[Jmills81]

Yo...

if you fish and care about the Snake River and it's salmon and steelhead, time to get active to let your elected officials about CMR/Labrador/Newhouse/Herrera-Beutler's bill HR 3144

Currently the bill is in committee mark up and bound for a house vote in a couple weeks

It's a gigantic FU to the hundreds of thousands of public comments asking for a new way forward.

There's about a million things I could say as to why the bill is horrible, but it's a kick the can down the street way of dealing with the issue. No spill, no studies about dam removal and reinstituting BI-OP that has been thrown out of court by multiple judges and appeal judge(s)

it's time to #Freethesnake

http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/o/50933/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=23563

follow the link for a quick and easy way to let the powers that be know...

 

[Gary Thompson]

Some bodies are making $ off those dams or they would have been gone a long time ago.
Follow the $
Seems to me that a wild river would make good $ for a state. Rafters, fishing guides, etc.

 

[Carter Burke]

Well i need to read the whole bill cause i am 100% for undoing treaty fishing rights. I'd rather see the nets gone than the dams.
Remember tribal nets get almost half of the Wind rivers wild steelhead in just 10ish miles of the river.
Anything that protects treaty fishing rights kills wild steelhead.

 

[o mykiss]

Please do read it, Rob. HR 3144 has zero to do with treaty fishing rights. It seeks to lock in the 2014 Biological Opinion that was found by a federal judge to not pass muster under the Endangered Species Act, until the later of 2022 or a final Biological Opinion is issued. As long as this saga has already drug on, you can almost guarantee that means pretty close to forever, which is not surprising because this bill’s sponsors and the special interests that own them would like nothing better than extinction of Snake River salmon and steelhead. It also gives the Secretaries of the Interior, Energy, and Army the power to amend (ie, water down) the requirements of the 2014 BiOp (remember, the one that a judge already found deficient under the ESA) under certain circumstances. I for one don’t trust those agencies not to do that, especially as long as someone like Zinke is in charge of the Interior, which is the only one of those 3 agencies that is otherwise institutionally inclined to give a rat’s ass about endangered fish. Finally, it would take dam removal off the table entirely without a separate act of Congress. Suggesting that 3144 may be worthy of our support because Indians have treaty fishing rights makes about as much sense as 90% of the drivel you post. If it means that much to you, write your representative and senators and try to get them to sponsor a bill to abrogate the NW fishing treaties.

 

[Chris Johnson]

Yo...

if you fish and care about the Snake River and it's salmon and steelhead, time to get active to let your elected officials about CMR/Labrador/Newhouse/Herrera-Beutler's bill HR 3144

Currently the bill is in committee mark up and bound for a house vote in a couple weeks

It's a gigantic FU to the hundreds of thousands of public comments asking for a new way forward.

There's about a million things I could say as to why the bill is horrible, but it's a kick the can down the street way of dealing with the issue. No spill, no studies about dam removal and reinstituting BI-OP that has been thrown out of court by multiple judges and appeal judge(s)

it's time to #Freethesnake

http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/o/50933/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=23563

follow the link for a quick and easy way to let the powers that be know...

Thanks Josh, I'll get on it.

 

[Chris Johnson]

Suggesting that 3144 may be worthy of our support because Indians have treaty fishing rights makes about as much sense as 90% of the drivel you post.

A handy Straw man to point to.

 

[FinLuver]

Hmmm...must have got boring over on the Conservation Forum.
SMH...

 

[Klickrolf]

I think there's a roadblock somewhere between the confluence and Lewiston. Barging would be over, that must be the major holdup. Lots of commerce occurs between Lewiston and Astoria. Irrigators and commercial fishers can retool if they want to, barging can't. It'd cost a lot more to transport everything by rail and I think another rail line would need to be added.

Sure would be nice to see that section of the Snake become a river again.

 

[Delete MeToo]

What happens to the mitigation money when and if the dams are removed? I thought the mitigation $ paid for a large portion of the fish we are targeting now(summer steelhead, springers, and fall chinook? I'm worried that IF the dams go, so do our hatchery funding and therefore, no fishing for the rest of our lives. If the dams were removed and hatchery production stayed the course, then we would have very nice Chinook and steelhead fisheries.

 

[tkww]

It'd cost a lot more to transport everything by rail and I think another rail line would need to be added.

Out of curiosity, do you have any data for this? What happens once the barge has to stop?

 

[Carter Burke]

[QUOTE="o mykiss, post: 1385147, member: 215" Suggesting that 3144 may be worthy of our support because Indians have treaty fishing rights makes about as much sense as 90% of the drivel you post. If it means that much to you, write your representative and senators and try to get them to sponsor a bill to abrogate the NW fishing treaties.[/QUOTE]

You just made me lose all interest.

 

[Jmills81]

I think there's a roadblock somewhere between the confluence and Lewiston. Barging would be over, that must be the major holdup. Lots of commerce occurs between Lewiston and Astoria. Irrigators and commercial fishers can retool if they want to, barging can't. It'd cost a lot more to transport everything by rail and I think another rail line would need to be added.

Sure would be nice to see that section of the Snake become a river again.

lots of commerce occurs from the tri cities to astoria. The barge traffic is down 70-90 percent on the Snake.

 

[Salmo_g]

It'd cost a lot more to transport everything by rail

It costs something like two cents a bushel more to ship wheat by rail than by barge. But that is because barges get to use the taxpayer paid for locks at the dams for FREE! If barges had to pay what it actually costs to build and operate the locks, then shipping by rail is much cheaper.

 

[Klickrolf]

Couple things. I don't know if barges are charged for use of locks, doubt they are but it doesn't really matter because the major costs have already occurred and I'm pretty sure party boats can also use the locks. Whether there is a fee or not I do not know but I've seen large, very large luxury vessels camped out at the park half way up the John Day arm.

The following link suggests cost/bushel would increase by 2.9 to 7.1 cents/bushel. This link was published in 2004 and costs certainly have not decreased.
http://lmtribune.com/northwest/new-...cle_836e411f-e33a-5d9e-aa25-182b25f73667.html

If we assume the cost difference is 5 cents/bushel we end up with one shipment costing $336,650 extra if shipped by rail.
Link here, see "Grain" http://www.tidewater.com/barge-lines.

And, a little more info here for general education: www.pnwa.net/wp-content/uploads/PNWA_Handout.pdf

I fully agree the lower four Snake dams should be removed, for many reasons. I'm not sure the economics of it make sense though. If removal would result in dramatic improvements to salmon steelhead survival through that section then I'd argue it should be done. The caveat is I doubt the economics would support it, hope I'm wrong.

 

[Carter Burke]

It costs something like two cents a bushel more to ship wheat by rail than by barge. But that is because barges get to use the taxpayer paid for locks at the dams for FREE! If barges had to pay what it actually costs to build and operate the locks, then shipping by rail is much cheaper.

Recreational traffic also uses the locks for free as do visitor center users at each of the dams. And electric rate payers only pay a fraction of the dams operating costs.

If everyone had to pay the real costs of the things they used they'd use a lot less. Of everything.

 

[Jmills81]

Recreational traffic also uses the locks for free as do visitor center users at each of the dams. And electric rate payers only pay a fraction of the dams operating costs.

If everyone had to pay the real costs of the things they used they'd use a lot less. Of everything.

It's super rare for rec. boaters to use the locks...

 

[Carter Burke]

It's super rare for rec. boaters to use the locks...

Not super rare. Uncommon maybe but not super rare. It is pretty common for bass anglers to use them in tournaments.

 

[smc]

If we assume the cost difference is 5 cents/bushel we end up with one shipment costing $336,650 extra if shipped by rail.
Link here, see "Grain" http://www.tidewater.com/barge-lines.

Another way to look at the numbers:

1 bushel of wheat makes 42 (one-and-a-half lb) loaves of commercial white bread. An additional cost of 5 cents a bushel = .00119 cents per loaf. Insignificant to the consumer, huge to the corporation.

Loss of salmon habitat? Insignificant to the corporation, huge to the consumer.