Another nail in the coffin

[BigHornRam]

MattK,

I've done some calculating and a 603 foot dam at Lolo would put the high water mark right to the edge of my property. I can already see the Como Peaks and El Capitan reflecting across my pond. Even better, the dink in the homeowners association would be 50 feet under water. He got all pissy with me this fall for putting up a meat pole in my front yard. I said show me where in the CC&R's does it say I can't have a meat pole in my front yard. He couldn't.

Anyway I don't think much of you bucket biologist ideas of planting Northern Pike. I was thinking more on the lines of Phirana's. That would keep the riff raff from Missoula from coming up here and swimming in my pond.

 

[MattK]

BHR- That would mean a 650 foot dam would be just about right. You could plant it with anything you wanted.

 

[sra61]

You libs amaze me. I can't believe how hateful and nasty you people are. There are the facts and there is the way you want it to be. Get a clue. I don't need to lower myself to that level. It's enough to know that we have the best people in Washington in office now, and I think speaks volumes that every election more seats are taken by republicans! Perhaps the radical left needs to rethink their positions, and come to the realization that they have wandered way too far left, so far that noone can identify with them anymore! When you libs strike out with the personal attacks it only makes it that much more obvious that we are on the right track!
Good day, I have a job.
Steve

 

[Calif. Hunter]

I think that everyone should be welcome to voice their views and opinions here, and the personal attacks or disparaging remarks should not be made. If someone (here or anywhere else) is simply intimidated from speaking out or asking questions, then their mind is made up on that basis of their present state of knowledge....and they will vote that way. If someone is wrong, take the time to explain how they are wrong or point out their errors, rather than call them stupid. Do you want to win the argument, or do you want to win the goal you are striving towards? Are you trying to persuade people or just show off? After all, the audience is made up of people who do not post, as well as those who do. Derogatory comments may well sway more people against your position.

 

[BigHornRam]

Gunner,

I can fish for a wild salmon if I want, just can't keep it. Don't you believe in catch and release? You must only believe in net and kill.

"And just so you don't ever make the same stupid comments again, there are 1000's of miles of Idaho water that needs salmon "re-introduced". You ever hear of the Weiser drainage, or the Payette drainages, or the Boise Drainages? or the Owyhee drainages???"

You can re-introduce salmon in these drainages if you want, but I would think it to be a waste of time, even if you were to succeed in breaching the 4 Snake River dams in question. What do the "biologist" think?

 

[JoseCuervo]

Gunner,

I can fish for a wild salmon if I want, just can't keep it. Don't you believe in catch and release? You must only believe in net and kill.

Thank you for showing just how stupid you are, and for letting us all know of your complete disregard for the State of Idaho's Fish and Game laws. I would suggest you hire a good attorney if you intend to continue breaking the laws of Idaho. And if you continue to break our state's Fish and Game Laws, I would encourage you to get some sort of "Road Hazzard" warranty for your vehicle's tires, as poachers like you often find flat tires on your vehicles. It makes it easier to allow the Enforcement Officer to find you....

I would encourage you to pick up a copy of Idaho's Fishing Regulations prior to your next trip. And if you would find somebody smart enough to read them, please have them read Page 64 to you. Ask them to read the section on Andronamous Salmon . And if you could read the sentence that says it is "against State and Federal Law to fish for, harass, or harvest these fish".


Once again, you have shown you don't know anything about Salmon issues in Idaho, and you have revealed your complete and total disregard for the State of Idaho's and the Federal Government's Fish and Game Laws. I hope you abide by the State of MT's laws on occasion, given your standing in the sheep community up there.

 

[MattK]

Stevie- I believe your first sentence says it all "I can't believe you libs..." Who's name calling?

Also, if you look at the first negative comment it would have come from BHR. Nice try putting it on us "libs". The biggest name calling seems to have been done by ringer. The facts seem to be lost when you were reading.

The topic deals with breaching dams which I feel would be a great idea. The removal of the dams would be expensive but GW is good at spending money (even for tearing things apart). We just need a phony excuse and he should be all in.

 

[BigHornRam]

Good god MattK,

First you want to breach a bunch of dams, and then you want to build a massive 650 footer. You must have got your monthly supply of medical marajana this morning and used it all up.

Since you feel it would be a great idea to breach these dams, can you name all 5 of them?

 

[Ithaca 37]

BHR, Now that you've told us you feel that you're entitled to break Idaho F&G laws you've lost even the tiny bit of credibility you had.

 

[MattK]

BHR- First, I wasn't really serious about the "gigantic dam". Although it would be nice to flood out a few of the transplants in the area. I do believe pike are already in the Bitteroot but I am not sure.

As for the names how about...four lower Snake River dams Lower Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monumental and Ice Harbor. If you notice only four! The article also stated the breaching of four dams. You may want to get off the wacky weed as I feel you may have been kicked out of school for using a little too much. Maybe going back to school would help. I would recommend reading comprehension. I don't know where the fifth dam is...

 

[BigHornRam]

IT,

Have you ever caught a Bull Trout? If so what did you do with it? Did you ever catch a stealhead slamon with the a fin attached? What did you do with it?

MattK,

I'll give you little credit here. I was fishing and you stole my bait! Just checking to see if you were on top of things.

But you were wrong about who made the first negative comment on this thread. I believe the last line in the second post was the first. That was Cali's biologist brother's remark about welfare farmers. It was a ill informed remark by an ill informed person, and I took offense to it, and gave it right back to him. If that's being negative, then tough shit.

 

[JoseCuervo]

IT,

Have you ever caught a Bull Trout? If so what did you do with it? Did you ever catch a stealhead slamon with the a fin attached? What did you do with it?
.

Paul,
Go read the regulations, before you admidt to again breaking the law.... |oo


Here is some background if anybody wants to know about the dams....

Restoring the Lower Snake River
History: The Lower Snake River Project


To understand why we have four dams along the Lower Snake River, one must first understand Lewiston, Idaho's long love affair with inland navigation.

The gold rush of the early 1860s established Lewiston as the queen city of north central Idaho. Even after the short gold rush boom was over, though, it seemed to Lewiston boosters that the new city was extraordinarily well situated, if it could only take advantage of the Snake River that flowed nearby.


Sternwheelers had already provided a transportation network viable enough to haul more than 60,000 people to the Idaho gold fields between 1861 and 1863. But the Snake was a wild and unpredictable river. At many times of the year even a fearless riverboat captain could not get through. The Lower Snake had more than thirty rapids that steamers had to negotiate. Lewiston residents in the early 1860s began what would become a more than 100-year campaign to seek federal assistance in creating a year-round navigable waterway between that Idaho town and the Pacific Ocean.

Heeding the demands of Lewiston residents and others along the Lower Snake and Columbia, in 1876 Congress authorized the Army Corps of Engineers to construct Cascade Locks around the boiling rapids of the Columbia downstream from The Dalles. Once completed, the locks proved their value; steamers carrying thousands of tons of materials now slipped easily past the Cascades.

Merchants and farmers lobbied for more navigational aids to allow steamers to pass all the way to Lewiston. The next obvious obstruction was Celilo Falls, upstream from The Dalles. Congress again authorized the Corps to construct a passageway, which it completed in 1915.

Yet hardly had Celilo Canal opened when Columbia and Snake River steamboating collapsed. Sternwheelers had become outmoded, unable to compete with the speed, efficiency and greater carrying capacity of trains.

Once tracks crossed into the wheat regions, the boats had no hope of seriously threatening railroad dominance. Railways simply lowered their rates until steamers lost their freight trade.

But by the 1930s marine technology had changed. Now powerful tug boats and barges could compete with railroads, and once again lobbyists clamored for an open river from Lewiston to the sea. No one proved more tireless at making those demands than Herbert G. West of Walla Walla, executive secretary of the Inland Empire Waterways Association (IEWA). For decades West badgered Congress about the need for a reliable navigation system to Lewiston. In 1945 Congress finally authorized the Army

Corps of Engineers to construct a series of dams on the Lower Snake River. There, between 1955 and 1975 the Engineers built Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental (which backs up a reservoir appropriately named after Herbert G. West), Little Goose, and Lower Granite. Together with the Corps' four dams on the Lower Columbia, these massive structures transformed an entire region. Prior to the dam-building era of the 1930s to 1970s, the Northwest was a sparsely populated region with an economy based upon agriculture and natural resource extraction. After the dams, the region has become a major industrial and trading center with millions of residents enjoying one of the highest standards of living in the world.

And yet, not all dams were created equal. The four Lower Snake dams have always been rather poor cousins to the much larger Columbia projects. They have also always been controversial.

In the early years, as Herbert West and the IEWA struggled year after year to persuade Congress to authorize locks and dams on the Lower Snake, their most fierce adversaries, ironically, were representatives of the Army Corps of Engineers, who repeatedly testified before Congress that such a series of dams could never be economically justified based upon navigation alone. Not until the end of World War II could economists (often exaggerating future needs, as it turned out) envision a Pacific Northwest that would boom so dramatically that it could actually use all of the hydropower the great federal dams would produce. Thus, Congress authorized the Lower Snake project because of hydropower: 77 percent of project benefits were to come from hydropower and only l8 percent from navigation. These are still today dams that can justify their existence only because of their hydropower potential. In other words, while inland navigationists have always been the loudest advocates for the dams, these structures were built at taxpayer expense because of their perceived hydropower benefits. Navigation has always been the tail attempting (usually very effectively) to wag the dog. Yet determining whether or not these dams provide true benefits to society is a debate that must be waged largely upon whether or not society needs the power they produce.

While navigation interests were able to eventually woo the Corps to their side of the debate, they were never able to convince fish advocates that these dams would be anything other than fish killers. The contemporary controversy over endangered Snake River fish stocks did not suddenly arise; well over half a century ago fish advocates accurately predicted what would happen with the completion of the Lower Snake system.

As soon as Bonneville Dam went on line in 1938, biologists became very concerned about the impacts of a string of large dams between Bonneville and Lewiston. In the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, most public attention focused on the issue of getting adult fish over dams on their return to home waters to spawn. Finally, the Army Corps of Engineers found a good solution * effective fish ladders * that has been fine-tuned since the 1930s but not dramatically altered.

Yet invisible to the public who visited the fish ladders and cheered the adult fish were tiny juveniles trying to find a safe way to pass through the huge dams. As we were to learn, dams can kill these fish in a wide variety of ways-via turbines, via increased predation in warm water reservoirs, via nitrogen supersaturation poisoning, and via timing dysfunctions as tiny fish biologically programmed to rush to sea in a free-flowing river now have to somehow try to swim through warm water pools or catch a ride on a barge, something akin to elk migrating to the highlands via a Greyhound bus: it just doesn't work well, despite the best of intentions.

As early as 1934 the Bureau of Reclamation recognized the difficulty of attempting to get juvenile fish past a major dam. Largely because of this, the Bureau chose to provide no fish passage at Grand Coulee. In 1947 biologist Harlan Homes, working for the Corps, began studying juvenile mortalities at dams and soon discovered how lethal they could be. In 1952, when Holmes accurately estimated that Bonneville Dam killed 15 percent of juveniles passing through, the Corps refused to publicize his report. In 1948 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service stated of the proposed Lower Snake dams: "Adequate facilities can be provided for the upstream passage of fish.... The potential loss of downstream-migrating fingerlings presents a more serious problem.... The Lower Snake dams collectively present the greatest threat to the maintenance of the Columbia River salmon population of any project heretofore constructed or authorized." Although later Corps of Engineers employees sometimes conveniently forgot their agency had arrived at this conclusion so early, by 1954 even the Corps came to recognize this position. Walla Walla District Engineer Colonel Fremont Tandy admitted that year, "The basic element of the anadromous fish problem as related to water resource development is the downstream passage of fingerlings .... We are confident ... that we can pass adult migrants upstream over dams of any height, but we have yet to learn how to pass them downstream successfully."

 

[JoseCuervo]

continued.....

Along the Lower Snake, fish advocates continued their aggressive fight against the dams even after Congress authorized the project. The battle centered on convincing Congress to withhold construction money for Ice Harbor Lock and Dam. They knew if they lost the battle of Ice Harbor, the fish might well be doomed, because if the Corps built that dam, it would surely construct the other three proposed for upstream.

The Washington and Oregon fish and game departments took active roles in attempting to kill Ice Harbor. Although the IEWA wanted the dams constructed because of their navigation potential, once it became clear that these were really authorized only because of their hydropower potential, the fish advocates had grounds for optimism. As the Washington Department of Fisheries pointed out, "There are 387 dam sites that are undeveloped in the Columbia River basin" that could produce power with limited threat to fish runs. Build at these sites and save the Snake River runs, they advocated.

For ten years, the fish and navigation advocates battled each other and for ten years Congress refused to provide funding for Ice Harbor. It might have been that the Lower Snake would today be undammed had it not been for the Korean and Cold Wars. The Ice Harbor dam site is located virtually next door to Hanford. In the early 1950s, the nation clamored for atomic superiority over the Soviet Union. Presidential reports outlined a need for many more kilowatts of power to meet critical national defense programs in atomic energy. What better place to attain some of that energy output than at a dam next door to the Hanford works?

As it turned out the fish advocates could battle river developers to a standstill when the issue was whether or not to create a navigable waterway to Lewiston. But when the issue of atomic power superiority came into play, they had no chance. In 1955 Congress-over the objections of President Dwight Eisenhower who protested the move as being economically unsound- allocated money to construct Ice Harbor Dam. In 1975 the Corps completed Lower Granite and slackwater made its way, after more than a century of political struggle, to Lewiston.


For many, it seemed that the completion of Lower Granite Lock and Dam was the end of the story. But as it turns out, perhaps it is only a mid-way mark. Today, the Lower Snake dams provide less than 5 percent of the Northwest's energy supply. While the Columbia River navigation system is a huge regional economic catalyst, the economic advantages of the Lower Snake navigation system, which almost exclusively ships wheat (full barges going down; empty ones coming back up), as marginal. At the same time, there is no doubt about what is killing our fish. While we should be concerned about ocean conditions, about upstream alterations to habitat, and about overfishing, it is essential that the debate over whether we want continued Snake/Columbia River anadromous fish runs be focused clearly on the dams, for they are fish killers of unprecedented precision.

Can we live without the power the Lower Snake dams produce and without a year round navigable waterway to Lewiston, Idaho? Most certainly the answer to that question is yes. Will removal of the dams cause traumatic disruption to some people's lives - particularly some inland wheat farmers and port employees? The answer to that question is also most certainly yes. Are the greater societal benefits that would come with the salvation of Columbia/Snake anadromous fish runs worth this disruption to the lives of some Northwest families? That is the question upon which this debate must revolve.

 

[Calif. Hunter]

Point of fact, here Bighorn - the comment was simply "Rural welfare?" Nothing personal, nothing was directed at you. It was even formed as a question. There was no statement made about "welfare farmers," as you put it. So how is that a derogatory comment that upset you? (and therefore "made" you get nasty?)

 

[BigHornRam]

Cali,

Point of fact here. Your brother said..Can you say rural welfare? I know what the #*^@#* he ment by it. I have a farm backround and I get hot when gummint employees throw that term around without a clue what they are talking about. Maybe they ought to look in the mirror and see who is paying their salary, putting food on their table, and a roof over their elitist head before they open their fat mouths. The pointy headed know it alls may end up with the fist of a hard working farmer, rancher, logger ect, coming out their ass. And if you don't like that, I can get nastier.

 

[sra61]

MattK,
I think it's hilarious when a lib takes great offense at being called a "lib". Call me a conservative. I'm proud to be a conservative. Aren't you proud to be a liberal? I'm glad to be able to fish for the salmon in Idaho on the Clearwater. I'm glad the fishing for them is better than it was in the past. I wish I could hunt Grizzlies here in Montana. But I can't, at least not yet. It seems to me that the dam issue is one that has been around longer than a lot of us have been around. It is an issue that is full of gigantic hurdles. It's not something that is going to happen for a long time. That is one of those battles that was lost a long time ago. That's why all of us have to guard against our hunting and fishing opportunities being whittled away. Every small battle counts.

 

[1_pointer]

BHR- I don't like that. The fist thing is not my gig...gerbils??

sra- Though some here might label me a liberal, I don't consider myself one, BUT your comments inregards to extreme liberals apply to extreme conservatives as well. JMO.

 

[MattK]

BHR- sounds like someone's having a melt down. Welfare is Welfare... If you get subsidized that much by government programs it's welfare. You don't make a very good fiscal conservative.

sra61- you can call me anything you would like. I really don't give it much thought. I don't consider myself Republican or Democrat, Liberal or Conservative. I go on what I feel is correct and what I can justify. I just hope you didn't vote for the previous "conservative" governor of Montana. Sorry if you did! Also, if you think the current President is conservative, I wonder in what way you think this.

You say "That's why all of us have to guard against our hunting and fishing opportunities being whittled away." I agree! This is the exact reason I think the dams should be breached. It creates greater opportunities for fishing. If the battle is still going on, it hasn't been won. Using your definition of "being won", we'd all be speaking German right now. They won most of the battles, we took the war! I think the dams can and will be breached.

 

[JoseCuervo]

SRA,

You should really read up on these issues before you comment. About 15 years ago, some crazy guy named Reed Burkholder started thinking about ways to save the Salmon. And he came up with the idea of breaching the dams.

At first, everybody dismissed him as crazy. Then he pulled out a pencil and walked people through the numbers. The numbers didn't lie. So people kept trying to shoot holes in his numbers, and they still showed that, as a nation, we would be better off if we breached the dams. (Now I am sure that a "good" conservative like yourself would be all for saving Taxpayers money, wouldn't you???)

Well, even though you think the dam battle was "won" many years ago, I hate to break the news to you, but those dams that "cost millions to build" as you stated have recently been studied (at a cost of $$$$ millions) by the US Army Corp of Engineers in order to determine HOW TO REMOVE the dams.

That is hilarious that you are posting off on how the battle is "won", and the dams are here to stay, while YOUR tax $$$$ are being spent to study the methods and impact of removal. Wake up.....

Did you read the long article I posted? The one that discusses flood control, irrigation, barge traffic, rail traffic, and electricity? Are you good enough with numbers to do the math?

Hey Matt,
I think BHR's melt-down comes from his realization that he is a poacher who has no disregard for hunting and fishing regulations in the state of Idaho. Some day most of his generation will be long gone, and we will all get to make even more progress in restoring wildlife populations for my kids and future generations to hunt and fish.

 

[sra61]

That's the great thing about our country, You figure out how to tear it down, and someone makes money. Then they'll figure out how to rebuild it, and someone else makes money. And then someone will do a study,and they will make money. It's a great big beautiful circle that makes our country so great!