Myers: Focusing On Snake River Dam Removal A “Distraction”

On Friday, the federal government, including the Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Bonneville Power Administration released its draft Environmental Impact Statement, which opposed removing the four lower Snake River dams. Todd Myers, Center for the Environment Director for Washington Policy Center, said Friday’s report shows that tearing down the dams does not make sense, having both very high environmental costs, in terms of increase CO2 emissions, and very high economic costs.

“The lesson that we’ve learned again is that rather than being distracted by the Snake River Dams, if we care about salmon, and orca we should focus on Puget Sound where our biggest problems for salmon recovery are and where orca rely on salmon for their primary food source.”

Myers noted that supporters of breaching the Snake River dams don’t have a plan to pay for such a removal effort. He said moving forward all parties should come together and focus on funding efforts that have already proven successful to help salmon numbers in the Snake river.

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