Idaho Statesman Is Snake River shipping worth enough to keep dams that harm salmon?

GT-Car-side-viewBy Rocky Barker

August 06, 2017

LEWISTON, IDL  For Idaho wheat farmers like Joe Anderson, staying competitive in international markets is critical to their future.

That’s why Anderson, a fourth-generation farmer from Genesee and a member of the Idaho Wheat Commission, met in June with delegations from China, Chile and Taiwan, negotiating contracts and showing off what the farmers can deliver. One of the advantages they tout is access through Lewiston to ship wheat on barges down the Snake and Columbia rivers, to Pacific ports.

“This river system is incredibly important as a competitive factor,” said Anderson.

Wheat farmers are nearly the only shippers still using the Snake River waterway, completed in 1975, that links Lewiston to the Pacific.

Shipping on the Snake has dropped by 70 percent since its peak in 1998. Other shippers have shifted to Puget Sound ports for hauling their products to Asia, and the various ports always had a hard time getting goods to move back upriver to Lewiston. Clearwater Paper Co., the major employer in the port 465 miles from the ocean, has moved its operations to rail — a major change from about two decades ago, the last time the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies considered removing four key Snake River dams in Washington.

Read the full story here at the Idaho Statesman.

For immediate release: Five myths about freight transportation on the Lower Snake River

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 

Five Myths about Freight Transportation on the Lower Snake River

dredging.pr2013July 22, 2013

Contact: Sam Mace, Inland NW Director, Save Our Wild Salmon 509-863-5696

Kevin Lewis, Conservation Director, Idaho Rivers United, 208-343-7481

Linwood Laughy, 208-926-7875

Five Myths about Freight Transportation on the Lower Snake River

Local citizen debunks misinformation about the value of the lower Snake River waterway

(Spokane) North Idaho resident Linwood Laughy has crunched the numbers used by the Corps of Engineers and the Port of Lewiston to justify the lower Snake River barge waterway and discovered their claims are grossly inaccurate and out of date.

Download the Five Myths Report (pdf) here.

Despite misleading claims that barging on the lower Snake River is efficient, environmentally benign, cost-effective and vital to the region’s economy, the reality is that the Snake corridor is an aging and increasingly obsolete mode of transportation that drains scarce taxpayer dollars from other pressing infrastructure needs. Barging on the lower Snake contributes only 5 percent of the total goods shipped on the larger Columbia system.

Laughy’s analysis, The Five Most Blatant Myths about Freight Transportation on the Lower Snake River, puts the lie to the arguments of government agencies with a vested interest in the status quo. Barging on the Snake River is not the most fuel-efficient method of transportation nor does it keep trucks off the highways. In fact, with farmers investing in new infrastructure such as the McCoy unit train loader near Oakesdale, WA, using truck-rail to move grain has become competitive with shipping by truck-barge.

Take Action for Wild Salmon, Good Jobs, and Clean Energy

sockeye-stream-quinnThe Obama Administration and Members of Congress need to hear from you. Please take a moment to send an important message.

 

 
Urge President Obama to protect the migration of our one-of-a-kind salmon to the best salmon habitat in the continental United States.
 
 
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Wild salmon and steelhead of the Columbia and Snake Rivers are a treasure to our nation and the Northwest’s ambassadors to the world. Their epic voyage – traveling from a mountain stream to the far reaches of the Pacific Rim, only to return to that very stream in which they were born – is symbolic of the journeys we all make.
Right now, four outdated dams on the lower Snake River are holding back solutions to the salmon crisis that will restore the salmon economy, create new jobs, revitalize communities, and build a clean energy future. These four dams severely limit access to thousands of miles of pristine habitat that provide salmon the best chance at survival in a warming climate. After almost $10 billion in US taxpayer dollars wasted on ineffective and illegal programs, the effects of this crisis can be felt across the country. The federal agencies in charge of managing this watershed continue to ignore the underlying fact: partial removal of the four lower Snake River dams is the best and most cost-effective way to recover wild salmon to abundance. It is not too late to restore a free-flowing Snake River and recover wild Snake River salmon for generations to come. The Time is Now: Please Take the Latest Action.

 

Latest News: Judge blasts federal salmon plan

Friday, December 07, 2007

Judge blasts latest federal salmon recovery plan

By Erik Robinson, Columbian Staff Writer

U.S. District Judge James Redden raised the possibility that, without substantial changes in favor of salmon, federal dam operators could even be held criminally or civilly liable.