Future of Salmon Leads to Dispute Over Federal Dams

In the dispute over the spill, the 9th Circuit has ordered an expedited hearing on the government's appeal to the Redden ruling.

The Justice Department argues in its appeal that keeping endangered salmon in the dammed-up river -- rather than barging or trucking them around federal dams -- is "judicial experimentation."

"A federal judge just isn't in a position to step in and decide how to operate the system," said Fred Disheroon, special litigation council for the Justice Department on the salmon issue. "The judge is ordering something that is untested and in our view puts the fish at greater risk."

Research has shown that nearly all fish transported around the dams survive the ride, but it has not conclusively shown that trucking or barging them is better or worse for the longtime survival of salmon as compared with letting them swim in the river and negotiate the dams.

Dams kill juvenile salmon in a number of ways: in turbines; in the slow-moving, relatively warm reservoirs between dams; and by stunning them in a way that makes them vulnerable to predators.

If the government does not win its appeal, Disheroon said, it might invoke a rarely used provision of the Endangered Species Act, which would convene a Cabinet-level committee informally called the "God Squad." After a lengthy public process, the committee could decide that economic concerns justify the extinction of endangered fish.

Given the judge's decision, Disheroon said, "it may not be possible to come up with a way to avoid jeopardy for these fish."

Lawyers for the environmental groups that sued the government argue that it is absurd for the Bush administration to argue that keeping salmon in the river is an untested and risky plan.

"The science is clear. If we want to bring the salmon back, we have to be willing to make the hydrosystem work more like a natural river," said Todd True, a staff attorney for Earthjustice. "The Bonneville Power Administration thinks it owns the river, and they don't want to give it up -- not one drop."

Behind the legal arguments that are swirling this summer around the river system lie two long-held and diametrically opposed views about what should happen to Little Goose and three other dams in the lower Snake River.

Environmental groups, some state fish agencies and many salmon biologists argue that removing the dams is the only possible way to prevent wholesale extinction of Snake River salmon. It is an argument that dates back six decades -- well before Little Goose and its sister dams were built in the 1960s and '70s.

In 1946, the chief of fisheries for the Oregon Fish Commission warned about what the four Snake River dams would do: "All western biologists with whom I have talked agree that this plan, if followed, will spell the doom of salmon and steelhead migration up the Snake."

But the dams are now embedded into the economic status quo of the Northwest -- producing power and enabling river transport and irrigation. The federal government has promised to spend billions of dollars in coming years to find better mechanical fixes for moving salmon around dams.

At the top of the Bush administration, the signal is clear: President Bush has himself come to the lower Snake and pledged that dams such as Little Goose will never be removed.