Are you looking for a good fight? Head down to the Columbia/Snake River region and ask someone about "the dam breaching issue." More to the point, ask someone whose business or politics is tied to the total 2,252-mile combination of the nation's fourth largest river and its largest tributary.
The Columbia runs from Columbia Lake in British Columbia through Washington state and eventually between it and Oregon out to the Pacific Ocean.
The Snake River runs down from Idaho to Washington and into the Columbia just before the Tri-Cities region and the Tri-Port alliance of the ports of Benton, Kennewick and Pasco, Wash.
This river system is currently known primarily for three major things: salmon runs; a series of dams which provide hydroelectric power and irrigation to agricultural land; and a 465-mile marine transportation network of ports and connecting tugs/barges carrying bulk and container cargoes towards ocean transport and international destinations.
It all sounds like a nice, neat package of commerce, fish and cheap electrical power, and for part of the 20th century it was.
However, as the new century moves forward, so are plans by environmentalists, federal agencies, regional government officials and businesses tied to sport fishing to remove four lower Snake River dams - Lower Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monumental and Ice Harbor - in an effort to restore depleted salmon runs.
On the other side of the issue resides the tri-state agricultural industry reliant upon affordable and accessible irrigation (encompassing roughly 7.3 million acres of farmland and ranches); shippers of these and other export commodities reliant upon an affordable, reliable waterborne transportation system; the marine transportation network itself; and businesses plus hundreds of thousands of individuals reliant upon affordable hydroelectric power.
The debate appears simple enough: dams vs. fish. Well, it isn't. And the purpose of this article is to generally introduce the marine perspective to the broad base of our readership for what will be the first of subsequent, periodic reports on an issue that may take years (current estimates are at least five to ten) to play itself out.
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