Thought this may interest some:

SALMON, DAMS, AND WE THE PEOPLE
An evening with David James Duncan
April 29, 2004
Doors open at 6:00 pm for book signing, silent auction, and light refreshments
Program begins at 7:30 pm
Town Hall
Eighth and Seneca, Seattle (1119 Eighth Avenue)

Special appearance by Yvon Chouinard, owner/founder of Patagonia

David James Duncan is the author of The River Why and The Brothers K, and a
collection of memoir and short stories, River Teeth. His most recent book,
My Story as Told by Water, won the Western States Book Award and was
nominated for the 2001 National Book Award. Duncan has read and lectured
all over the United States on wilderness, the writing life, the nonmonastic
contemplative life, the fly fishing life, and nonreligious literature of
faith.

Tickets are $10, and are available at:
Elliott Bay Book Company (206) 624-6600, Patagonia (206) 622-9700, or at
the door. Event sponsored by Patagonia. Proceeds from ticket sales and
silent auction will benefit Save Our Wild Salmon (www.wildsalmon.org). For
more information about the event, contact Darcie Larson at Save Our Wild
Salmon (206) 286-4455 x10, or darcie@wildsalmon.org.

Silent auction featuring Patagonia products, Outdoor Odysseys Sea Kayaking
Tours, professionally guided Olympic Peninsula fly fishing trips, Sage fly
rod, Outcast Lake Cat 7000 Pontoon Boat from Kaufmann's Streamborn, Kelty,
Dana Design, Maxim Climbing Rope, Outdoor Research, KAVU, Ex Officio,
Turtle Fur, Vasque, Chaco, Wilderness Press, Montrail, Marmot, prAna, and
much more!

This is not a gillnetter backed event! SOS simply a coalition of organizations which are fighting for the removal of dams on the Snake River. Some of those groups are commericals and tribes but so is the Sierra club and Oregon Trout! How does this event in any way, directly or indirectly, support gillnetters? They're raising money for SOS and having a lecture on salmon recovery and dams, period.

"Save Our Wild Salmon (SOS) is a nationwide coalition of more than 50 conservation organizations, sport and commercial fishing associations, businesses, river groups and taxpayer advocates collaborating to protect and restore sustainable wild runs of America's Pacific Northwest salmon and steelhead, and the habitats that they depend upon. We currently have offices in Seattle, Boise, Portland, Spokane, and Washington DC."

Here's a list of some of the groups who support SOS. http://www.wildsalmon.org/about/about_sos.htm

So you deny that dams are a factor in the decline of wild salmon populations? Hillarious!!

This does not even indirectly support gillnetters. It supports a cause, not any one member. Personally, I don't support the Sierra club, but their endorsement of dam removal doesn't mean it's a bad idea.

When salmon/steelhead recovery is being discussd, strange bedfellows do arise.

Well now the world has turned upside down, as here I am defending Aunty (who can certainly take care of herself). But I don't think Aunty meant to or did imply that the dams aren't a factor in salmon declines. What she said was that commerical fishing interests like to keep the subject on dams and other habitat issues because it keeps people from talking about the impacts they are responsible for (which is true), and she doesn't want to support that approach. I have to say I simpathize.

The dams are a major factor in Columbia River salmon and steelhead declines; no question they should go. I support SOS in their endevours in that regard. I do wish they were a little less sanguine about the other factors that have contributed to salmon declines and that are jeaopardizing their recovery.

Aunty,

Even if this event is peripherally linked to gillnetters, they ultimately want the same thing you do, more fish.

Improving habitat (ie removing dams) is the best way to meet those aims. It may be the only way to save some of the upper snake and columbia runs.

If they are about improving habitat, why not support it? That they don't pass your ideological purity test somehow seems weak to me.

Would you see some fish runs extirpated just so the gillnetters can't fish them?

I'm confused because that's what your previous posts seems to imply.

Aunty,

Do you honestly think it matters how a fish from an endangered run dies? It makes no difference whether its caught in a gill net, or a tangle net, or by a charter boat client, or of hooking mortality under CNR it is still dead.
There have been years of no fishing, but the fish didn't rebound. The reason is because overfishing isn't the problem habitat devastation is the problem.

Banning all netting tomorrow wouldn't solve the problems on the Columbia. Sombody else would step in to catch those fish by whatever means necessary.
However, removing dams might help quite a bit. Compare the fraser to the columbia. The big difference is the state of the habitat not fishing pressure.

Why focus on a solution that won't work?

Don't get me wrong, I think gillnets are terrible from the fishes standpoint, but not nearly so terrible as bonneville or grand coulee.

Like I've said before, Overfishing is a temporary problem. Habitat destruction is nearly permanent.

Aunty,

To say that gillnetters want to catch endangered salmon is not the most intelligent thought you have posted.
Bristol Bay Alaska has the most intense commercial fishery in the world and has had for over 100 years. The runs there are at historic levels. Habitat and management are the differences between there and the CR.
I believe the fish would benefit from all groups working together on habitat issues.

Here's a question for anyone to jump in on.....Do you think there is ANY chance of getting dams removed on the Columbia River? ( I ask this not knowing whether all dams on the river are power generators) I would think that if the dams you want removed provide power in substantial quantities, that you are wasting your life (not a misprint).

Kinda funny... where are the fish bonkers ??? You would think as passionate as they are about anything involving the killing of wild fish they would be all over this...

Its a fact.... that the dams are going nowhere. As cool as that would be, its just not going to happen.

Its a fact.... that if you can't agree on something as simple as WSR as a first step in the process of rebuilding runs of wild steelhead... you have no chance of taking on nets, tribes, commercials or dams.

Its a fact.... that the same people who want to oppose any plan.... have no plan... and are just blowing poop whenever they post.

Its a fact.... that the commercials and tribes are counting on these same blockheads to keep fighting for them ( and they are to stupid to know it )

Its a fact.... that John Luke fancy pants or who ever it was that wants to talk to the people of Washington state about dam removal on the snake river would be taking a step in the right direction to focus on things that can make a difference... but that would not serve his real agenda... which has nothing to do with saving fish or helping sportsmen....

Its a fact.... that this post is rambling, and I appolgize... but believe what I am saying.

As for the dams I disagree. The dams will come down. Probably not in my lifetime, but they will not last forever. Many many dams are coming down in the midwest and east coasts because their dams have become so old they have to be removed for safety.

Age grand coulee a couple of hundred years and/or add a 8.0+ earthquakes and it too will be gone.

Human daming of the columbia is nowhere near the worst catastrophe salmon have endured over geologic time on the columbia river. There have been cataclysmic floods, ice dams, volcanic eruptions, glacial intrusions, etc.
They will come back as soon as there is habitat to support them. It would be nice if we could help speed up the process. Unfortunately an energy alternative will be necessary to remove the big power generating dams (ie grand coulee).

The snake dams don't make any sense on the national level. We subsidize farming via lirrigation dams in the deserts of washington and idaho while we pay farmers in the midwest not to farm where no irrigation is needed at all. Why not tear down the snake dams, make up for the lost acreage by bringing the fallow acres in the midwest back online and save a ton of federal $. Oh, and we get to help endangered salmon. What's not to like about this plan?

Aunty, I am not terribly familiar with the habits of the CR gillnetters, but I won't defend them. I don't doubt they are greedy. This is the nature of extractive industries, especially those that extract public resources. Always looking for the quick $.

Geo,

I'm going to have to agree with you 110% on that one...the only folks who really think they need the dams are the farmers over there on the Snake River, and the only reason they think that is that their government tells them they do.

The funny thing is, though, their government knows that they don't need the dams, and even if they did need the dams, their government wouldn't care.

The farmers, the dams, the fish, the COE budget, the farming subsidies, the electrical power lobby, and us, the general public...we are all tools in the grand game of politics, and the dam issue on the Snake River is one of the most blatant examples of how all that game works that I can think of.

As tools in the game, all are there to be held up as the most important thing in the world, downgraded in importance, relegated to merely convenient, denigrated as unhelpful, demonized as the cause of the problem, and ultimately, sold off for support on a different issue. And each and every one of those tools can occupy one or all of those "levels" at any given time...in fact, most of them occupy every level at all times, depending on who you ask, or who is saying.

If there are commercial fishermen and timber companies that support SOS, fine. What happens if dams actually are removed/fixed so that fish passage becomes a reality? Who's next on the chopping block for fish advocates?

Sounds a lot like the argument on the WSR threads...if we want to stop the tribal netting, let's make them the only ones killing wild steelhead, get PR on our side, and then see how the "stewards of the resource" look in the public eye.

The money that would be lost to power production would be more than made up by the money saved in fish expenditures...

...but, as long as the fight appears to be fish vs. farmers, there will be a fight...and as long as there is a fight, there are those who will fight for you, and those people like having their offices in D.C. and being called "Mr. Senator" or "Ms. Congresswoman".

The fight will always be defined by those who want to be representatives in the fight as a political fight...it will always be liberal vs. conservative...

-environmentalists vs. farmers
-urban elite demos from Seattle vs. salt of the earth republicans in E. Wa
-fiscally responsible demos vs. ignorant rednecks
-people who love fish vs. people who love their families
-scientists vs. money

...etc., etc., etc...

To me, the real question has only a couple factors in it...

1. How much do the dams cost to be there? (meaning, what is the monetary value of the environmental damage being done?)

2. How much will it cost if they are gone? (meaning, what is the monetary value of the irrigation, shipping, and power production that will be lost?)

3. If the dams are removed, will the reductions of costs in #1 outweigh the loss of $$ due to #2?

4. What other, seemingly unrelated, but very connected, issues are there?

From what I think I know, the dams have an enormous environmental price tag, which besides costing the fish and the river, cost all of us taxpayers an unbelievable amount of money to get any fish back over there.

I also know that there is some agricultural, shipping, and power production values to the dams, but...

Every study I've seen says that the $$ lost to #2 would be insignificant compared to the $$ value gained by #1.

Also, the farming industry may lose $$ due to a lower amount of water available for irrigation...but what if the fish in the Snake were eventually taken off the ESA list? How much cheaper would it be for them to do business then?

The hard part to figure in is that gains in economic value will be in different sectors than those that suffer the losses.

So a few farmers lose their farms, maybe a few tens of millions of dollars? The downstream folks not only make all that money up in higher product prices for the other farmers, not to mention the commercial fishermen, and the communities that depend on sport fishing...heck, they might make up five or ten times as much money as those few farmers lost.

Looks good on paper...should be simple enough to explain it to the farmers who are going to lose their land and livelihood to take one for the team, right? Yeah....right.

As long as there is a fight to be fought, there will be someone to fight it, and if the fight is not really there, someone who wants to fight will make one up, pick a side, pick an opponent, and go.

Believe it or not, there is a point to what I'm saying, and even if you never thought I'd get to it, here it is...drum roll please...

We need term limits with teeth. The power struggles in D.C. are the cause of 90% of the problems in our country. You know what the first task looked at on the first day in office by any elected official? Beginning the re-election campaign...and the two, four, or six years between now and then is all re-election campaign.

What if they can't get re-elected, legally? Might they have to actually do some work without thinking about their re-election campaign? God forbid something else might step up as most important in their decision making...

"Politicians and diapers need to be changed often...and for the same reason".

(rant ends, steps off soap box, sprains ankle, gets kicked in ribs by one democrat, one republican, and two independents...anarchist runs up to help him up...but sees GAP delivery truck drive by...and accidentally kicks me with his NIKEs as he runs after truck, waving fist in air...I crawl towards coffee machine...)

Fish on...

Todd

Oh, yeah...by the way...

I intend to go to see Duncan's talk...he's a brilliant writer, and maybe even a better speaker. It'll be fun...

Fish on...

Todd

"Its a fact.... that if you can't agree on something as simple as WSR as a first step in the process of rebuilding runs of wild steelhead... you have no chance of taking on nets, tribes, commercials or dams.

Its a fact.... that the same people who want to oppose any plan.... have no plan... and are just blowing poop whenever they post."


HOW BRILLIANT!!!

"Its a fact.... that the same people who want to oppose any plan.... have no plan... and are just blowing poop whenever they post."

Thats the most intelligent thing that I've heard from the PRO camp to date!

My, Oh, My, Todd......you ARE da man!! I typically can't stand long posts.....kinda like listening to someone who likes to listen to himself, if you know what I mean.

BUT, your post expresses quite concisely just how impossibly difficult and complicated dam removal is in today's world. My hat's off to you, sir.

I am typically a fighter for what I believe to be right, but some battles are for dreamers.....young dreamers.