Opinion

By Joseph Bogaard
Special to The Seattle Times
April 2, 2026

Many runs of Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead — critical to our economy, culture, environment and way of life — are on the brink of extinction today. Thankfully, a federal judge in Portland just threw them a lifeline, ordering the federal agencies that manage eight dams on the lower Columbia and Snake rivers to spill more water over the top of those dams to help out-migrating fish get past their lethal turbines.

The court clearly recognized what’s at stake. The judge said in his 47-page decision that salmon and steelhead populations in the Columbia Basin have “dwindled to near extinction levels.”

This is no small matter. Wild salmon and steelhead, he wrote, are “one of the foundational symbols of the West, a critical recreational, cultural, and economic driver for Western states, and the beating heart and guaranteed resource protected by treaties with several Native American tribes.”

The decision, handed down Feb. 25, marks a victory for salmon. It’s also a victory for those whose livelihoods are connected to salmon; for tribes who have fought for decades to restore salmon; for endangered resident orca whales that depend on healthy salmon runs; and for all of us who care about our region’s health, vibrancy and future.

Many of us applaud the tribes, the states of Washington and Oregon, and the nongovernmental organizations and their lawyers at Earthjustice who secured these emergency measures.

But let’s be clear: They did so out of necessity.

After years of trying to get federal dam operators to comply with the law (and winning repeatedly in federal court), the tribes, states, and conservation and fishing NGOs agreed to halt long-running litigation in exchange for a far-reaching collaborative agreement to enhance fish habitat and develop clean energy projects. Unfortunately, the Trump administration torpedoed the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement last June, leaving court-ordered emergency measures as the only near-term option to protect these salmon and steelhead stocks from further declines.

Even with this ruling, the effort to recover Columbia Basin salmon populations and the habitat they need to survive is far from complete. Science clearly shows that the only way we can return wild fish to healthy and abundant levels is if we restore the lower Snake River — the largest tributary to the Columbia River — and make other long-term changes to hydro operations. Numerous studies have identified the federal dams and their warm-water reservoirs as the single greatest source of human-caused mortality for these endangered populations.

In an effort to maintain the status quo, defendants in the case — federal agencies, industrial river users and utility companies — raised the bogeyman of higher energy bills for ratepayers if the court ordered higher spill levels. The Bonneville Power Administration, the region’s largest energy supplier, echoed this alarmist rhetoric, claiming the court order will cost it $140 million annually, even though BPA Administrator John Hairston told Congress last year that similar operations would save ratepayers $1 million annually.

In last month’s ruling, the judge called out the defendants’ “disappointing history of avoidance and manipulation instead of sincere efforts at solving the problem and genuinely remediating the harm.” BPA’s rhetoric is more of the same.

In truth, the court’s ruling mandates dam operations nearly identical to ones implemented in 2024 and 2025. Despite BPA claims, these did not diminish reliability or raise rates. Importantly, the court’s recent order also includes offramps — as it did in the past — that allow BPA to modify operations should a risk to power system reliability arise.

Some customers may face higher energy costs due to BPA’s actions — but let’s be clear: It’s not due to increased spill. Energy experts agree that it’s largely tied to BPA’s ill-considered decision to join an Arkansas-based energy trading market. The move is currently scheduled for October 2028 and could increase regional power costs by as much as $221 million annually, according to BPA’s own analysis. As a result, five Northwest groups have filed a legal challenge to BPA’s market choice, arguing it violates federal law.

A smart energy plan is central to our region’s future. And salmon are at the heart of our special way of life. In this critical moment for both salmon and energy, the recent court decision gives our region another opportunity to work together on comprehensive solutions — policies that can safeguard salmon, bolster orcas, uphold tribal treaty rights and develop a more sustainable energy system.

We urge our policymakers and Northwest people to meet this moment. A judge’s ruling has opened the door. It’s imperative we now step through it and work on lasting solutions for salmon, tribes and our communities.

Joseph Bogaard is the executive director of the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition in Seattle.

Seattle Times Guest Opinion: Ruling on Columbia, Snake dams was a lifeline for salmon

I am an English Channel swimmer who trains in the Snake River at Wawaii near where I live. For a good part of the last two summers, toxic blue algae blooms, a result of the increasingly high water temperature caused by the lower Snake River dams, have kept me from training. The blooms appear in the stillest parts of the river and if consumed cause severe liver damage to human beings and kill dogs.

I am therefore deeply encouraged by the decision of a U.S. District judge last month that required federal dam operators to take emergency measures to protect our Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead as well as citizens who use the Snake for recreation. The preliminary injunction requires increased spill over eight federal dams in the spring and summer.

This increase in water going over the tops of dams is critical to out-migrating juvenile salmon, enabling them to get past the dams without going through a gauntlet of lethal turbines and lowering the water temperature to prevent toxic blue algae blooms. Without this policy change, Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead, particularly those that return to the Snake River to spawn, are in dire straits.

Ultimately, all of the lower Snake River dams need to be removed to prevent the growing threat of extinction to many iconic fish species and to promote a healthy river for all. For now, I’m celebrating the court decision that takes the first steps of providing much-needed relief for an unhealthy river.

Amy G. Mazur

Moscow

Lewiston Tribune: Need for healthy rivers

© Dave McCoy

Opinion By Tess McEnroe
March 13, 2026

I’ve been reading rivers my whole adult life and have spent 22 years guiding around the west, mostly in Idaho on the Salmon River.

The way water moves around a boulder, the way a current bends through a canyon, the way a riffle gives way to a pool — guides understand what the river is saying. Rivers are the lifeblood of the planet, the freshwater veins of the Earth connecting ecosystems, people, and economies. Right now, the Snake River is telling us we’re running out of time.

The recent court ruling granting emergency measures for Snake and Columbia River salmon is a genuine victory — for the fish, for the Northwest, and frankly, for anyone who believes this region still has a soul worth protecting. I’ve watched a lot of well-intentioned efforts come and go on this river and have seen fish declines first hand from my boat.

These emergency measures are necessary, but let’s be clear — they are not sufficient.

The best science tells us that if we truly want to bring salmon back to healthy and abundant levels, we need to restore the lower Snake River. That means removing the four lower Snake River dams. I’ve spent over two decades watching these fish runs decline where once there were too many to count. I’ve communicated the science enough to know what the biologists are telling us. Incremental measures alone like increasing spills will not get us or the salmon where we need to go.

The stakes go well beyond livelihoods, though they include that too. Think about what salmon mean to this region. They are central to our identity — woven into the culture, spirituality, and sovereignty of the Tribes who have fished these rivers since time immemorial. They feed the forests. They anchor an outdoor economy that generates hundreds of millions of dollars annually and supports thousands of jobs, many of them in rural communities along the coast and deep in Idaho and Oregon. The commercial and recreational fishing industries that depend on healthy runs are not an abstraction to me. They’re my neighbors. They’re my clients. They’re the economy of places that tend to get forgotten in policy debates.

I am not naive about what recovery requires. It requires investment in communities that currently depend on the dams for power and irrigation, in our energy grid, in the transition toward solutions that don’t come at the cost of the fish. It requires the kind of holistic, stakeholder-driven process that takes time and political will. It requires our elected leaders in the Northwest to step up, work in genuine partnership with the Tribes, and craft solutions that honor all of these needs at once.

I’ve also watched thousands of people from all over the country come to this river — people who have never been to Idaho in their lives — and the moment they see a wild Chinook digging her redd, spawning on a gravel bed, something changes in them. They go quiet. There is something in these fish that speaks to people at a level that goes beyond policy or economics.

Are the people who are making these decisions to keep the dams — have they ever seen a wild, healthy Chinook deep in the heart of the Idaho backcountry? Have they listened to the Nimipuu stories of fishing who no longer have their share? Have they seen the toxic algae blooms at the beach with their children?

That’s what’s at stake. Not just a species. Not just an industry. Something that belongs to all of us, and that we are close to losing for good.

We can either continue to drain deadbeat dams, or we can create a legacy and be a part of the biggest river restoration in modern history, ensuring that a keystone species survives so that the next generation can also know what salmon are and mean to so many.

The river is talking. The fish need us to listen.

Tess McEnroe is a river guide and conservationist living in Missoula, Montana. She has seen salmon populations decline in the pristine fish habitat in North America on the Main and Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho for over 20 years directly from her boat.

Idaho Statesman Opinion: Running out of time: Breach the Snake River dams not to save salmon

Re: “Federal judge orders protections for salmon on Columbia River” (Feb. 26, Climate Lab):

As an ecologist who has lived in this area for over 35 years, I was encouraged to read that a federal judge has ordered operational changes to eight dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers in order to lessen their harm to wild salmon and steelhead.

These magnificent fish impart far-reaching ecological gifts. The body of each Pacific salmon is a dense packet of marine nutrients built up during their years of growth in the ocean. Their return to our rivers and streams nourishes plants, trees, our soil and our wildlife, supporting not only aquatic food webs, but also land-based ones. These systems, when healthy, provide the foundations of our prosperity. Without healthy salmon runs, entire systems that we depend on for our own well-being will be less productive and our own lives poorer.

From what I understand, the ruling did not do everything that many of us had hoped for, but it still represents much-needed progress in our effort to protect salmon. Knowing what we know about the ecological, cultural and economic importance of Pacific salmon, it would be unconscionable to not do everything we can to restore these runs for ourselves and for the future.

James Evans,

Vashon

Seattle-Times Letters to the Editor: Salmon: Much-needed progress

A federal judge’s ruling this week that dam operators need to take steps to mitigate the harm their dams inflict on Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead was extremely welcome news.

Let’s be clear about what’s at stake. As many as 16 million adult salmon and steelhead used to return to the basin. Now, the annual return is under 2.5 million, and the vast majority of them are produced in hatcheries. Many Columbia-Snake River Basin populations are gone forever; 13 of those that remain are listed under the Endangered Species Act.

It is not alarmist to say that we’re running out of time. Thankfully, the federal judge in this case recognized that, as well, noting in his decision that the threats facing salmon and steelhead are “dire and immediate.”

His decision is an important step in the long-running effort to save Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead from extinction. To be sure, much more work still needs to be done. But right now, I want to celebrate a moment of good news in our region’s decadeslong effort to ensure wild salmon survive and recover.

Scott Putnam

Lewiston

Spokesman-Review Letters to the Editor: Hydropower changes to help salmon

Lower Snake River Dam ©EcoFlight
By Sarah Dyrdahl Special to the Herald
February 22, 2026 5:00 AM

In 2023 and 2024, the Washington State Legislature acted with clear foresight, directing state agencies to evaluate options for maintaining water, energy, recreation, and transportation services in the absence of the four lower Snake River dams.

With the dams’ future long the subject of debate, investing in these studies is prudent. It means the Northwest will be informed and ready to adapt with resilient alternatives should Congress decide the dams must be removed.

That remains a possibility, one that would honor tribal treaties, help restore the once-great salmon runs of the Snake River basin, and prevent the extinction of our region’s endangered Southern Resident orcas.

The four studies are underway, and they already show viable alternatives for continuing the services the lower Snake dams currently provide.

Let’s begin with transportation. It turns out that ending barge portage of wheat, fertilizer, and some wood products along the lower Snake River could have surprising benefits.

A recent analysis by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) shows that shifting from barge to rail would reduce how far trucks have to travel from farms to rail terminals or river ports by about 18 million miles every year.

That reduction would lower annual emissions by approximately 29,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. Cleaner air and less road wear and tear are some of the other obvious benefits.

How much would this change cost? The same WSDOT analysis shows a total annual increase of $8 million to farming enterprises. Farm support to offset this amount would be justified, considering taxpayers are projected to spend $4.5 billion to $8.35 billion over the next 50 years to keep the four dams, and this eye-popping expenditure would no longer be needed.

The study by WSDOT is progressing on schedule, with a final report due to the legislature by this December.

On water supply, we know the reservoir behind Ice Harbor Dam irrigates up to 55,000 acres of farmland, and Lewiston and Clarkston use the reservoir behind Lower Granite Dam for municipal water. In their draft study last year, the Washington Department of Ecology and the Bureau of Reclamation found there will be more than enough water in a free-flowing lower Snake River to cover these needs. Ecology is expected to release the final study by early summer.

The Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office and the Department of Fish and Wildlife are expected to analyze the business opportunities for recreational activities on 140 miles of free-flowing river. The possibilities here are exciting and endless, including increased fishing and the potential to create the state’s only multi-day rafting experience.

The proposed study would generate hard economic numbers on the significant recreation jobs and revenue that would result for our local and regional economy.

Globally, nature-based tourism generates more than $600 billion a year, and Washington’s unique river and mountain ecosystems offer us the chance to bite into a bigger slice of this pie.

Finally, we want to address the state study into the hydropower the four lower Snake dams produce. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) completed phase one of this study last year.

It determined that the dams produce an average of 700 megawatts each year, far less than is usually stated. Water availability, grid constraints, and ensuring critical fish passage impact the dams’ energy production, which is less than 4% of the Northwest’s total average power generation.

The PNNL report shows the lower Snake River dams are not designed to significantly increase output when it’s most needed, particularly during extreme weather events. Further, their role is overshadowed by upriver federal storage dams.

It also found that because the lower Snake dams are dependent on seasonal stream flows, their future contributions will likely be reduced as the region trends toward less snowpack.

PNNL acknowledged the local grid support that the dams provide to the Tri-Cities.

Other national studies show that strategically placed battery storage can provide the fastest reactive power for communities and grid support.

Governor Bob Ferguson has asked that the full energy study be completed by 2027.

These state studies are not authorized to decide the fate of the dams on the lower Snake River. Their power and purpose rest in preparing all of us for such an eventuality. American Rivers is grateful they are happening, so communities are ready, and so the intertwined environment and economy all life depends upon in the Northwest can continue to thrive into the future.

Sarah Dyrdahl is a watershed ecologist who has worked throughout Washington, Oregon, and Alaska for over 20 years. She is the Northwest Regional Director for American Rivers, a national conservation organization working to make every river clean and healthy for people and wildlife. She lives in Eugene, Oregon.

Tri-City Herald | Opinion | Removing Snake River dams could have surprising benefits