Dams losing reason for existence?

[Hangar18]

Editorial from the Idaho Mountain Express

http://www.mtexpress.com/story_printer.php?ID=2005103225

Dams losing reason for existence?

One of the pillars in arguments for Lower Snake River dams that've proved so deadly to salmon is that Idaho's only so-called sea port, Lewiston, needs deep water for cargo vessels plying the waterways to Portland for shipment of goods.

That rationale is now taking a beating. Lewiston has just about lost its largest container-shipping client, the Potlatch Corp., which now is trucking products to Puget Sound in the Seattle area.

The truck-to-ship method is apparently more efficient and quicker. In April, according to official statistics, Potlatch shipped 46 containers of paper products through Lewiston, whereas it shipped 548 in April 2004.

But behind Potlatch's switch is the real problem—larger, newer cargo vessels requiring deeper channels can't make it to Lewiston, 465 miles from the Pacific.

So, having spent billions of dollars on a Rube Goldberg system to siphon salmon out of their native waters and onto barges for shipment around dams for release closer to the Pacific, the federal government will now spend more millions on a "solution" to making Lewiston more accessible by water and thus preserving a fast-concocted rationale for maintaining dams.

The Corps of Engineers will deepen 106 miles of the Columbia River channel. How much that will cost and how long it will take is anyone's guess.

This is sheer obstinance that has cost taxpayers billions of dollars in dams, studies, solutions and more solutions, which still don't solve the real threat to the continued existence of salmon.

How much longer can defenders of the dams sucker taxpayers with this blind stubbornness?



Copyright © 2005 Express Publishing Inc.

 

[JoseCuervo]

The Math just doesn't add up on the dams. The trains and trucks are cheaper, the power is irrelvant, and the Salmon towns in Idaho are dying a horrible economic death.

Why we have taxpayers that allow the dams to remain is beyond belief.

 

[Ithaca 37]

Naturally , I hate to have to say, "I told you so." to the dimwits who have been against breaching the dams, but this article says exactly what many of us have been pointing out for about fifteen years now. It would almost be worth taking BHR off "Ignore" to see what he has to say now!

 

[BigHornRam]

IT,

It's an editorial, not an "article". Have you ever read an editorial full of agenda driven B. S. before?

 

[Washington Hunter]

IT,

It's an editorial, not an "article". Have you ever read an editorial full of agenda driven B. S. before?

(For you Ithaca)

 

[Ithaca 37]

WH, Thanks! True, it's an editorial. Just shows that lots of other people are waking up, too. I wonder what BHR/dingbat thinks the agenda is. Maybe to save the salmon and steelhead runs and quit wasting hundreds of millions of tax dollars every year??

 

[ELKCHSR]

The Math just doesn't add up on the dams. The trains and trucks are cheaper, the power is irrelvant, and the Salmon towns in Idaho are dying a horrible economic death.

Your worried about this, but not any of the other natural resource extraction towns???

You need a little consistency here... besides… irrelvant is spelled irrelevant

 

[BuzzH]

Hey cheese, your is spelled YOU'RE...ya dumbass.

For the record, most of the "salmon towns" are dried up lumber/mining towns that have fallen victim to corporate America...not from a lack of resources.

 

[Tom]

I have an aluminum shooting stick. I saw Buzz's last year and it worked great, so I got one now. I should check where it was made. Don't they have a lot of aluminum factories around there?