July 20, 2000

Dam removal would take at least 10 years

By JOHN HUGHES
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON -- The Snake River dams will stand for at least 10 years -- and as long as 15 years -- under the most aggressive dam-removal scenario the Clinton administration can envision, an administration official says.

The disclosure is another blow to environmentalists, who had hoped the four structures in southeastern Washington state could be breached as early as 2007 in the interests of reviving imperiled salmon runs.

A Clinton administration official, who spoke Tuesday on a condition of anonymity, said agency heads will decide in five, eight or 10 years whether dam removal is needed, though the exact timing of the decision hasn't been set.

Under the most aggressive scenario -- that the officials decide in 2005 that breaching is needed -- the dams will stand at least until 2010 or 2015, the official said.

The reason? It would take years to gain congressional approval, obtain the needed funds and finish the studies that would lead up to the job.

"We're looking at least a decade or longer," the official said. "It is not going to happen overnight."

The disclosure came as senior administration officials prepared to tell Congress in aggressive terms why they want to improve salmon habitat, restrict harvests and increase stream flows to help the fish runs recover -- rather than breach dams, according to the official and a draft of congressional testimony.

George Frampton, who heads the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and Will Stelle, the National Marine Fisheries Service's top official in the Pacific Northwest, planned to lay out their recovery strategy before the Senate's water and power subcommittee Wednesday.

Rather than pursue dam breaching, which the officials characterize as an overly simplistic approach, Stelle and Frampton planned to tell the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee panel that their approach is more comprehensive and will take great sacrifice by hydropower operators, state and tribal governments, businesses and countless others across the region.

The strategy, which includes making adjustments at dams, reforming hatcheries and improving estuaries, will require rigorous monitoring and performance standards, the prepared testimony indicated. Congress will need to be willing to fund the effort, though officials don't yet know how much it will cost.

Academic experts will review the strategy, and engineering and economic studies related to dam breaching will continue in case the plan doesn't work.

Stelle said in a draft of his testimony that Snake dam removal "has become for some the litmus test for salmon recovery. It should not be so."

There is "scientific uncertainty" about whether dam breaching is needed; only Snake stocks -- not other listed fish -- would benefit from breaching; dam removal could not be implemented quickly; and the high cost of removal would preclude the agency from taking other actions, Stelle said.

"Dam removal may in the end prove to be necessary, but it is not the place to start," he said.

Trout Unlimited, an environmental group, obtained a draft of Stelle's testimony and released it Tuesday.

"We do not view this as good news," said Jeff Curtis, western conservation director for Trout Unlimited in Portland, Ore. "While dam breaching is not the silver bullet, it's one of the bullets you need."

Brian Gorman, a spokesman for Stelle, said Stelle's testimony has been changed considerably since the draft, but the substance of the testimony remained the same.

Federal agencies on July 27 plan to release two draft plans that will set a course for the recovery of 13 endangered and threatened salmon stocks all across the Columbia Basin.

The two documents, the biological opinion and the basin-wide Recovery Strategy -- formerly known as the All-H paper -- will together be the most comprehensive plan federal officials say they have ever proposed for salmon recovery in the basin.

The draft documents could become final later this year, but they will not settle the larger debate about the 100-foot-high Lower Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monumental and Ice Harbor dams.

Environmentalists plan to file lawsuits and try to get a judge to order what the administration is initially refusing to do.