Over Thanksgiving Orca advocates told federal fisheries officials that four Snake River dams should be removed to boost production of salmon -- a food source for Puget Sound killer whales.Six Orca scientists make the recommendation in a letter to NOAA Fisheries, which manages Columbia-Snake River salmon.
According to last week's The Columbian, a group of scientists wants the National Marine Fisheries Service to remove the four lower Snake River dams to increase salmon runs to save the killer whale population. Reporter Erik Robinson points out:
Orcas aren't the only marine mammals that feast on salmon. On the Columbia River, California sea lions in recent years have turned Bonneville Dam into a buffet line of imperiled salmon.
Perhaps, as Robinson suggests there may be a win-win solution here because killer whales also devour other marine mammals, such as sea lions.
Removing the four lower Snake River dams in Washington would be costly. A Washington Research Council report found that removing the four lower Snake River dams to preserve salmon runs would add $300 million to electricity bills, $40 million to transportation costs, eliminate 37,000 acres of prime irrigated cropland, wipe out a minimum of 2,300 jobs and reduce annual personal income by $278 million.
Last April, Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) pegged the costs at $413 to $565 million each year to replace the power from the four lower Snake River Dams....that is if enough wind and replacement power from other sources can be found.
All that begs the question of increasing our "carbon footprint" by adding more trains and trucks to replace the barging of goods between Clarkston and Vancouver.
Removing those dams never made sense in the past, and doesn't make sense today. But to use saving the Orcas as the reason when we let the sea lions bloat themselves with the very salmon needed to perpetuate those runs defies logic. Robinson got it right.
