The Bush administration has dropped any pretense of providing serious long-term protection for endangered salmon species in the Pacific Northwest. Last Tuesday, the administration proposed to roll back restrictions on commercial development across millions of acres in California north to the Canadian border that had been designated four years ago as "critical habitat" essential to salmon recovery. The next day, the administration ruled out demolishing four dams on the lower Snake River - even as a last resort to save the fish.
Both announcements represented departures from the Clinton's administration's more robust approach to salmon recovery. Both also reflected the degree to which the administration is prepared to contort science and common sense to slide out from under its obligations under the Endangered Species Act to ensure long-term recovery of the fish instead of merely slowing their rate of decline.
Earlier this year, for instance, the administration proposed to count millions of hatchery-raised fish as wild fish - a bit of mathematical casuistry that would instantly make wild populations seem healthier than they are, undercut the need to keep wild salmon on the endangered species list and give the green light to federal agencies to drop protections against logging, homebuilding and other forms of commercial development.
But this was nowhere near as preposterous as its argument, in the dam ruling last week, that the dams were immutable parts of the landscape, like a mountain, and thus beyond the reach of the Endangered Species Act and "beyond the present discretion" of the government to remove them.
The administration offers endless justifications for its proposals, chiefly the insupportable claim that both dam removal and habitat protection would exact an unacceptable economic price. It also promises mitigating measures, including technological fixes to help the fish over and around the dams, and more "focused" habitat protection, albeit in a much smaller area than the fish's historical range. But clearly the administration's heart isn't in it. The underlying message here is that commercial interests come first, salmon second, even if history suggests that the two can comfortably coexist.
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Now, the big argument against breaching that they don't touch is:
Lewiston is Idaho's only port. It would suffer a tremendous economic loss if those dams are breached.
Here's a very lengthy article that I thought gave a good overview of the controversy:
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 4:01 am Posts: 19477 Location: Brooklyn NY
Nice
Maybe people should realize protecting the environment is more important than their economic well being. No comprimises.
On a side note: I went white water rafting on the Snake River when I was like 6 I think
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Last edited by glorified_version on Mon Dec 06, 2004 9:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 1:03 am Posts: 24177 Location: Australia
Dammit, is Bush ever going to do anything I agree with? One tiny little thing? It all just seems so incomprehensibly wrong.
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wow...bush having disregard for the environment...color me shocked!!
I mean he only canceled the deadline for automakers to have prototypes of vehicles with alternative fuel sources, dismissed all the lawsuits against major polluters who don't pay their fines....fuck i could go on all day!
Serisouly tho, is anyone truly suprised this administration is looking out for business and industry instead of the environment? Remember when the heads of homeland security and EPA said the 120,000+ chemical plants had poor security and were far too vulnerable to terrorist attakcs which would spread toxic shit throughout residential areas and instead of taking their advice he let the freakin industry come up with their own guidelines and then let them be VOLUNTARY???
Anyway what did you expect with a Sec of Interior who used to be a lawyer for the gas and oil and auto industry??
THey don't give a fuck about you or anyone other than their buddies. Fuck them all
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Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:51 pm Posts: 14534 Location: Mesa,AZ
glorified_version wrote:
Nice
Maybe people should realize protecting the environment is more important than their economic well being. No comprimises.
On a side note: I went white water rafting on the Snake River when I was like 6 I think
"No compromises" eh? That's the problem with your statement.
I think this is in some ways comparable to Glen Canyon Dam in AZ. The Sierra Club has been trying to have that thing demolished for quite awhile in order to save an endangered fish. A simple cost-benefit analysis shows why the idea is flawed.
Drain the lake
benefits -- Maybe save the fish
costs -- destroy the local economy, possible harm to the Grand Canyon, a big swamp of trash-filled mud left over
Should they have not built the dam? Maybe. Now that the dam is there should the get rid of it? No.
I don't know if it is the same situation with the Snake River, but I'll bet it's similar.
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Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:59 am Posts: 18643 Location: Raleigh, NC Gender: Male
Wonder if Bush will change his mind when the salmon industry in Washington and Oregon gets completely fucked. Then it WILL be a case of jobs being sacrificed because the environment was given to industries that damage it. THEN WHAT?
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:53 pm Posts: 20537 Location: The City Of Trees
$úñ_DëV|L wrote:
Should they have not built the [Glen Canyon] dam? Maybe. Now that the dam is there should the get rid of it? No.
I don't know if it is the same situation with the Snake River, but I'll bet it's similar.
It's definitely similar, but the potential benefits of removing the Snake River dams might be higher.
From that second article I posted:
Quote:
In 1997 the Idaho Statesman, the state's largest newspaper, published a three-part series arguing that breaching the four dams would net local taxpayers and the region's economy $183 million a year. That wasn't to say there wouldn't be an economic gut-punch: The Port of Lewiston would lose $34 million a year; the Bonneville Power Administration would be out an annual $85 million in construction bonds and up to $40 million in breaching costs, and would lose $250 million a year in sellable power. The benefits, the paper estimated, would arrive annually in the form of a $248 million boost in recreation and fishing and a $444 million savings in smolt-barging expenses, hatchery operations, and dam maintenance costs. The dams, the paper concluded, "are holding Idaho's economy hostage."
"That series was seismic," says Reed Burkholder, a Boise-based breaching advocate. Charlie Ray agrees. "We've won the scientific argument," he says. "And we've won the economic argument. We're spending more to drive the fish to extinction than it'd cost to revive them."
In fact, the economic argument is far from won. The Statesman's numbers are not unimpeachable. The quarter-of-a-billion-dollar boost in recreation and fishing hinges on the assumption that the salmon runs will return to pre-1960s levels, which fisheries experts say might take up to 24 years, if it happens at all. The $34 million lost at the Port of Lewiston each year, however, would be certain and immediate.
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