rivers to improve the chances that protected salmon will survive their migration to the ocean.
“With how far-reaching the judge’s order was last year, there are folks on the river who are recognizing that they all need to pull together to make sure the full story of navigation is understood in the court, so they are trying to develop more partnerships again,” said Kristin Meira, executive director of the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association.
The Snake River dams may be hundreds of miles away, but for Lower Columbia ports the impact of removing the dams would hit close to home.
Almost 60 percent of the barge traffic carrying grains to Temco grain terminal at the Port of Kalama has its origins in the Snake River, along with 40 percent of the barge traffic to Kalama Export, according to Port of Kalama. In Longview, the Export Grain Terminal also relies heavily on the Snake River dam system. The dams are equipped with navigation locks, without which barge traffic up the Snake would be difficult if not impossible.
Port of Longview commissioners voted to join the group last week, about a month after a commissioner from Port of Whitman, representing Inland Ports of Navigation Group, made a pitch at a port meeting in late February.
“Ultimately anything that happens to the dams on the river will affect us and everyone on the river. For me, it was a no-brainer when they asked for $9,000. … It just made perfect sense to me to support that group,” said Doug Averett, commissioner for Port of Longview.
Opponents to the dams say that freight traffic over the dams has been trending downward over the last 20 years, and argue that removing the dams is the fastest and best way to save wild salmon runs.
