by Tony Schick, Oregon Public Broadcasting
This content was produced for ProPublica’s Regional Reporting Network in partnership with Oregon Public Broadcasting. Sign up for Bulletins and receive our news every week in your inbox.
Less than two years ago, President Joe Biden’s administration made what tribal leaders hailed as an extraordinary dedication to the Native nations whose ways of life had been destroyed by national dam-building along the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest.
The package, which took two years to communicate, halted years of lawsuits over the harm national dams had caused to the herring that had sustained those tribes historically and financially for thousands of years. The government promised to spend billions of dollars in alternative energy sources that the tribes could use to remove four hydroelectric dams that are deemed to be particularly detrimental to salmon.
Following numerous errors by the state in upholding cultural fish right that it swore in contracts to protect, it was a remarkable action.
The partnership is now just another of those broken claims.
On Thursday, President Donald Trump signed a document pledging to pull the federal government out of the package. Trump’s decision put an end to the government’s plan to rebuild plentiful salmon works in the Columbia and Snake rivers by halting a government-wide action to remove dams that hampered their movement.
Thursday’s walk drew quick condemnation from tribes and from environmental groups that have fought to protect herring.
According to Gerald Lewis, president of the Yakama Nation Tribal Council,” the Administration’s decision to terminate these commitments sounds the federal government’s historically destroyed style of broken promises to clans.” This termination may significantly impede important efforts to restore fisheries, cause uncertainty for water operations, and most likely lead to higher energy costs and local instability.
The administration’s dedication to nations, however, had been unraveling since about when the offer was inked.
Important rules were presently stumbling under Biden. After Trump’s election as president, his presidency sped up the majority of the studies mandated by the deal, raised millions of dollars in funding, and cut the majority of the staff involved in salmon recovery. Biden’s promises to really consider the removal of dams gained much momentum before it was replaced by what Trump’s power director, Chris Wright, called “passionate help” for keeping them in position.
The White House work force’s head to put the agreement into action abruptly in April because of what he thought was Trump’s attempts to obliterate almost everything he was working on.
Former Columbia River Task Force seat Nik Blosser told ProPublica and OPB that “federal agencies who were on the hook for the work were being destroyed by untargeted, inadequate, and expensive purges of governmental employees. ” When I left, most items were on hold or paused — even signed deals were on carry, which is a disgrace”.
In a statement from Trump’s White House, Trump said that the Biden administration’s pledges were “onerous” and that the leader” continues to fulfill his promise to stop the misplaced priorities of the previous administration and protect the American people’s livelihoods.”
The news read,” President Trump is committed to unleashing British power dominance, reversing all administrative actions that put unnecessary strain on power production and use.”
But the decision could also have some unintended consequences, experts say.
Trump signed an executive order in April to “restore American seafood competitiveness,” but the Columbia River agreement’s cancellation of millions of dollars to support programs that provide fish to the ocean. He signed a separate executive order on his first day in office to “unleash American energy dominance,” but he has since changed a commitment made under the Biden salmon deal to create new domestic energy sources. This week’s action has sent federal agencies back to court, where judges have repeatedly shackled power production at hydroelectric dams because of its impact on the endangered fish.
In a post on Linked In, Blosser wrote that it’s tempting to go on about the President’s order’s absurdity, including how the action that he claims will bring stability for power generation is actually more dangerous. Instead, I’ll look for inspiration in the powerful salmon, who continue to swim upstream until they reach a waterfall.
Back to Court
Federal agencies had been losing in court over the hydropower system for more than 20 years before they started negotiating the Columbia River Basin agreement in 2021. Judge after judge ordered the federal government to use less water to produce electricity and instead let more of the river flow through the dams ‘ floodgates so that fish could ride the current past them more comfortably.
The accord with states and tribes guaranteed up to a decade without those lawsuits. Trump canceled that.
More was at stake than the deal’s other agencies, including the Bonneville Power Administration, which sells the hydroelectricity from federal dams. When the government signed it, Bonneville Administrator John Hairston said it provided “operational certainty and reliability while avoiding costly, unpredictable litigation in support of our mission to provide a reliable, affordable power supply to the Pacific Northwest”.
Bonneville praised the agreement in its most recent annual report for allowing it to increase hydropower production in times of high electricity demand, which helped to offset the losses in an otherwise difficult financial year.
The recognition of the region’s reliance on hydropower and the need to create new sources of energy before removing the dams was a key component of the agreement. It offered no guarantee of dam removal.
The Snake River’s four dams, which salmon advocates have long desired to be removed, would be replaced by the Biden White House’s commitment to helping tribes develop enough renewable energy sources. Additionally, the administration had a plan to conduct an analysis of how to meet the region’s energy needs without skipping on the salmon.
The Biden administration never followed through. Even energy projects with tribal support that were already underway sputtered into bureaucratic rigor. The desire for new energy sources also died when Trump took office and cut thousands of jobs out of the Department of Energy.
Proponents of Columbia River dams, including the publicly owned utilities that buy federal hydroelectricity, criticized the Biden administration for leaving them out of the negotiations that led to the agreement.
Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican from Central Washington, said in a statement on Thursday that” I want to thank the President ( Trump ) for his decisive action to protect our dams.” He claimed that the removal of the dam would have increased energy prices and threatened the reliability of the power grid due to the Biden administration and “extreme environmental activists.”
Even critics of the Biden deal, however, acknowledge they do not want the issue to return to court, where judges ‘ orders have driven up electricity rates. When Bonneville is unable to sell hydropower but still has to pay for salmon hatcheries and habitat improvements, it must pay utilities a higher price for electricity.
Scott Simms, executive director of the Public Power Council, a nonprofit representing utilities that purchase federal hydropower, said,” I’m hoping that we avoid dam operations by injunction, because that doesn’t help anybody in the region.”
Earthjustice attorney Amanda Goodin, who represents the environmental advocates who signed the agreement, said the Trump administration’s actions would force a return to courts.
According to Goodin,” there is no longer any basis for a stay of the litigation” without the agreement.
More fish will perish
The White House said that Trump’s revoking of the Columbia River deal shows that he” continues to prioritize our Nation’s energy infrastructure and use of natural resources to lower the cost of living for all Americans over speculative climate change concerns”.
The Columbia River damage is nothing more than speculative, according to Nez Perce Tribe Chair Shannon Wheeler.
Wheeler said in a statement,” This action tries to hide from the truth.” ” The Nez Perce Tribe holds a duty to speak the truth for the salmon, and the truth is that extinction of salmon populations is happening now”.
Commercial, recreational, and tribal subsistence fishing are only possible thanks to fish hatcheries, which raise millions of baby salmon in pens and release them into the wild when they’re old enough to swim the ocean because the Columbia and its largest tributary, the Snake River, have been so sparse for decades.
According to estimates, Columbia River hatcheries account for half of all Chinook salmon commercial fishermen caught in Southeast Alaska in the past few years, making them crucial for Trump’s effort to “restore American seafood competitiveness.”
But some Columbia River hatcheries are nearly a century old. There have been thousands of baby fish’s deaths as a result of equipment failures because of how severely underfunded other countries are.
According to ProPublica and OPB, hatcheries have struggled to gather enough fish for breeding, which puts the fate of upcoming fishing seasons in jeopardy. The number of hatchery salmon surviving to adulthood is now so low.
The Biden administration promised roughly$ 500 million to improve hatcheries across the Northwest. Trump halted all the funds before eventually canceling them with this week’s order, and his administration never delivered it.
Former Columbia River coordinator at the Environmental Protection Agency Mary Lou Soscia described the administration’s failure to implement salmon recovery programs as” cutting off your nose to spite your face.”
” We’re losing decades of accomplishments”, said Soscia, who spent more than 30 years at the agency.
More fish will die, she said,” when the fish managers aren’t there making real-time river decisions.” Or the restoration of the watershed will take a lot longer because there won’t be funding and more fish will perish.
Originally sourced via trusted media partner. https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-salmon-columbia-river-tribes-deal
