Feb 11, 2021
This week Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson introduced an infrastructure proposal to remove the lower Snake River dams. It's a move the conservation community has been working towards for decades. The four dams on the lower Snake impede salmon and steelhead migration. In the farthest reaches of the watershed, runs have all but declined to a trickle. Joining Artemis to talk about Rep. Simpson's proposal is Betsy Emery from The Association of Northwest Steelheaders.
2:00 The Association of Northwest Steelheaders Oregon NWF affiliate. (Psst... check out their women's program!
5:00 Steelhead fishing at a glance: Wow, this is cold and boring. THEN, a fish strikes and you immediately get why this is such a thing
6:30 Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson releases huge energy and salmon concept to restore salmon in the Pacific Northwest through the removal of the Snake River dams
8:00 The decline of salmon in our lifetime has been positively precipitous, leading to season closures and the decline of an entire sporting industry
11:00 Salmon/steelhead lifecycle 101; plus, steelhead = ocean-going rainbow trout, which are huge
13:00 Baby salmon & steelhead... it's a wild ride to the ocean!
16:00 Salmon and steelhead return brings a remarkable influx of nutrients inland from the ocean #goshdarnamazingcycleoflife
16:00 How do we weigh economic production (dams/electricity) against the survival of a species?
17:00 Crossing dams is a hotspot for smolt mortality
19:30 "Every time a smolt interacts with a dam, their chance of returning to the mouth of the river as an adult drops 10%."
24:00 Ocean conditions are sometimes portrayed as a scapegoat for salmon/steelhead decline
26:00 Salmon runs on the John Day River (3 dams) versus the Snake (8 dams)
27:00 Smolt-to-adult rate -- the quantity of juveniles that survive and return to spawn. For Idaho salmon, it's less than 2%
33:00 "The Energy and Salmon Concept" initiative by Rep. Mike Simpson - it specifically looks at the lower four dams on the Snake River in Washington, not the dams on the Columbia
37:00 Stakeholders affected by dam removal: Farmers/irrigators, barge commerce, even a small cruise industry
40:00 The infrastructure proposal isn't an item of legislation... it's more of a collaborative effort in the making to work toward dam removal
43:00 Want to learn more? A couple links: The Association of Northwest Steelheaders; Idaho Wildlife Federation
46:00 Zoom testimony on legislation... TIME, everyone... SO MUCH TIME
47:00 Artemis's "Go Confident as an Advocate" series – background info on important conservation issues, how to draft meaningful public comment, write an op-ed for the paper, and generally be informed enough to advocate for things important to you