Juvenile salmon have a biological clock that begins ticking as soon as they begin their trip to the ocean. They need to undergo changes that will allow them to adapt from fresh water creatures to salt water creatures and arrive at the ocean at the same time their bodies have completed the transformation.
The only time the dams are efficient at producing energy is during the spring runoff months. We can't simply flip a switch and release water that isn't there.
When we had abundant cheap power there is less incentive to develop alternative sources of power. Now that we face scarce electricity supplies and much higher prices, that is changing.
That means spilling water over the dams from spring until fall, 24 hours a day, as opposed to using turbines.
This energy crisis will not spiral out of control or be brought under control by what happens to the Snake River dams.
In 1980 the Northwest Power Planning Council set its mission to protect and restore salmon and steelhead and to ensure that the Northwest had a reliable, affordable energy supply. Twenty years later, we have extinctions and blackouts.
It's one of the last, best refuges for these native fish in the Rocky Mountains.
The report calls for more water flow on a voluntary basis. It does not require any one that is involved to make sacrifices. The new plan relies on maximum fish barging. This is not the aggressive non-dam breaching plan NMFS said it was going to be. It's a passive, non-breaching plan.
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