Richert: Obama did little for dam breaching advocates

The Obama administration’s salmon recovery plan has kept Snake River dam breaching on the table — but has moved it to about the farthest corner imaginable.

You’d think that this plan would be enough to satisfy the most ardent breaching opponents and dam status quo apologists. Apparently not.

Consider the overwrought reaction from Terry Flores of Northwest RiverPartners, a Portland group representing anti-breaching utilities, farmers, ports and businesses.

“Even talking about destroying the dams is nonsensical. Removal is an extreme and polarizing action that is not supported by the public or the science. ... It is time to stop listening to extreme advocates whose only real agenda is destroying dams and fundraising.” Even the dams have their “extreme advocates.”

Let’s keep a little perspective about what the Obama administration announced Tuesday.

• First and foremost, the administration kept largely intact a salmon recovery strategy inherited from a less-than-salmon friendly Bush White House. The Obama administration plans to fight for this plan before U.S. District Judge James Redden, who has already rejected two previous salmon plans.

• The plan suggests more of the same for Idaho’s Snake River sockeye salmon — a run that has been listed as endangered since 1991, and would likely benefit most from dam breaching. The administration says it might study mortality rates for young sockeye leaving the Sawtooths, and might consider transporting adult sockeye from Lower Granite Dam near Lewiston to the Sawtooths.

The sockeye plan centers on a continued “safety-net” hatchery breeding program. The feds say this program has been effective — and the Idaho Department of Fish and Game is forecasting the largest sockeye return since 1956. It also represents an aggressive federal effort to save the sockeye, said Bill McDonald, regional director of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in Boise.

• As for the fate of Lower Granite and the other three lower Snake River dams, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will immediately work on a “study plan” to figure out the research needed to examine breaching. Yes, a study of studies.

The feds say they need better information about the socioeconomic impacts of breaching, and would want more current data before ever removing the dams. They want to measure the long-term environmental benefits of breaching against the short-term pitfalls — the release of silt built up behind the dams. The administration will only get serious about studying dam removal — as “a contingency of last resort” — if salmon returns plummet to the low numbers last seen in the mid-1990s. Breaching would be an option only after four years of poor salmon runs. Consider how the salmon plan also discusses breaching’s “significant effects on local communities, the broader region and the environment,” and its leanings couldn’t be any clearer.

The dam advocates got more than they could have reasonably expected from the Obama administration. And probably more than the science supports.

The rest of the region certainly got the message. “I agree with the president that we should do everything we can to save salmon before anyone even considers a discussion of dam breaching,” Idaho Republican Sen. Jim Risch said Tuesday. “A discussion of breaching at this point is divisive and frustrates efforts we all agree upon.” In his rush to side with Obama, Risch undercut Idaho’s senior senator, fellow Republican Mike Crapo, who has said a regional negotiation on salmon recovery must include a discussion of breaching.

It is telling that Risch was so quick to praise the Obama salmon plan, when diehard salmon advocates were equally quick to criticize it. But there isn’t much for advocates to celebrate.

To its credit — and to no great surprise — the new administration is much more concerned about the connection between climate change and salmon recovery. Climate change factors much more heavily into the Obama plan, Bonneville Power Administration chief Steve Wright said Wednesday.

On the plus side, the plan also acknowledges the need to fund “data-driven life cycle modeling” for Idaho’s chinook and sockeye runs.

But this progress comes at a cost. This plan is a major setback on the breaching issue. No matter what some of the dam apologists would have you think.

When ‘sorry’ is the hardest word

Rep. Walt Minnick makes a good point about Rep. Joe “You Lie” Wilson and has a good explanation for voting to reprimand the South Carolina Republican.

Through spokesman John Foster, Minnick commended Wilson for apologizing to President Obama for his outburst last week. However, Minnick said Wilson owed his House colleagues an apology “for the serious breach of decorum and House rules.”

Does Wilson owe fellow House members an apology? Yeah, I think so.

Are House Democrats playing this for maximum effect? Sure. The formal reprimand, which passed Tuesday on largely a 240-179 party-line vote, certainly has partisan overtones.

But I’m not going to fault the House for setting a standard of protocol. Let’s face it, civility is on one serious losing streak — on the tennis courts at the U.S. Open, at the MTV Video Music Awards, and in the halls of Congress. Civility needs a few friends these days.

One good rule of civility: It’s generally better to apologize a little too much than to apologize not quite enough. And to those who view this issue only through a partisan lens, take heart. Minnick and fellow Democrats have now articulated the standard for behavior on the House floor. They’ll be forced to live by these words.

Kevin Richert: 377-6437 © 2009 Idaho Statesman