US President Joe Biden announced this week that he is committed to working with lawmakers who have backed tearing down four hydropower dams in Washington to protect salmon species.
At a conservation event on Tuesday, Biden said he will work with tribes, the Washington senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, and the Idaho congressman Mike Simpson to “bring robust and prolific salmon runs back” to the Columbia River system. The president made no mention of agreeing to collaborate with lawmakers or business organizations that have vehemently opposed breaking the dams.
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“There are several major problems with glibly saying ‘we’re going to destroy the dams,'” said Todd Myers, the environmental director for the free market think tank Washington Policy Center. “The first is that it is contrary to science. The Army Corps of Engineers, NOAA Fisheries, and others did the most comprehensive scientific assessment of the dams ever a few years ago. And it concluded very clearly that we should keep the dams and that salmon can recover with the dams.”
“The Biden administration is going against the most comprehensive scientific assessment done by the federal government itself,” Myers continued.
Myers — who is also a member of the Puget Sound Salmon Recovery Council, a state agency created to study and inform government efforts to restore dwindling salmon — added that breaching the four lower Snake River dams would be a “remarkable waste” of tens of billions of dollars considering the relatively minor impact such a project would have on the species.
In addition, multiple government and private reports have determined that breaching the dams would have a dramatic impact on energy production, climate goals and transportation in Washington.
Story adapted from Fox News
