The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Economics of Restoring Endangered Snake River Salmon

Northwest Resource Information CenterDecember, 2000

Duping the Northwest and the Nation

This document was produced by theNorthwest Resource Information Centeras part of its Columbia/Snake Rivers Salmon Project.

Funding support was provided by the Resource Renewal Institute.

Contributing analysts included:

Don Reading, economic consultant, Ben Johnson and Associates

Anthony Jones, economic consultantVictor Martino, economic consultant,

Martino and AssociatesTerry Holubetz, fisheries consultant

The views expressed in this document are solely those of the Northwest Resource Information Center.

NRIC is a non-profit, scientific, educational organization incorporated in 1976 under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Ed Chaney, Director.

Northwest Resource Information CenterPO Box 427, Eagle, Idaho 83616 Telephone: 208–939–0714, Fax: 208–939–8731www.nwric.org

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The law locks up both man and womanWho steal the goose from off the common

But lets the greater felon looseWho steals the common from the goose.

—Anonymous, from Social and Industrial History of England, Edward Potts Cheyney, 1901.

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ContentsPreface iiSummary viIntroduction 1 The Corps Economic Study 5Conclusions 19Endnotes 25

This document continues a 25-year series of occasionalpapers and related initiativesbearing witness to the epic failure of governance and betrayal of the public trust that threatens extinction of many Columbia River Basinanadromous salmon and steelhead populations anddependent economies.

T h e S e t t i n g

The 260,000 square-mile[673,400 km2] Columbia RiverBasin produces a unique array of anadromous fishes, includingwhat once were the world’slargest populations of chinooksalmon and steelhead, estimatedat 10 million-15 million adultfish per year.

For many thousands of years,annual migrations of these protein-rich fish were the eco-nomic and spiritual foundation of highly developed NativeAmerican Indian cultures. AfterEuro-Americans invaded, thesevaluable fish also contributed to non-tribal economies for thousands of miles along thePacific coast and nearly 1,000miles [1610 km] inland to theContinental Divide.

In the mid 1800s the UnitedStates negotiated treaties withNorthwest Tribes. The U.S.pledged on its honor to protectthe tribes’ right to fish inexchange for their peacefully giving up the bulk of their vast territory.

Over the intervening years amultitude of additional nationallaws and international treatiespromised to protect ColumbiaRiver salmon and steelhead indevelopment of the publicly-funded Federal Columbia RiverPower System, the world’slargest coordinated hydroelectricsystem.

All these promises would provehollow.

T h e P r o b l e m

The Congress appropriated billions of dollars from theFederal Treasury for the ArmyCorps of Engineers to builddams on the lower ColumbiaRiver and lower reaches of itsmajor tributary, the Snake River.

This colossal example of social-ism subsidized creation of theworld’s largest coordinatedhydroelectric system. It subsi-dized aluminum manufacturingand other energy-intensiveindustry. It subsidized large-scaleagriculture to irrigate vast areasof near desert. It subsidizedextending waterway commerce450 miles [725 km] inland. Itsubsidized the lowest electricalenergy rates in the Nation.

This public largess was providedwith the explicit understandingthat Columbia River Basinsalmon and steelhead anddependent economies were to be substantially protected.

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When the Corps designed thedams, it provided for fish laddersso adult fish could migrateupstream to spawn. The Corpsnegligently failed to make anyprovision whatsoever for theresulting progeny to pass downstream to the ocean.

Once the dams were built, theCorps and the Bonneville PowerAdministration (the federalagency that markets the energyproduced by the dams) collabo-rated with subsidized economicinterests to aggressively resistchanges in the hydrosystem necessary to fulfill salmon protection laws and treaties.

In consequence, salmon runs anddependent economies through-out the many thousand-milerange of the fish were destroyedor devastated at the cost of manybillions of dollars to the regionand Nation.

Additional hundreds of millionsof public dollars were, and continue to be, squandered ondiversionary studies of the studies, and on tinkering withthe dams, instead of dealingforthrightly with the Corps’basic design error.

Over time, the Corps’ negli-gence nearly has done untoNorthwest Indian Tribes whatnon-Indian buffalo hunters didunto the Plains Tribes.

The cascade of adverse social,economic, and cultural conse-quences is a tragedy of epic proportions.

It also is an epic case study ofwhat happens when governmentslips its public-interest mooringsand collaborates with pork barreleconomic interests to privatizethe profits and commonize thecosts of exploiting publicresources.

In the instant case, the conse-quences include the threatenedextinction of Snake River salmonand steelhead which once com-prised nearly half the ColumbiaRiver Basin total of 10 million-15 million adult fish annually.

Confronted with the failure of governance, and with analarming decline in numbers

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The Columbia River is the fourth largest river in North America. From its source in BritishColumbia, Canada it flows 1,200 miles [1932 km] to the Pacific Ocean. It drains an area ofabout 260,000 square miles [673,400 km2] including southeastern B.C., much of the States ofWashington, Oregon, and Idaho, and portions of Montana, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada.

the Corps’ negligence nearly has done unto Northwest Indian Tribes what non-Indian buffalo hunters

did unto the Plains Tribes

[Kaiser Aluminum Company]signed contracts in 1996 tobuy power from BPA for $22per megawatt hour. It willsell that power back to BPAat more than $500 amegawatt hour . . .

If current market conditionsremain, Kaiser could realizeas much as $500 million fromthe resale of BPA power untila new five-year contract kicksin Oct. 1, 2001.

Lewiston Tribune, December 12,2000.

of Snake River salmon, desperatepublic interest groups and Indiantribes in the early 1990s invokedthe law of last resort, theEndangered Species Act.

Bonneville, the Corps, and subsidized economic interests(notably electric utilities, aluminum producers and other large industrial power consumers, corporate farmers,and waterway transportationinterests) responded with a coordinated multi-million dollar regional and nationalpropaganda campaign.

Abetted by a sound-bite drivennews media, they use junk "science" and economic scare-tactics to dupe the public anddecision makers.

Borrowing a tactic of the tobac-co industry, they assert that itcan’t be proved with absolutescientific certainty that the damsthreaten salmon and steelheadwith extinction. And, in anyevent, "it will cost too much,"and "destroy jobs," if they haveto obey the law, make changes inthe hydroelectric system torestore Snake River salmon andsteelhead, and stop beggaringtheir neighbors.

They and allied political demagogues cynically pit peopleagainst one another in contrivedzero-sum economic conflict inorder to create political gridlockagainst change.

This strategy stands in sharpcontrast to the creative, can-do attitude that produced the

technologically elegant, albeit ecologically flawed, FederalColumbia River Power System.

It is a strategy that is both ethically and economicallyimpoverished. It corrupts government. It retards local and regional economic growthand diversification by creating economic uncertainty. And itwastes on zero-sum conflict vastamounts of human and economiccapital better invested in economic growth.

The Real Threat

The greatest threat toColumbia/Snake River salmonand dependent economies is notthe ill-designed Corps dams.Concrete, power production,and energy marketing schemescan easily be modified.

The greatest threat is theColumbia River Pork Alliance,the regional clique of compro-mised bureaucrats, monopolists,crony capitalists, entrenchedpork barrel economic interests,and allied political demagogueswho feed off public largess andeach other.

To them, maintaining the status quo is an idee fixe. The hydrosystem is like a pyramid, fixed in time, ratherthan publicly-owned infra-structure that can be refinedover time to increase overall economic productivity and cultural wealth.

The hydrosystem is perfect,absolutely perfect. If youchange the hydrosystem, the little old ladies in the I-5 corridor could find them-selves without heat duringthe next Arctic chill event.

Jack Robertson, former DeputyAdministrator, Bonneville PowerAdministration, 1992.

You want to ruin a systemthat we have today that’s themost cost-effective and cheapfor energy production in theworld. You want to ruin theeconomy of America andrural America . . .

John Brenden, former MontanaMember, Northwest PowerPlanning Council.

So what do we get by removing the four SnakeRiver dams? Shattered lives.Displaced families and com-munities who will have seentheir livelihoods destroyed,generations of family farmerspenniless, industries forcedto drive up consumer costs,air pollution.

News release from former U.S.Senator Slade Gorton (R. WA.),June 27, 1999.

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They are addicted to the currentflow of public largess, and to the political hegemony, personalpower, and sinecures it enables.They collaborate to evade therule of law and the discipline of the market.

They fight change in the hydro-system, no matter what the economic and human cost to their neighbors and to the general public, now and in perpetuity.

The Project

This NRIC project opens a newfront in the citizen-led effort toencourage the Nation to fulfill itslong-standing promise thatColumbia/Snake River salmonand dependent economies wouldbe protected in construction andoperation of the FederalColumbia River Power System.

This project subscribes to thebelief of the late U.S. SupremeCourt Justice Louis Brandeis that“sunlight is the best of disinfec-tants” for failure of governmentand of the market.

Through a variety of narrowlytargeted initiatives, the projectwill put “sunlight” on the ethicaland entrepreneurial poverty ofentrenched pork barrel economicinterests.

It will spotlight the individualswhom current and future genera-tions can give credit for the fate ofSnake River salmon and steelheadand dependent economies.

Project objectives:

To facilitate the citizenship neces-sary to recapture control of theNorthwest’s political institutionsand to, in effect, reclaim theColumbia/Snake River commonsfor the public good, while pro-tecting legitimate private interests.

To encourage revitalization of the statesmanship, general public-interest vision, and ingenuity thatdeveloped the technologically elegant hydrosystem, so they maybe applied to making the changesnecessary to fix its ecological flaws.

One of the world’s most magnifi-cent, perpetually renewableresources, as well as the Nation’shonor and commitment to therule of law, hang precariously inthe balance.

the Nation’s honor and commitment to the rule of law,

hang precariously in the balance

The myth that wild salmon are the cause, rather than thevictims, of BPA’s troubles is at the core of the efforts to end salmon protection in theColumbia. Critics say it is time to set the record straight,and begin identifying the realcore causes of BPA’s financial woes - past investments in failed nuclear generating projects, combined with massive ratepayer and tax-payer subsidies to a small group of special corporate interests in the Columbia basin.These special interests—aluminum smelters, corporateagriculture, and river bargeoperators—will collectivelyextract over $3 billion dollars of subsidies from the regionaleconomy and Federal Treasurybetween 1996 and 2001.

Paul Koberstein and Kevin Bell,Cascadia Times, July-August 1998.

The United States Army Corpsof Engineers in December 1999concluded that removing down-stream migrating juvenilesalmon and steelhead from theSnake River and barging them400 miles [644 km] to theColumbia River estuary forrelease—a program that fornearly 30 years has failed to halt the fishes’ slide towardsextinction—would produce positive net annual economicbenefits of about $14 million.

The Corps concluded thatbreaching—partially removing—four lower Snake River dams toallow juvenile fish to migratenaturally in a free-flowing riverwould have a net economic costof about $246 million per year.

This survey confirmed the findings of others: the Corps“cooked the books” to produce a desired result that does notcomport with reality.

But the Corps did much morethan merely put a propagandaspin on the economic results of its analysis. The Corps:

—Withheld the fact that theCorps negligently failed to makeany effort whatsoever to designthe four lower Snake River damsto pass migrating juvenilesalmon and steelhead as requiredby law.

—Attempted to cover up theserious juvenile fish passageproblem at the four lower SnakeRiver dams—asserting that anysuch problem had been solved

by removing the fish from the river.

—Proposed to solve any remaining juvenile fish passageproblems by increasing collec-tion of juvenile fish at the damsand barging them 400 miles tothe Columbia River estuary, a practice which is a proven failure, and which does not meet the requirements of law.

—Ignored basic economic principles; exaggerated the benefits and minimized the costof barging, and exaggerated thecosts and minimized the benefitsof breaching the dams; selectivelyused data and modeling results;and used assumptions and pro-duced results that do not com-port with empirical evidence.

—Attempted to pass off ontoothers the economic cost ofremedying the Corps’ own errorin negligently failing to properlydesign the four lower SnakeRiver dams.

—Ignored fish protectionrequirements of multiple laws,including laws authorizing thedams; laws establishingWilderness Areas, Wild andScenic Rivers, and NationalRecreation areas; the CleanWater Act; and the NorthwestPower Act, the latter specificallyrequiring changes in the dams to restore Snake River salmonand steelhead to productive pre-dam levels.

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The Corps’ conclusionsare presented inSummary, ImprovingSalmon Passage, Draft,The Lower Snake RiverJuvenile SalmonMigration FeasibilityReport/Environmental Impact Statement, U.S.Army Corps of Engineers,December 1999.

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—Made a cost/benefit compari-son of two courses of action—removing fish from the river andbarging them to the estuary vs.partially removing four dams sofish could migrate naturally—that: a) would produce oppositeresults; and b) are not cost/benefit comparable; then c) substituted this fundamentallyflawed approach for the legallyrequired evaluation of the least-cost means of restoring SnakeRiver salmon and steelhead toproductive pre-dam levels.

These and other inappropriateactions systematically biased theCorps’ results to create the falseillusion that doing more of what30 years of experience provesdoesn’t work—barging juvenilesalmon and steelhead—would beeconomically superior to what10,000 years of experienceproves does work—naturalmigration in a free-flowing river.

Ironically, the economic dataproduced to support the Corps’analysis hoists the Corps on itsown economics petard.

Breaching the dams and mitigating all non-energyrelated economic effects—e.g., effects on irrigators and waterway users—would produce net economic bene-fits of $45 million per year.

Energy-related effects ofbreaching would result in anestimated $1-$3 per monthincrease in the averageNorthwest residential elec-tricity bill. These amounts are so small they couldn’t be

distinguished from routinemonthly variations in the useof electricity. Rates still wouldbe among the lowest if not thelowest in the Nation.

Even if there were no salmonand steelhead benefits ofbreaching the dams, othereconomic benefits of breach-ing would exceed costs byseveral hundred million dollars per year.

When you account for all thecosts and benefits generatedfor but ignored or minimizedby the Corps, breaching thedams would produce net economic benefits conserva-tively estimated at about $800 million per year.

Breaching the dams would produce thousands of new temporary and long-term jobs, and create generallylarger, more diverse, andmore sustainable economiesfor the lower Snake Riverregion and the Northwest.

This economic boon would have the added benefits of belatedly complying with the oft-expressed will of the people, complying with thelaw of the land—includingtreaties with Native AmericanIndian tribes, and of fulfillingmoral obligations to currentand future generations.

These positive results of breaching the four lower SnakeRiver dams are the opposite ofwhat the Columbia River PorkAlliance would have the publicand decision makers believe.

barging for nearly 30 years has failed to halt the fishes’

slide towards extinction

In NRIC v. Northwest PowerPlanning Council, the U.S.Court of Appeals ruled thatthe Northwest Power Actprevents “power losses andeconomic costs . . . fromprecluding biologicallysound restoration ofanadromous fish in theColumbia River Basin . . .so long as an adequate, efficient, economical andreliable power supply isassured.”

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The Snake River is the largest tributary to the Columbia River. It originatesin the State of Wyoming and flows 1,038 miles [1671 km] to its confluencewith the Columbia. The Snake drains an area of about 109,000 square miles[282,310 km2].

The first of the Corps of Engineers’ lower Snake River dams in southeasternWashington, Ice Harbor, was completed in 1961 about 10 miles upstreamfrom the confluence of the Snake and Columbia Rivers. Completion ofLower Monumental [1969], Little Goose [1970], and Lower Granite [1975]extended slack water navigation upstream to Lewiston, Idaho about 450miles from the Pacific Ocean.

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In December 1999 the UnitedStates Army Corps of Engineerscompleted a 4-year, $20 millionstudy of ways to improve thesurvival of migrating juvenileendangered Snake River salmonand steelhead attempting to passfour Corps hydroelectric damson the lower Snake River insoutheastern Washington.

The Corps’ study purports toanalyze the economic costs andbenefits of:

a) preserving the status quo byremoving juvenile salmon andsteelhead from the river andbarging them 400 miles to theColumbia estuary; b) partiallyremoving the dams from theriver so the fish can stay in it.1

This survey examines the economic conclusions of theCorps study.

It puts those conclusions intocontext of the Corps’ decades-long effort to evade its dutyunder the law to protect SnakeRiver salmon and steelhead anddependent economies, and intocontext of the far-reachingadverse consequences.

Context of the Corps Economic Study

A multitude of land and waterdevelopment activities harmfulto Snake River salmon followedEuro-American settlement of theregion.

However, millions of acres con-taining thousands of miles ofpristine spawning and rearinghabitat, much of which now is inWilderness, Wild and ScenicRiver, or other protective status,continued to produce prodigiousnumbers of fish until the Corpscompleted the four lower SnakeRiver dams.

The dams were authorized byCongress in the waning years of the Gilded Age of profligatepork barrel politics in theNorthwest.

The Corps long had been onnotice that building dams to subsidize water transportation to and from Lewiston, Idaho,located 450 miles inland fromthe Pacific Ocean, posed apotentially serious problem for migratory fish.

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Congress authorized construc-tion of the dams with the provi-so that they be built and operat-ed in a way that would preserveSnake River salmon and steel-head and dependent economies.

Congress also eventually appro-priated more than $175 millionto build and more than $150million (to date) to operate largehatcheries upstream of the dams.

These hatcheries were intendedto off-set the projected loss of 48percent of pre-dam chinook andsteelhead populations due tojuvenile fish mortalities at thedams.2 The dams would prove to be more deadly than expected,killing most of the hatchery fishalong with the wild fish; thepromise of replacement fish was not fulfilled.

When the Corps designed thefour lower Snake River dams itincluded fish ladders to allowmigrating adult fish to passupstream.

The Corps’ design made no pro-vision whatsoever for the result-ing progeny to pass downstream.

This clearly was contrary to theintent and letter of the law.

It was contrary to previouswarnings that the four lowerSnake River dams were a threatto survival of Snake Riversalmon and steelhead.

It was contrary to the glaringlesson provided by the juvenilefish passage disaster justupstream at Idaho Power

Company’s Brownlee Dam,which occurred in 1958, priorto completion of the Corps’ first lower Snake River dam.

In short, the Corps’ failure todesign the four lower SnakeRiver dams to pass migratingjuvenile Snake River salmon andsteelhead was not merely theunfortunate result of inattentionto detail—it took effort.

The dams were completedsequentially 1961-1975. As eachdam was built, the cumulativeeffect of the Corps’ negligencebecame more evident.

The problem has two parts: 1) getting the young fish throughthe slack water reservoirs; 2) getting them safely past thedams.

In years of low runoff, migratingjuvenile salmon and steelheadstalled in the slack water reser-voirs. Here they were subject topredator fish which thrive in thisenvironment, and were exposedto high water temperatures andto other adverse environmentalconditions. Meanwhile, theirbiological clocks—which overmillennia evolved to prescribelimits on the amount of timeavailable to make the transitionfrom fresh to salt water—continued to run.

In years of high runoff, waterspilling over the dams createdhigh levels of nitrogen deadly to young salmon.

. . . It is the oft repeated thesis of the Fish andWildlife Service that the losses imposed by successivedams are cumulative tosalmon both upstream and downstream.

If we are successful in passing the fish over the proposed new dams on themainstem of the Columbia,we will do so with an indeterminate but significantloss. If these survivors arethen confronted with a seriesof four dams on the Snakethere is the strongest doubtthat these added obstaclescan be overcome.

There is virtual assurancethat only a fraction of existing runs could be gottento the spawning grounds in the Snake River system,and that the progeny of this fraction would suffer furtherloss in its return movementto the sea.

Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1946.

the Corps dams were not designed to allow juvenile salmon to migrate downstream

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Juvenile fish forced to passthrough the turbines of succes-sive dams suffered chronic high-rates of immediate and delayedmortality at all flow levels.

Over the years the Corps spenthundreds of millions of taxpayerdollars modifying the dams andtheir operations to improvedownstream migrant fish pas-sage. These efforts were unableto overcome the Corps’ basicdesign error.

In the late 1970s a resident of Idaho threatened to file a petition asking the NationalMarine Fisheries Service toreview Snake River salmon forlisting under the EndangeredSpecies Act. To dodge this politically charged threat, theService agreed to do an “infor-mal review” of the situation.While that unenthusiastic effortwas in progress, the condition of Snake River salmon worsened.

Finally, in 1980 the U.S.Congress declared it was an"emergency," and passed thePacific Northwest ElectricPower Planning andConservation Act with a specific purpose to:

“. . . protect, mitigate, andenhance the fish and wildlife,including related spawninggrounds and habitat, of theColumbia River and its tributar-ies, particularly anadromous fishwhich are of significant impor-tance to the social and economicwell-being of the Pacific

Northwest and the Nation andwhich are dependent on suitableenvironmental conditions sub-stantially obtainable from themanagement and operation ofthe Federal Columbia RiverPower System and other power generating facilities on theColumbia River and itstributaries.”3

The Act established theNorthwest Power PlanningCouncil and charged it withdeveloping a crash program that specifically would:

“Provide for improved survivalof anadromous fish at hydroelec-tric facilities,” and “Provide forflows of sufficient quantity andquality between these facilities toimprove the production, migra-tion, and survival of anadromousfish as necessary to meet soundbiological objectives.”4

National Marine FisheriesService immediately turned theSnake River salmon problemover to the Council, claiming, ineffect, that the Power Actrequired more protection thanthe Endangered Species Act,therefore, the Council’s programwas the proper venue.

Ironically, 20 years later, theCouncil would return the favorand claim it had been preemptedby the Endangered Species Act,a subject to which we will returnin a subsequent survey.

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In NRIC v. Northwest PowerPlanning Council the U.S. NinthCircuit Court of Appeals held:

The Council’s approachseems largely to have beenfrom the premise that onlysmall steps are possible, inlight of entrenched river userclaims of economic hardship.Rather than asserting its roleas a regional leader, theCouncil has assumed the role of consensus builder,sometimes sacrificing theAct’s fish and wildlife goalsfor what is, in essence, thelowest common denominatoracceptable to power interestsand the [large industrialpower users].6

Breaching the dams would involve removing a portion of each dam, allowing the riverto flow freely around the remaining portion.

Notwithstanding its clear mandate, and its emergencymarching orders, the Councildithered for more than a decade.It bowed to strong opposition to any substantive changes in the hydroelectric system by the Corps, Bonneville, and subsidized electric utilities, aluminum companies and otherlarge industrial power con-sumers, corporate farmers, and waterway transportationinterests.

NRIC finally challenged theCouncil’s dilatory tactics beforethe U.S. Ninth Circuit Court ofAppeals, and won. So to speak.

The Council was embarrassedthat it lost the lawsuit, not that ithadn’t done its job. Nonetheless,for legal self-defense, it amendedits plan to include provisions fordrawing down to spillway crestthe four lower Snake Riverreservoirs beginning in 1995,and for an examination of theneed to breach them.5 TheCouncil promptly ignored itsown plan; so did the Corps,National Marine FisheriesService, and everyone else.

Meanwhile, the plight of SnakeRiver salmon and steelheaddegenerated from serious to critical. From 1991 to 1997 all Snake River salmon and steelhead were listed under the Endangered Species Act.

Faced with the threat of theEndangered Species Act, theCorps declared, in effect, that inthe four lower Snake River dams

it had created a SalmonDoomsday Machine. I.e., itcouldn’t be fixed, and was sodeadly that either: a) all migrat-ing juvenile salmon and steelheadhad to be removed from the riverand barged or trucked 400 milesto the Columbia River estuary;or b) the dams had to be partiallyremoved—breached—to restorethe free-flowing river.

Insufficiently sophisticated mindsfind it difficult to reconcile theCorps’ consideration of breachingthe dams with its denial of a serious fish passage problem at the dams.

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. . . a biased picture . . . a limited and distorted image . . . underestimates benefitsof [breaching] and overesti-mates cost . . . ignoredimpacts of subsidies . . . estimates of employmentimpacts are unrealistic anddistorted . . . summary ofcosts and benefits is incom-plete and misleading . . .incomplete, simplistic, and biased description of[breaching]. . . ignores botheconomic theory and empiri-cal studies . . . unreasonablydeviates from commonlyaccepted principles of economic analysis andignores market prices . . .

. . . This stacking of the analytical deck conflicts withcommonly accepted standardsof professional economicanalysis and yields resultsbiased against the [breaching]alternative.

Economic consulting firmECONorthwest.7

This survey confirms the findings of others: the Corps“cooked the books” to produce its desired result.

The Corps’ economic analysissystematically violates funda-mental economic principles,exaggerates the benefits andminimizes the cost of barging,exaggerates the costs and mini-mizes the benefits of breachingthe dams, selectively uses orignores data and modelingresults, uses assumptions and produces results that conflictwith empirical evidence.

This is familiar territory for the Corps.

Commenting on the Corps’evaluation of the four dams’and reservoirs’ compliance with Clean Water Act stan-dards—which the Corps ignoresin its economic analysis—theU.S. Environmental ProtectionAgency charged the Corps with“[failure] to interpret or resolvecontradictory data and conclu-sions . . . selective use of data . . .faulty or misleading interpreta-tion of results . . . failure to present important informationor assumptions . . . and . . .unsupported conclusions.”8

The agency went on to state that breaching the four lowerSnake River dams was the bestsolution to violation of theClean Water Act and to thethreatened extinction of SnakeRiver salmon and steelhead.

Importantly, the Corps did much more than merely cookthe books in its economic analysis of barging salmon versus breaching dams.

The whole foundation, the basicpremise, of the Corps’ analysis is designed to evade the rule of law, and to protect the pork barrel status quo from the discipline of the market.

The resulting bias against dam breaching is systematic.Following are examples representative of the problem.

Defining the Problem

The problem with the Corps’economic analysis begins withthe Corps’ definition of theproblem.

The Corps states that the damswere “designed with features toaid both juvenile and adult fish.”9

That is patently false.

It is difficult to imagine how theCorps could have designed fourdams and reservoirs more deadlyto downstream migrant salmonand steelhead.

The Corps’ design for the four lower Snake River damsmade no provision whatsoeverfor downstream migrant fishpassage.

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The Corps inadvertently admitsthis in the draft EIS. "Juvenilebypass facilities were installed at each of the four lower SnakeRiver dams shortly after they wereconstructed."10 [Emphasis sup-plied.]

Tacking on juvenile fish passagefacilities after the dams werebuilt solely for waterway trans-portation and hydroelectric ener-gy is analogous to trying to cre-ate airplanes by adding wings topyramids.

The Corps asserts that [post-construction add-on] juvenilefish passage facilities were “suc-cessful” but, regrettably, allSnake River salmon and steel-head were listed under theEndangered Species Act.11

This is a curious definition of "success."

In fact, the Corps’ post-construc-tion efforts to modify the damsto pass juvenile fish were sounsuccessful, and the dams sodeadly, the Corps finally decidedit had to strain the fish out of theriver, pump them through pipesinto barges and trucks, and trans-port them around the dams 400miles to the Columbia Riverestuary.

Unsurprisingly, fragile, wildjuvenile salmon didn’t respondwell to this radical interventionin their life cycle. Most didn’tsurvive the stress of the Corps’Rube Goldberg mechanical sub-stitute for natural environmentalconditions. Progressively feweradult fish returned.

No matter. The Corps simplydeclared barging "successful"because more than 90 percent ofthe juvenile fish were still alivewhen dumped out of the bargesinto the Columbia River estuary.

In context, the Corps’ argumentis that factors other than thedams and its radical barging pro-gram, i.e., harvest, habitat, andhatcheries, must then be respon-sible for threatened extinction ofSnake River salmon and steel-head.

This is the "All-H" mantra—habitat, harvest, hatcheries, andhydropower—by which theCorps, Bonneville PowerAdministration, and, to its everlasting shame, the NationalMarine Fisheries Service, seek to divert attention from the damsto all other factors that affectpopulation size, but not the sur-vival, of Snake River salmon andsteelhead.12 We return to thisissue in a subsequent survey nowin progress.

In plain fact, as the named agen-cies well know:

Harvest of Snake River spring/summer and fall chinook, sock-eye salmon, and steelhead by allexcept the Corps’ dams long hasbeen drastically reduced withdevastating economic and socialconsequences over a vast geographical area.13

. . . there is no scientific basisfor concluding Snake Riversalmon and steelhead arelikely to recover with non-breaching alternatives.

Edward Bowles, Anadromous FishManager, Idaho Department ofFish and Game, September 2000.14

. . . studies conducted overthe last 30 years have defini-tively shown that transporta-tion [barging and trucking]has failed as a mitigation tooland is not reversing thedecline of Snake andColumbia River salmon andsteelhead.

Oregon Department of Fish andWildlife.15

Barging assumes that theseanimals don’t need to migratedownstream, only to arrive atPoint B. It eliminates a wholeportion of their life cycle. It’slike catapulting cows fromthe pasture to the barn, andthen wondering why the herdhas thinned. Their thinking isnot that catapulting cows is aproblem, it’s that we need abetter catapult.

Ed Chaney, in Song For the BlueOcean, Carl Safina, 1997.

trying to retro-fix the dams is like trying to create airplanesby adding wings to pyramids

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. . . Therefore be it resolvedthat, based on the best scien-tific information available, itis the position of the OregonChapter of the AmericanFisheries Society that:

1. The four lower Snake Riverdams are a significant threatto the continued existence of remaining Snake Riversalmon and steelhead stocks;

2. If society-at-large wishes torestore these salmonids to sustainable, fishable levels, a significant portion of thelower Snake River must bereturned to a free-flowingcondition by breaching thefour lower Snake Riverdams, and that this actionmust happen soon . . .

Resolution of the OregonChapter of the AmericanFisheries Society on SnakeRiver Salmon and SteelheadRecovery, Adopted February17, 2000 by a membership voteof 103 yea and 0 nay.

Today the Corps’ “harvest” ofSnake River spring and summerchinook at the dams is more than 10 times—1000 percent—greater than the combined catchof all ocean and freshwater recreational, commercial, andtribal fisheries.

Virtually no Snake River sockeyeare caught by fishermen any-more. The dams’ harvest contin-ues. Call it 10 times—1000 per-cent more than by fishermen.

The dams harvest more than 4times—400 percent—moreSnake River steelhead, and morethan 2 times—200 percent—thenumber of fall chinook caught byall fishermen.

The catch by fishermen, unlikethe wanton waste of the Corps’harvest, puts money in people’spockets and food in theirmouths, and helps keep localcommunities economically viable.

Importantly, these numbers arebased upon aggregates of wild and

hatchery fish, and upon the mostoptimistic, best-case assumptionsabout fish survival at and betweenthe dams. Less optimistic assump-tions greatly increase the percent-age of endangered wild fish "harvested" by the Corps’ dams and reservoirs.

The implication that the loss anddegradation of spawning andrearing habitat is responsible forthe threatened extinction of allthe listed fish populations is notsupported by the facts.

Large amounts of Snake Riversalmon and steelhead habitathave been lost or degraded.However, Snake Riverspring/summer chinook habitat,for example, encompasses about14 million acres. Roughly half is in federal Wilderness Areas,National Recreation Areas, Wildand Scenic Rivers, and undevel-oped National Forest roadlessareas.16

In short, Snake River salmon and steelhead spawn in the

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largest contiguous wilderness and roadless land complex in the lower 48 states.

Furthermore, habitat in developed areas accessible to fish generally is in far better condition now than before thedams were built.

There is no shortage of high-quality spawning and rearinghabitat—except for fall chinookdisplaced by the Corps andIdaho Power Company damsand reservoirs. There is a shortage of adult fish to use the available habitat. The majorcontributing factor is the Corps’severe degradation of criticallower Snake River migratoryhabitat, and the Corps’ harvestof adult and juvenile fish at thedams.

The hatchery argument also isspecious. Snake River salmonand steelhead numbers plummeted in lock step withcompletion of the four lowerSnake River dams. Most of thehatcheries in the Snake Riverbasin weren’t built until manyyears, mostly decades, later.

Furthermore, there is no interaction between wild andhatchery-produced fish in thevast Wilderness Areas and mostother statutorily protected orgeographically isolated areas.

Wild and hatchery fish only substantially interact when theCorps mechanically strains them out of the Snake River atthe dams, pumps them throughpipes, and crams them togetherlike sardines in barges and trucks

for a 400 mile trip to theColumbia River estuary.

Notwithstanding these facts, theCorps is obdurate in its denial ofthe cause and effect relationshipbetween the building of the fourlower Snake River dams andconcurrent near destruction of Snake River salmon and steelhead populations.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife had this to say about the Corps’ disconnectfrom reality:

"It is hard to imagine anotherbiological resource conservationeffort that has this historical andspatial information to evaluatethe a priori hypothesis that amajor perturbation (building ofdams) will result in a majordecline of a species. It is evenharder to imagine that the Corpswould ignore this information."17

The Corps refuses to admit neg-ligently failing to design the fourlower Snake River dams to passjuvenile fish as required by law.

It denies there is a serious fishpassage problem at and betweenthe dams, insisting on the oxy-moronic “success” of bargingsalmon in face of threatenedextinction.

These things, of course, are inte-gral to the Corps’ strategy todefend the status quo.

The Corps’ denial of reality alsohas profound economic implications.

If barging salmon is successfuland, therefore, there is no seriousjuvenile fish passage problem atthe dams, it follows that:

The precipitous decline ofSnake River spring, summer,and fall chinook, sockeye,coho, and steelhead coinci-dent with completion of thelower Snake River and JohnDay dams in 1975 is welldocumented. It is furtherdocumented that thesedeclines continue despitebasinwide efforts to mitigatefor impacts of the dams withhatchery production, harvestreductions, fish facility anddam operational improve-ments including gas abate-ment, and juvenile fish transportation programs.

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.18

[breaching the dams would be like] . . . taking a sledge-hammer to the Northwesteconomy.

Editorial page, The Oregonian,May 1, 2000.

. . . removing dams in eastern Washington would be an unmitigated disasterand an economic nightmare.

The increased truck traffic on our roads to haul wheatand barley to coastal portswill have an adverse effect on air quality and impose anadditional financial burden on the family farm, which formany would be too much tobear and force them to giveup their land.

So what do we get by removing the four SnakeRiver dams? Shattered lives.Displaced families and communities who will have seen their livelihoodsdestroyed, generations offamily farmers penniless,industries forced to drive up consumer costs, air pollution.

News release from WashingtonSenator Slade Gorton, June 27, 1999.

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a) breaching the dams is unrea-sonable; and b) the Corps is noton the hook for any costs associ-ated with breaching.

The linchpin of the Corps’ effortto preserve the status quo is tomake dam breaching appear aseconomically onerous as possibleto current beneficiaries of thesubsidies provided by the fourlower Snake River dams, to thegeneral public, and to politicaldecision makers. This providesammunition to allied politicaldemagogues and to economics-challenged he-said/she-said newsmedia.

Barging Is Not an “Alternative” to Breaching

Preserving the status quo byremoving salmon and steelheadfrom the river and barging them400 miles to the Columbia Riverestuary is not an alternative tobreaching the dams and restor-ing a free-flowing river.

Unlike breaching the dams,barging salmon has not and cannot produce the resultsrequired by law, i.e., protectionof critical fish habitats,including main-stem SnakeRiver habitat, and restoring fish populations substantially to pre-dam levels.

The Corps’ purported biologicalbenefits of the barging “alterna-tive” are concocted of unrealis-tic, rosy-scenario whole cloth,and the economic costs arelargely ignored.

Based on the enormous body of empirical evidence, state andtribal fisheries agencies, andmany independent scientists,strongly assert that barging—nomatter how wistfully “new andimproved” by the Corps and itscollaborator National MarineFisheries Service—has very highrisk of eventually resulting inextinction of Snake Riversalmon.19

In plain fact, the Corps has beenbarging Snake River salmon andsteelhead for nearly 30 years.

The usual measure of an actionis whether or not it works.

In the instant case, the morejuvenile fish barged, the feweradults return. Even in the face of impending extinction theCorps baldly calls this consis-tently negative result “success,”and proposes to do more of the same.

It is instructive that the Corpsdoesn’t pretend barging wouldcomply with the NorthwestPower Act which calls for muchmore than merely preventingextinction. It calls for restoringSnake River salmon to economi-cally productive pre-dam levels.

The Corps simply ignores thisrequirement of law.

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Even if the Corps’ figure of $300 million doesn’t overestimate the net costs of breaching the dams, whichit does, and even if the PacificNorthwest had to pick up thefull tab for breaching thedams, which it wouldn’t, thenthe cost would amount toone-tenth of 1 percent of ourtotal personal income. It’ssimply silly to predict thatsuch a relatively minor eco-nomic effect would cause a“disaster,” or a “nightmare,”or would take “a sledge ham-mer to the Northwest econo-my.”

Ed Whitelaw, professor of economics, University of Oregon.24

Furthermore, in passing thePower Act, Congress specificallyrejected use of a cost/benefit testto choose among alternativeways to accomplish salmonrestoration. Instead, it requiredselection of the least-cost meansof achieving the same sound bio-logical objective.20

Because it carries a high risk ofextinction, and even in theCorps’ wildest dreams cannotrestore Snake River salmon topre-dam levels, barging salmonwould not comply with thePower Act, nor would it be abargain at any price.

The Corps Minimizes or IgnoresBenefits of Breaching

The Corps threw out its ownstudy team estimates of therecreational value of breachingthe dams and substituted a muchlower value more to its liking.

The Corps recreation studyteam estimated a range of $70million-$416 million in annualrecreational benefits frombreaching the dams. The mid-point of that range, $243 mil-lion, was virtually identical tothe Corps’ $246 million per yearestimate of the total net cost ofbreaching.

The Corps substituted its own"middle value" of $82 million.

The Corps ignored the econom-ic benefits of avoiding costs asso-ciated with barging salmon.

The U.S. EnvironmentalProtection agency has held

that the four lower Snake Riverdams and reservoirs violate theClean Water Act, and thatbreaching the dams appeared tobe the most efficacious remedy.

The Corps economic analysisdoes not include any costs ofcomplying with the Clean Water Act if the dams were notbreached—variously estimated at$460 million-$900 million.21

The Corps’ first position charac-teristically was that it did nothave to comply with the CleanWater Act.22 The EnvironmentalProtection Agency disagreed.

"EPA disagrees that the Corpshas no legal obligation to com-ply with applicable water qualitystandards in operating the SnakeRiver dams . . .

“Failing to include the costs ofimproving water quality couldhave the effect of seriouslyunder-representing the costs ofretaining dams, and thereforeoverpricing the costs of damremoval in relative terms.”23

The Corps also neglected toinclude the fact that reliance onbarging likely would require anadditional 1 million acre feet ofstored water to augment flows inthe lower Snake River.

the Corps ignores the Northwest Power Act

salmon restoration mandate

According to a study done for theCorps by the U.S. Bureau ofReclamation, diverting an addi-tional 1 million acre feet of storedwater from agriculture to instreamflow augmentation would takenearly 650,000 acres of irrigatedland out of production in southernIdaho at a cost of $150 million-$1.3 billion and loss of 4,200-6,500jobs.25

The Corps ignored "passive usevalues" that would result frombreaching the dams and restoring140 miles of free-flowing SnakeRiver, riparian area, and sceniccanyon, and from restoring SnakeRiver salmon and steelhead popu-lations.

Passive use or existence valueshave been defined by the NationalOceanic and AtmosphericAdministration as:

". . . the values individuals place onnatural resources independent ofdirect use of a resource by theindividual. Passive use valuesinclude, but are not limited to: thevalue of knowing the resource isavailable for use by family, friendsor the general public; and thevalue derived from protecting thenatural resource for its own sake;and the value of knowing thatfuture generations will be able touse the resource. . ."26

There is no serious argumentabout the validity of passive usevalues. There is interminable argu-ment about how best to put a dol-lar value on them. The problem iseasily understood.

How much is Arlington NationalCemetery worth in dollars? The bald eagle? Mormon TempleSquare? The Lincoln Memorial? A Wild and Scenic River? AWilderness Area?

What are the salmon worth in dol-lars to a Native American Indianwhen "The salmon define who Iam"?

How much money is the quality oflife in the Northwest worth?

Of course, there is not one perfectdollar answer for any of thosequestions. However, economistsuse a variety of techniques to gen-erate economic perspective on pas-sive use values that is essential toinformed decision making.

Economists on the Corps studyteam estimated there would be$420 million per year in passiveuse values of breaching the damsand restoring 140 miles of freeflowing lower Snake River—inde-pendent of any effect on salmonpopulations. In addition, they esti-mated $142 million-$508 millionper year in passive use values ofrestored Snake River salmon andsteelhead runs.27

Benge, a Corps recreationplanner, led the agency’srecreation team on the SnakeStudy. Loomis, a ColoradoState University economist, is the Corps contractor doingthe team’s technical work.Now they both believe thatCorps officials—under pres-sure from Sen. Slade Gorton(R-Wash.), a staunch defend-er of the Snake Dams—manipulated and misrepre-sented their team’s results.

"I really thought this wasgoing to be a different kindof study for the Corps," said Benge, a 20-year veteranof the Corps. "It tears me up that it got hung up in politics."

Loomis ultimately calculateda range for the recreationbenefits of breaching theSnake’s dams between $70million and $416 million.Instead, after a series ofCorps officials insisted thatthe benefits could not possi-bly be that high, the agencycame up with its own "middlevalue" of $82 million.

"It was a classic case of bestprofessional practices sayingone thing, and our fearlessmilitary leaders caving intopoliticians and doing some-thing else," Loomis said.

Michael Grunwald, The Washington Post,September 12, 2000.

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According to The WashingtonPost, former U.S. Senator SladeGorton (R. WA.), a member ofthe powerful AppropriationsCommittee, kept complainingto top Corps officials until theagency finally agreed to eliminate passive use valuesfrom its economic analysis.

Gorton didn’t want us to findout anything that might hurthis cause, and the generalsdidn’t want to say no to him.I guess they were afraid he’dcut their budget.

John Loomis, professor of econom-ics, Colorado State University, The Washington Post, September 12, 2000.

How can I tell you what the salmon are worth? The salmon define who I am.What else can I tell you?

Antone Minthorn, ConfederatedTribes of the Umatilla IndianReservation, 1984.29

Former U.S. Senator Slade Gortondidn’t like that brand of economicsany more than he liked the brand ofbiological science that called forbreaching the dams to avert extinc-tion of Snake River salmon. Heleaned on the Corps and the Corpskneeled. No passive use values wereincluded in the Corps’ economicanalysis.

The Corps study fails to account forthe non-market values of salmon andsteelhead to Native AmericanIndians.

The Corps study team recognized thespecial significance of salmon andsteelhead to Native AmericanIndians. It acknowledged that the lossof fish and fishing places caused bythe lower Snake River dams adverselyimpacts tribal economic, physical, and spiritual/religious well-being.

It is understandable tribes resist put-ting a price on what to them is price-less. That’s no excuse for the Corpsto ignore these values in its economicanalysis.

The passive use values developed forthe Corps could have been used as asurrogate for the value to tribes ofbreaching.

At bare minimum, the Corps couldhave used as a token proxy for tribalvalues the cost of removing the prob-lem, i.e., its estimated $48.8 millionannualized cost to breach the dams.

Not accounting for these non-marketvalues at all violates the most basic economic principles.

Economist Anthony Jones put it this way:

"It is impossible to measure in mone-tary terms the total value to tribes ofsuch things as the cultural value of afree running river, of access to burialgrounds and traditional fishing sites,and of revitalizing sacred practices.

"However, it is not difficult to positreasonable assumptions from whichto calculate a minimum economicproxy or shadow value to the tribes of breaching the four lower SnakeRiver dams.

“A document that purports to base itsfinal conclusion on the calculation ofa NPV [net present value], but fails toinclude a financial accounting of trib-al cost/benefits is incomplete at best,and fatally flawed at worst.”28

The Corps Overstates Energy Effects of Breaching

The Corps estimates it would cost upto $271 million per year to replacethe energy that would be forgone bybreaching the four lower Snake Riverdams. This high-end estimate repre-sents 75 percent of the Corps’ totalestimated gross cost of breaching.

The Corps inflates its estimate ofenergy loss attributed to breaching byomitting probable substantial reduc-tions in generation that would occurwithout breaching.

These include additional flow andspill at the dams for fish migration tomeet Endangered Species Actrequirements, and to achieve CleanWater Act compliance.

The Corps neglects to put purported rate increases intoperspective.

Loss of the energy generated atthe four lower Snake River damswould result in increased ratesfor consumers of power distrib-uted by Bonneville PowerAdministration.

The Corps estimates residentialrate increases ranging from$1.20-$6.50 per month depend-ing on what facilities were builtand how they were funded.

The Corps’ high-end estimaterepresents a much larger thanaverage residential consumptionof nearly 2100 kwh per month.

The Northwest EnergyCoalition and Natural ResourceDefense Council estimate average residential rate increasesof $1-$3 per month.32 Rateincreases of these magnitudeswould be indistinguishable from routine variations inmonthly bills.

The City of Seattle, one ofBonneville’s biggest customers,resolved that rate increases were “. . . appropriate and necessary to fulfill our legal andmoral obligations for salmonrestoration.”

The Corps neglects to note thatwith the energy rate impacts ofbreaching, Oregon, Washington,and Idaho rates still would beamong the lowest in the Nation,if not the lowest.

Washington residential andindustrial electricity rates

currently are the lowest in theNation. Oregon residential ratesare second lowest.

In Idaho, where utilities typically get less than 10 percentof their total energy fromBonneville, breaching the fourlower Snake River dams wouldhave no discernable effect onrates, i.e., less than 1 percent, forthe 85 percent of the populationthat gets its power from privateutilities.

Rate increases for the remaining15 percent of the populationserved by Bonneville customerssuch as the City of Burley, mightbe as much as 5 percent. This iswell within the range of normalseasonal variation, and rateswould remain among the lowestin the Nation.33

The Corps omits essential legal context for rate increasesresulting from breaching.

In passing the Northwest PowerAct in 1980, Congress mandatedchanges in the hydrosystem toprotect salmon and steelhead.

The taking of anadromousfish from usual and accus-tomed places, the right towhich was secured to theTreaty Tribes in the Stevens’treaties, constituted both themeans of economic livelihoodand the foundation of nativeculture. Reservation of theright to gather food in thisfashion protected the Indians’right to maintain essentialelements of their way of life.

Settlement of the West andthe rise of industrial Americahave significantly circum-scribed the opportunities of members of the TreatyTribes to fish for subsistenceand commerce and to main-tain tribal traditions. But the mere passage of time has not eroded, and cannoterode, the rights guaranteedby solemn treaties that bothsides pledged on their honorto uphold.

United States District Court,1974.31

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. . . the right to resort to thefishing places in controversywas part of the larger rightspossessed by the Indians,upon the exercise of whichthere was not a shadow of impediment, and whichwere not less necessary to the existence of the Indians than the atmosphere theybreathed.

United States Supreme Court,1905.30

This was done with the explicitunderstanding that these changeswould result in reduced genera-tion and increased cost of energy.

Congress also was explicit thatfish were not to be sacrificedmerely to save money. It specifi-cally rejected limiting fishrestoration efforts to actions“with minimum economic costand minimum adverse impact onelectric power production.”

Instead, Congress only requireduse of the least-cost means of

achieving the same sound biolog-ical objective, while maintainingan adequate, efficient, and reli-able power supply.34 It authorizedBonneville to acquire energyresources to ensure the latterwhile meeting the fish protectionrequirements of the law.35

In NRIC v. Northwest PowerPlanning Council, the U.S. Courtof Appeals soundly rejected argu-ments by Bonneville’s industrialcustomers that fish restorationmeasures must meet a cost/benefit test.

. . . WHEREAS, the City ofSeattle acknowledges thatpartial removal will incurcosts that likely will lead tonominally higher prices forBonneville energy purchasedby the City of Seattle, andaccepts that paying our fairshare of these costs is appro-priate and necessary to fulfillour legal and moral obliga-tions for salmon restoration;

. . . NOW, THEREFORE,BE IT RESOLVED BY THECITY COUNCIL OF THECITY OF SEATTLE THAT:

The four lower Snake Riverdams should be partiallyremoved; that priority shouldbe given to clean and renew-able energy and energy con-servation to replace the losthydro-electric power gener-ated when the dams areremoved; energy conserva-tion and renewable energydevelopment be acceleratedto help ensure power supplyadequacy; federal, state andlocal governments shouldensure a positive transitionfor the communities affectedby the partial removal, planeffective mitigation for anyeconomic, cultural, or otherdislocation caused by partialremoval, and vigorously pur-sue economic and communitydevelopment to build a sus-tainable future for thosecommunities.

Seattle City Council Resolution#30230 adopted by vote of 8 yea-0 nay, August 21, 2000.

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Estimated Electrical Utility Average Revenueper Kilowatt-hour to Ultimate Consumer, by Sector, 1999.

U.S.

Average Oregon Washington

¢/kilowatt ¢/kilowatt % U.S. ¢/kilowatt % U.S.

hour hour hour

Residential 8.19 5.9 72% 5.1 62%

Commercial 7.23 5.0 69% 4.8 66%

Industrial 4.44 3.4 77% 2.5 56%

Source: Energy Information Administrat ion, Form EIA-826, Monthly Ele c tr i c Uti l i ty Sale s and Revenue Report with State Dis tr ibut ion.

residential rate increases from breaching would be virtually undetectable

The court ruled that the lawprevents "power losses and economic costs . . . from precluding biologically soundrestoration of anadromous fishin the Columbia River Basin . . .so long as an adequate, efficient,economical, and reliable powersupply is assured."36

The Corps’ economic analysissimply ignores the profoundeconomic implications of theserequirements of law.

The Corps Fabricates a Net JobLoss to Breaching

The Corps stacked the deck toconcoct a permanent loss of2,256 agriculture-related jobsdue to breaching.

It assumed irrigators could nolonger pump water from thereservoir behind Ice HarborDam due to breaching, and that37,000 acres of irrigated landwould be converted to non-irri-gated grazing land.

The Corps overstates theacreage irrigated from IceHarbor Reservoir; about one-third of the 37,000 acres is irri-gated from wells.

The Corps ignores alternativeirrigation methods such as sim-ply extending pumping facilitiesto the restored river channel, orpumping from groundwater,which are the norm throughoutmuch of the Snake River Basin.

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The Curious Case of U.S. Senator Larry Craig (R. ID.)

The State of Idaho—source of most Snake River salmon and steelhead—has been the primary economic casualty of the Corps’failure to properly design the four lower Snake River dams. Idahohas the most to gain economically from remedying that error. If the dams are not breached, Idaho would be put in double jeop-ardy by Endangered Species Act claims for water from federal reser-voirs now used for irrigation.

That notwithstanding, Idaho Senator Larry Craig with missionaryzeal relentlessly opposes any substantial changes in the dams.

In 1991 Idaho Governor Cecil Andrus proposed to leave the damsin place. For two months each year during the peak juvenile fishmigration period, reservoir levels would be lowered in order tospeed passage of juvenile fish to and over the dam spillways. Theeffects of temporarily lowered reservoir levels on waterway shippersand the handful of irrigators would be mitigated.

Craig immediately joined with non-Idaho interests dedicated to pre-serving pork barrel subsidies at Idaho’s expense in aggressivelyopposing Andrus’ politically and biologically pragmatic plan.

Subsequently, during his 1996 reelection campaign, the Senator’sads contained the following statements.

The very lifeblood of Idaho’s future is at risk on Tuesday,November 5, and that is why I am asking for your vote.

My opponent in the race for U.S. Senate has called for breaching of the dams and drawing-down the Columbia andSnake Rivers.

We built those dams to reclaim Idaho’s lands, and build a future of prosperity for our people and our state.

But what happens to Idaho if [his opponent] breached thedams?

No IrrigationNo Hydroelectric PowerNo CommerceNo RecreationNo jobs for Idaho

In fact, the four lower Snake River dams are in the State ofWashington, not Idaho. It follows that no Idaho land was reclaimednor is irrigated from the reservoirs behind those dams. Idaho utilities get less than 10 percent of their electricity from the federal system and that wouldn’t change with dam breaching. Idaho commerce, recreation, and jobs all would increase if the dams were breached.

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It illogically assumes that landno longer irrigated would not beused to produce dryland cropscharacteristic of the area, e.g.,winter wheat.

It overstates future employmentimpacts of breaching by failingto account for the long-standingand continuing trend of declin-ing employment in agriculture.

Most importantly, the Corpsignores the pivotal fact that it isresponsible for failing to proper-ly design the four lower SnakeRiver dams as required by law.

Thirteen irrigators pumpingfrom the reservoir behind IceHarbor Dam reap a windfall bybeing able to pump from an ele-vated water level. But they madegood faith investments to do so.It is reasonable to assume theCorps has a duty to mitigate theimpact of breaching on thoseinvestors and on affected farmworkers.

The most obvious mitigationwould be for the Corps to fundextending irrigation pumpintakes to the restored river, and to subsidize the increasedpumping energy costs. The costto the public would be far, farless than the current public costof destroyed salmon anddependent economies.

That done, breaching the damswould have no adverse impacton existing irrigated agriculturejobs. In addition, breachingwould create new jobs in othersectors, resulting in a substantialnet increase in jobs—not a netdecrease as claimed by the Corps.

The Corps over-estimates the negative energy-relatedemployment impacts of breaching the dams.

The Corps assumed the worst-case scenario whereby breachingwould produce a regional powershortage, and that new thermalgenerating facilities would berequired to produce an equiva-lent amount of energy. That thisenergy would be priced higherthan the energy foregone due to breaching. And these higherprices would result in permanentjob losses.

The Corps acknowledges "theprobable reduction in demandfor electricity that will occur ifelectricity prices increase with[breaching]." But then goes onto assume zero price elasticity ofelectricity demand.37

This is the same kind of voodooeconomics that boomers, notablyincluding the Bonneville PowerAdministration—which marketsthe energy produced by the fourlower Snake River dams—previ-ously used to "justify" spendingbillions of dollars on eventuallyabandoned nuclear power plantsin the Northwest, which causedthe largest municipal bonddefault in the Nation’s history.

. . . Let’s focus only on whatthe Corps didn’t measure.Urban and regional econo-mists in the Pacific Northwestwidely agree about theimportance to economicgrowth of the region’sreputation for a high qualityof life. An 1999 OregonEmployment Departmentsurvey found that 44 percentof the state’s new arrivals listthe state’s quality of life as the primary reason for moving here. This is thesalient economic impact of recreation. The jobs theCorps looks at are only anindirect indicator, a shadowon the cave wall. The dollarsoutside anglers, hikers, andkayakers bring into the localor regional economy or the workers such activitiesemploy don’t capture thebiggest economic impact of restored salmon runs and a 140-mile stretch of free-flowing river in a spectacularcanyon. That impact is bettercaptured by the number of talented Northwesternersthey persuade to immigrate—and their jobs, spending, and investments—whetherthey ever catch a fish, take a hike, or paddle a kayak. And the Corps doesn’t evenmention them.

Ed Whitelaw, professor of econom-ics, University of Oregon.38

breaching would create many new jobs, not cause a net loss of jobs as claimed by the Corps

The Corps estimated a maxi-mum of 2,256 jobs would belost in irrigated agriculture . . .the Corps assumed that forthe next century,

• those who lost their jobs —would never work again;local and regional firmsthat otherwise would havesold goods and services tothose who lost their jobsinstead would lose thosesales and wouldn’t findreplacement sales;

• owners of the farmingenterprises wouldn’t switchto any other economicactivities;

• everyone throughout thischain who lost her or hisjob would act exactly thesame way as the originaljob losers in that theywould never work again.

That makes the number2,256—or any other estimatederived from the Corps’ nonsensical assumptions—an impossible result andworthless.

Ed Whitelaw, professor of economics, University of Oregon.39

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Bonneville currently pays morethan $335 million per year to service its multi-billion dollar debt on never-completed, abandoned nuclear power plants.

In a separate study closely relat-ed to the Corps’ economicanalysis of barging salmon vs.breaching dams, the Corps andBonneville estimated a priceelasticity effect of 11 percent.This would lower the high estimate of the energy cost ofbreaching by about $30 millionper year.

For perspective, $30 million peryear is approximately the Corps’estimated cost of physicallybreaching the dams—after back-ing out a preposterous $20 mil-lion per year for 100 years ofwildlife mitigation and monitoring.

Accounting for an elasticityeffect of 11 percent would notmaterially change the end result,i.e., residential rate increasesindistinguishable from normalmonthly variations. The pointhere is to demonstrate by yetanother example the Corps’ sys-tematic bias against breachingthe dams.

The Corps’ assumption of zero price elasticity inflates the purported regional employ-ment impact of the breachingalternative, i.e., higher energyprices = lost jobs. But the Corpsdoes not assume higher pricesand lost jobs = less demand forelectricity. The Corps character-istically has it both ways in order

to inflate the perceived cost ofbreaching.

The Corps unrealisticallyassumes that people and marketswill not quickly adapt to chang-ing circumstances. That theywill stand immobilized in theface of change like deer frozen inheadlights. That people who losejobs will never work again. Thisobviously is not realistic.

The Corps ignored the 4,200-6,500 jobs the Bureau ofReclamation estimated would be lost under the barging alter-native if irrigated agriculture inIdaho were reduced in order toaugment streamflows at thelower Snake River dams.

In sum, to achieve a total netloss of 3,555 jobs that would bepermanently lost by breachingdams,40 the Corps: uses unrealis-tic assumptions about the nega-tive employment effects ofbreaching; evades its duty toprevent or mitigate adverseemployment impacts of breach-ing on reservoir users; minimizesthe negative employment effectsof not breaching.

The Corps Evades Its Mitigation Duty

Here is where the Corps connects the dots and links itsdenial of responsibility for negligently failing to properlydesign the four lower SnakeRiver dams with its effort to portray dam breaching as havingDraconian economic impacts.

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As noted below, adjusting foronly the most egregious bias in the Corps analysis revealsenormous net economic benefits from breaching thedams. However, without mitigation there would be relatively small, but locally significant, negative economiceffects. E.g., impacts on water-way users, and on 13 irrigatorspumping out of the reservoirbehind Ice Harbor Dam.

In the DEIS the Corps states:

"The purpose of this analysis isto describe and document thepotential mitigation and/or com-pensatory actions that could beundertaken to alleviate theimpacts associated with the studyalternatives under considera-tion."41

However, after spending $20million and 4 years the Corps inthe end defined its mitigationresponsibility as being narrowlylimited to fish and wildlife miti-gation and cultural resourcesprotection.

It is instructive that the Corpsincludes in its estimate of cost tobreach the dams more than $20million per year for 100 years torestore, maintain, and monitorwildlife habitat along a restoredfree-flowing Snake River.42 Thisis nearly half the Corps’ totalcost of about $49 million toactually breach the dams.

If the Corps did nothing at allthe habitat would restore itself ina small fraction of that time.

The Corps attempts to justifythis ridiculously costly action asbeing required by the legislationauthorizing the dams.

The Corps is silent on the factthat it has never met its existingmitigation obligation to replacefish lost attempting to pass thedams. Hatcheries were builtupstream of the dams, but thedams and barges kill most of thejuvenile salmon produced inthese hatcheries, as well askilling most of the naturally produced fish.

Other analysts—at a infinitesi-mal fraction of the cost of theCorps study—had significantlymore success than the Corps atidentifying ways to mitigate therelatively small but locally signif-icant negative economic impactsof breaching.43

The Corps’ mitigation myopiais, of course, consistent with itscore strategy to evade its duty tocorrect its negligent failure todesign the four lower SnakeRiver dams to pass juvenilemigrant salmon as required bylaw, and to create the illusion ofeconomic doomsday if it wererequired to remedy its error.

"The farmer will end up paying the bill," said JimFredericks, corps economist."It’s quite possible that somefarms would go out of business."

Tri-City Herald, March 4, 1998.

After reviewing the [Corpsstudy], a trusting reader mightconclude not only that thebypass [dam breaching] willgenerate net negative impacts,but that there is almost noth-ing that can be done about it.Both conclusions would bewrong.

Economic consulting firmECONorthwest.44

. . . dam removal can also bringsignificant new investmentsand economic mitigation proj-ects to areas of freight trans-portation infrastructure, powersources, and agricultural,municipal, and industrial waterpumping systems. With theseinvestments, bypassing thedams would boost regionalemployment and bolster theregional economy.

If the proper investments andmitigation programs are putinto effect, dam removal can(conservatively) bring about23,639 new short-term jobs,and an increase of at least3,183 permanent jobs. Perhapsmost importantly, salmonrecovery and a free-flowingriver would attract new busi-nesses and help diversify localeconomies.

American Rivers, July 2000.45

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The Corps negligently failed todesign the four lower SnakeRiver dams to pass juvenilesalmon and steelhead as requiredby law. For decades this has haddevastating economic, social, andcultural impacts throughout thePacific Northwest.

The Corps’ negligence nowthreatens to forever rob futuregenerations of the benefits ofSnake River salmon and steel-head, one of the world’s mostmagnificent, perpetually renew-able natural resources.

The Endangered Species Act,and the Northwest Power Act—among a host of other laws andtreaties—provide the Corps withboth the opportunity and themandate to change course.

In its December 1999 study theCorps could have acceptedresponsibility for correcting itsdesign error. All else would havefollowed.

The Corps could have acknowl-edged that the radical RubeGoldberg practice of strainingfragile wild juvenile salmon andsteelhead out of the river, pump-ing them through pipes, andbarging them 400 miles to theColumbia River estuary, wasdoomed to fail. And did.

The Corps could have concededthat barging cannot meetrequirements of the EndangeredSpecies Act, let alone the fargreater Northwest Power Actrequirement to restore SnakeRiver salmon to economically

productive pre-dam levels. Thatbarging is not a bargain at anyprice.

The Corps could have acted onits own conclusion that the damscan’t be fixed and evaluated thecost and benefits of a business-like plan to breach the dams andmitigate the relatively small, butlocally significant adverse eco-nomic impacts.

Such a plan would restore SnakeRiver salmon and dependenteconomies, while protectingexisting economic interests. Thiswould create larger, morediverse, and more sustainableeconomies for the lower SnakeRiver region and the Northwest.

At bare minimum, the Corpscould have simply displayed thefull array of the best availableinformation on all the costs andbenefits of breaching the dams,including mitigation for adverseimpacts. Then the public andelected officials could makeinformed political decisions.

That’s the way the system is supposed to work. But in theColumbia River Basin, the system is broken. More accurate-ly, it has been taken hostage bythe Columbia River PorkAlliance.

Unfortunately, the Corps wasunable to shed its traditionaliron yoke of servitude toentrenched pork barrel econom-ic interests and allied politicaldemagogues. It decided to defend the status quo.

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The Corps denied the existenceof a serious juvenile fish passageproblem at the dams—removingthe fish from the river and put-ting them in barges having"solved" any such problem.Then it cooked the books to cre-ate the illusion that it would costtoo much to breach the dams tocorrect the “non-existent” juve-nile fish passage problem.

This survey confirms the findings of many others: theCorps’ economic analysis is fundamentally and systematicallybiased in favor of preserving thestatus quo by removing salmonfrom the river and barging them400 miles to the Columbia estu-ary, and biased against partiallyremoving the dams from theriver so the fish can stay in it.

The Corps’ biased economicconclusions fuel the rhetoric ofthe monopolists, crony capital-ists, and allied political dema-gogues who cynically pit peopleagainst one another in contrivedzero-sum economic conflict inorder to create political gridlockagainst change.

They have succeeded. So far.

The Good News

Ironically, the data generated forthe purpose of supporting theCorps analysis hoists the Corpson its own economics petard.

In any analysis of costs and benefits, it helps to know whowould pay the costs and whowould obtain the benefits. In this instance it is useful to breakthe Corps’ estimated costs into

two major categories: energy-related costs that would be paidby the region’s ratepayers, andother costs more appropriatelyborne by U.S. taxpayers.

Breaching the dams would cause13 irrigators to lose the ability topump water from the reservoirimpounded by Ice Harbor Dam.In addition, instead of usingbarges from Lewiston, graingrowers and other waterwayshippers would have to use morecostly pre-dam highway and railtransport for a rough average of70 miles or so to the next down-stream barge terminal.

However, if the Corps were toaccept responsibility for mitigat-ing the negative impacts of rem-edying its error, even these rela-tively small but locally signifi-cant adverse economic impactscould be made to disappear.

It would be appropriate for U.S.taxpayers to be responsible formitigating the non-energy relat-ed economic effects of breachingthe dams, i.e., the cost of keep-ing irrigators and waterway ship-pers whole.

According to the Corps’ ownestimates, this would cost tax-payers $88 million per year, produce benefits of $113 millionper year, for a net benefit of $25million per year.

Take out the Corp’s preposter-ous $20 million per year for 100years of wildlife habitat mitiga-tion and monitoring, and netbenefits rise to $45 million per year.

A Pentagon investigation of the Corps’ study of the upperMississippi River waterwayproject challenged the overallability of the Corps to conducthonest analysis.

The investigators noted a"widespread perception ofbias among the Corpsemployees interviewed,"including almost every Corpseconomist interviewed. Theinvestigators concluded thatthe agency’s aggressive recentefforts to expand its budgetand mission, as well as itseagerness to please corporatecustomers and congressionalpatrons, have helped to "cre-ate an atmosphere whereobjectivity in its analysis wasplaced in jeopardy."

"The testimony and evidencepresented strong indicationsthat institutional bias mightextend throughout the Corps,"the investigators wrote. Theycited "immense" pressure togive questionable projects thegreen light, noting that eventhe agency’s retired chiefeconomist called Corps stud-ies "corrupt."

Michael Grunwald, TheWashington Post, December 7,2000.

the Corps hoists itself on its own economics petard

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The information in this tableprovides perspective on theeconomic costs and benefitsof breaching the four lowerSnake River Dams.

To be conservative, theCorps’ estimates of costs andbenefits are used as given.

The estimates of benefitsignored by the Corps’—except the estimate forClean Water Act compli-ance—are based on valuesgenerated by the Corps’study team, but which wereeither misrepresented orignored in the Corps’ eco-nomic analysis.

To be conservative, theignored benefits are eitherthe low- or mid-point valuesfrom the ranges of estimatedbenefits.

The point being that even ifone compares the high-endof the range of estimatedcosts to the low- and medi-um-end of the range of esti-mated benefits, breachingthe four lower Snake Riverdams would produce enor-mous net economic benefits.

Perspective on Annual Economic [Costs] & Benefits in RoundedMillions of Dollars of Breaching the Four Army Corps of

Engineers’ Dams on the Lower Snake River

COE Cost Estimates

Dam breaching [49]Waterway transportation [24]Irrigation/water supply [15]

Subtotal [88]

Replace Energy [271]

Total COE Cost [359]

COE Benefit Estimates

Avoided costs 29Recreation 82Commercial fishing 2

Total COE Benefit 113

COE net total [cost]/benefit [246]1

Benefits not included by COE

Avoided costs

Additional flow augmentation 38 2

Clean Water Act compliance 31 3

Recreation 161 4

Passive values 745 5

Tribal values proxy 49 6

Total Ignored Benefit 1,024

Total net [cost]/benefit 778

1 All included values from Summary, Improving Salmon Passage, Draft, The Lower SnakeRiver Juvenile Salmon Migration Feasibility Report/Environmental Impact Statement, Army Corpsof Engineers, December 1999, p. 34. 2 Mid-point of range of cost estimates by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Snake RiverFlow Augmentation Impact Analysis Appendix, February 1999.3 Mid-point of range of available cost estimates from The Three Sovereigns Future Fish andWildlife Costs Report, 1998.4 Difference between the middle value of range of estimates produced by Corps economicsstudy team and the "middle" value substituted by the Corps.5 Mid-point of range of estimates developed by Corps economics study team.6 COE cost of dam breaching used here as token, minimal, economic proxy for economicbenefit to Native American Indian Tribes.

The Corps’ worst-case estimateof $271 million per year in ener-gy-related costs constitutesabout 75 percent of the totalestimated cost of breaching thedams.

This cost would be spreadamong the region’s ratepayers,not paid by U.S. taxpayers ingeneral. It would add an estimat-ed $1-$3 dollars per month tothe average residential electricbill. These amounts are so smallthey couldn’t be distinguishedfrom routine monthly variationsin electricity use. Rates stillwould be among the lowest, ifnot the lowest, in the Nation.

Furthermore, when you accountfor other costs and benefits gen-erated for but ignored by theCorps, it turns the Corps’ resultson their head.

As shown in the accompanyingtable, the Northwest and thelower Snake River region wouldshare with the Nation net eco-nomic benefits from breachingthe dams conservatively estimat-ed at about $800 million peryear.

Breaching would create thou-sands of new temporary andlong-term jobs, and help buildgenerally larger, more diverse,and more sustainable regionaland local economies.

This economic boon would have the added benefits of belatedly complying with theoft-expressed will of the peopleand law of the land, and of fulfilling moral obligations to

current and future generations.

These positive results of breach-ing the dams are the opposite ofwhat the Columbia River PorkAlliance would have the publicand decision makers believe.

Only the most unsubtle mindwill find this surprising.

Problem "Solved" 20 Years Ago

The legal mandate and mecha-nism to correct the Corps’ error in designing the four lower Snake River dams has long been in place. It’s called the Pacific Northwest ElectricPower Planning andConservation Act of 1980.

Among other things, the Act:requires that Snake River salmonand steelhead be restored to productive pre-dam levels; recognizes that changes in thehydrosystem are necessary, willcost money, and will increase thecost of energy; proscribes usingeconomic cost as an excuse fornon-action; gives Bonneville theauthority to acquire energyresources to ensure a reliablepower supply.

The Columbia River PorkAlliance for two decades has successfully thwarted the letterand intent of the Power Act andall previous laws with similarintent. This is a subject to whichwe turn in a subsequent survey.

The Corps’ tortured economicanalysis of breaching the fourlower Snake River dams is merely the latest installment in

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Unfortunately, the hard factsare that the longer Bonnevillecan avoid changing the waythe main-stem dams areoperated, the more flexibili-ty—a.k.a. money—it cansqueeze out of the regionalenergy system to help pay itsnuclear power plan gamblingdebts. The longerBonneville’s utility customerscan put off acquiring theirown, market-pricedresources. The longer thealuminum companies canenjoy below-cost power rates.All of these short-term bene-fits of delay, of course, are atthe long-term expense of fishand dependent regionaleconomies.

Delay also has other seduc-tive economic and ideologicaldimensions. Delay avoids riskin the short term. Delayhelps create a favorable"power shortage" politicalclimate. When acquiring newenergy resources can nolonger be avoided, and ratesmust be sharply increased,the fish, the environmental-ists, and the EndangeredSpecies Act can be used asscapegoats for what at bot-tom are simply poor businesspractices.

Ed Chaney, Northwest ResourceInformation Center, 1991.46

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that unprincipled effort whichperpetuates a tragedy of epicproportions.

The economic, social, and political impacts have been traumatic, and widespread.

Billions of dollars have been lost to local, state, regional, andnational economies. The U.S.and Canada, states, Indian tribes,local communities, and neigh-bors have been pitted againsteach other in internecine conflictover drastically reduced suppliesof fish.

Billions of public dollars alreadyinvested in salmon and steelheadhabitat protection, hatcheries,and fish passage facilities, are atrisk of being wasted. Billions ofdollars more in future economicbenefits are at risk.

Treaties with Northwest Indiantribes and Canada have in practical effect been abrogated.The intent of laws and socialcontracts with all people of theNorthwest and Nation havebeen thwarted. Government has been corrupted.

National Marine FisheriesService, Bonneville PowerAdministration, and the Corpspropose to spend many hundredsof millions of additional dollarson ill-fated diversionary meas-ures designed to save the dams,not the fish.

And for what?

For the money, of course.

But it would be a mistake tothink it’s only about money.

It’s about covering up and evad-ing responsibility for egregiousbureaucratic error and misman-agement.

It’s about preserving the incestu-ous regional culture of compro-mised bureaucracy, crony capi-talism, monopolies, politicalhegemony, personal power, andsinecures that the moneyenables.

This is difficult not to notice.Many have made the necessaryeffort.

The situation cries out for a forward-looking, public interest-based, business-likeinvestment strategy to reclaimthe Columbia/Snake River com-mons for the general publicgood, while protecting legiti-mate private interests.

Unfortunately, the failure ofgovernance in the Northwest todate does not bode well for asudden outbreak of statesman-ship.

But Snake River salmon andsteelhead, and the four lowerSnake River dams, are nationalassets. Their fate will be decidedat the national level.

The American public and thefederal courts may show littlesympathy to pork barrel apolo-gists for extinction who, at gen-eral public expense, are bent onevading the rule of law and thediscipline of the market, and on beggaring their neighbors in the process.

Judi Johansen, the adminis-trator of the BonnevillePower Administration,announced Thursday thatshe’s resigning to take aposition at PacificCorp, alarge Portland-based utility.

. . . Johansen, who makes$130,000 a year atBonneville, said she wouldearn more as PacificCorp’sexecutive vice president ofregulations and externalaffairs.

Jonathan Brinckman, TheOregonian, November 10, 2000.

People of privilege willalways risk their completedestruction rather than sur-render any material part oftheir advantage. Intellectualmyopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privilegedfeel also that their privileges,however egregious they mayseem to others, are asolemn, basic, God-givenright.

Economist John KennethGalbraith, The Age ofUncertainty, 1977.

the Pork Alliance proposes to send more hundreds of millions of dollars

to save the dams—not the salmon.

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Army Corps of Engineers Chain of CommandFrom Onset of the Corps Study in 1996-To Date

Chief of Engineers:Lt. Gen. Arthur Williams Aug 1992 to Oct 1996

Lt. Gen. Joseph Ballard Oct 1996 to Oct 2000

Lt. Gen. Robert Flowers Oct 2000 to Present

Northwestern DivisionBrig. Gen. Russell Fuhrman Jul 1994 to Dec 1996

Brig. Gen. Robert Griffin Dec 1996 to Jul 1999

Brig. Gen. Carl Strock Jul 1999 to Present

Walla Walla DistrictLt. Col. James Weller Jul 1993 to Jun 1996

Lt. Col. Donald Curtis Jul 1996 to Jun 1998

Lt. Col. William Bulen Jun 1998 to Jun 2000

Lt. Col. Richard Wagonaar Jul 2000 to Present

The Corps’ role in this study has been as an honestbroker, serving our Nationand its citizens.

Lieutenant Colonel William E.Bulen, Jr., Walla Walla DistrictEngineer, Army Corps ofEngineers.47

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1 Draft Lower Snake RiverJuvenile Salmon Migration FeasibilityReport/Environmental Impact Statement,U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,December 1999. 2 Lower Snake River Fish andWildlife Compensation Plan, Army Corpsof Engineers, 1975. Authorized byCongress as part of the Water ResourceDevelopment Act of 1976, P.L. 94-587.3 Pacific Northwest Electric PowerPlanning and Conservation Act, Pub. L. No96-501, §§ 4(h)(7), 94 Stat. 2697, 2709(1980).4 Pacific Northwest Electric PowerPlanning and Conservation Act, Pub. L. No96-501, § 4(h)(5), 94 Stat. 2697, 2709(1980).5 Columbia River Basin Fish andWildlife Program, Northwest PowerPlanning Council, 1994, pp 5-25-5-32.6 Northwest Resource InformationCenter, Inc. v. Northwest Power PlanningCouncil, 35 F.3d 1371 (9th Cir. 1994),cert. Denied, 116 S.Ct. 50 (1995).7 Review of the DRAFT LowerSnake River Juvenile Salmon MigrationFR/EIS, prepared for Trout Unlimited byECONorthwest, April 28, 2000.8 Detailed Comments from theU.S. Environmental Protection Agency onthe Lower Snake River Juvenile SalmonMigration Feasibility DraftReport/Environmental Impact Statement,April 27, 2000.9 Summary, Improving SalmonPassage, Draft, The Lower Snake RiverJuvenile Salmon Migration FeasibilityReport/Environmental Impact Statement,Defining the Problem, Army Corps ofEngineers, December 1999, p. 3. 10 Draft Lower Snake RiverJuvenile Salmon Migration FeasibilityReport/Environmental Impact Statement,U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,December 1999, p. 2-6.11 Summary, Improving SalmonPassage, Draft, The Lower Snake RiverJuvenile Salmon Migration FeasibilityReport/Environmental Impact Statement,Defining the Problem, Army Corps ofEngineers, December 1999.

12 Conservation of Columbia BasinFish, Draft Basin-wide Salmon RecoveryStrategy, Update of the All-H Paper,Prepared by the Federal Caucus, July 27,2000.13 Spawner-recruit data for springand summer chinook salmon populations inIdaho, Oregon and Washington.Beamesderfer, R.C.P., H.A. Schaller, M.P.Zimmerman, C.E. Petrosky, O.P.Langness, and L. LaVoy. 1997. In. Planfor Analyzing and Testing Hypotheses(PATH): report of retrospective analysis forfiscal year 1997. Compiled and edited byD.R. Marmorek and C. Peters. ESSATechnologies Ltd., Vancouver, B.C.;Status Report, Columbia River Fish Runsand Fisheries, 1938-1998. Joint ColumbiaRiver Staff Report, Washington Depart-ment of Fish and Wildlife and OregonDepartment of Fish and Wildlife, 2000;Spring chinook salmon run reconstructionsand updates. E. Tinus, Oregon Departmentof Fish and Wildlife, memorandum andspreadsheet to D. Marmorek, PATHfacilitator, January 12, 2000; Plan forAnalyzing and Testing Hypotheses (PATH):Decision Analysis for Fall Chinook. C.N.Peters, D.R. Marmorek, and I. Parnell.(editors), 1999. ESSA Technologies Ltd.,Vancouver, B.C; Plan for Analyzing andTesting Hypotheses, Final Report for FiscalYear 1998. D.R. Marmorek, C.N. Petersand I. Parnell (editors), 1998. ESSATechnologies Ltd., Vancouver, B.C.;Draft 2000 Biological Opinion on Operationof the Federal Columbia River Power System(FCRPS) Including the Juvenile FishTransportation Program and the Bureau ofReclamations 31 Projects, Including theEntire Columbia Basin Project, NationalMarine Fisheries Service, July 27,2000;State of Idaho’s Comments on NationalMarine Fisheries Service Draft 2000Biological Opinion on Operation of theFederal Columbia River Power System(FCRPS) Including the Juvenile FishTransportation Program and the Bureau ofReclamations 31 Projects, Including theEntire Columbia Basin Project, 2000.14 Written Testimony of Edward C.Bowles, Anadromous Fish Manager, State ofIdaho Department of Fish and Game, beforethe United States Senate Committee on

Environment and Public Works,Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, andWater, September 14, 2000.15 Comments of the OregonDepartment of Fish and Wildlife on TheDraft Lower Snake River Juvenile SalmonMigration Feasibility Report andEnvironmental Impact Statement, April 28,2000, p 15.16 An assessment of ecosystem compo-nents in the interior Columbia Basin andportions of the Klamath and Great basins,Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-405. 4 vols.Quigley, T. M; and Arbelbide, S. J., tech.eds. USDA Forest Service, PacificNorthwest Research Station, 1997. 17 Comments of the OregonDepartment of Fish and Wildlife on TheDraft Lower Snake River Juvenile SalmonMigration Feasibility Report andEnvironmental Impact Statement, April 28,2000, Executive Summary, p. 8.18 Comments of the OregonDepartment of Fish and Wildlife on TheDraft Lower Snake River Juvenile SalmonMigration Feasibility Report andEnvironmental Impact Statement, April 28,2000, p. 15, citations omitted.19 See, e.g., Comments on theNational Marine Fisheries Service’s "AnAssessment of Lower Snake RiverHydrosystem Alternatives on Survival andRecovery of Snake River Salmonid (DraftAnadromous Fish Appendix), IdahoDepartment of Fish and Game. August30, 1999; Technical Comments on the scien-tific analysis used for the Federal CaucusDraft All-H Paper, Idaho Department ofFish and Game (as part of the State ofIdaho’s comments on the Draft All-HPaper). March 27, 2000; TechnicalComments on NMFS’ draft AnadromousFish Appendix, Idaho Department of Fishand Game. April 28, 2000; A technicalreview of the National Marine FisheriesService Leslie matrix model of Snake Riverspring and summer chinook populations, pre-pared by state, tribal, and U.S. fisheriesagencies, April 28, 2000; Comments of the

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife on the Draft Lower Snake River JuvenileSalmon Migration Feasibility Report/Envir-onmental Impact Statement, OregonDepartment of Fish and Wildlife, April 28, 2000.20 Pacific Northwest Electric PowerPlanning and Conservation Act, Pub. L.No. 95-50, § 4(h)(6)(C), 94 Stat. 2697,2709 (1980).21 The Three Sovereigns FutureFish and Wildlife Costs Report, July 30,1998.22 Letter from Brigadier GeneralCarl A. Strock, Division Engineer,Northwestern Division, Corps ofEngineers, to Chuck Clark, Director,Region 10, U.S. EnvironmentalProtection Agency, June 5, 2000.23 Letter from Charles E.Findley, Acting Regional Administrator,U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,to Brigadier General Carl A. Strock,Division Engineer, Northwest DivisionArmy Corps of Engineers, July 31, 2000.24 Ed Whitelaw, Breaching DamMyths, Oregon Quarterly, Autumn 2000.25 Snake River Flow AugmentationImpact Analysis Appendix, Bureau ofReclamation, February 1999.26 Natural Resource DamageAssessments; Proposed Rules. Federal regis-ter 58(10): 4602-14, National Oceanicand Atmospheric Administration(NOAA), 1994, p. 1073. 27 Draft Lower Snake RiverJuvenile Salmon Migration FeasibilityReport/Environmental Impact Statement,U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,December 1999, Appendix 1, p. 14-828 Memorandum from AnthonyJones to Ed Chaney, September 2000.29 Personal communication,Umatilla Indian Reservation, March1984.30 United States v. Winans, 198United States 371, 380 (1905).31 United States v. Washington, 384F. Supp 312 (W.D. Wash. 1974).32 Going with the Flow, ReplacingEnergy From Four Snake River Dams,Natural Resources Defense Council,

April 2000.33 Letter to Idaho LieutenantGovernor Butch Otter from economistAnthony Jones, May 16, 2000.34 Pacific Northwest Electric PowerPlanning and Conservation Act, Pub. L.No. 96-501, § 4(h)(6)(C), 94 Stat. 2697,2709 (1980).35 Pacific Northwest Electric PowerPlanning and Conservation Act, Pub. L. No96-501, § 6(a)(2), 94 Stat. 2717 (1980).36 Northwest Resource InformationCenter, Inc. v. Northwest Power PlanningCouncil, 35 F.3d 1394 (9th Cir. 1994),cert. denied, 116 S.Ct. 50 (1995).37 Draft Lower Snake RiverJuvenile Salmon Migration FeasibilityReport/Environmental Impact Statement,U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,December 1999, p. I3-10.38 Ed Whitelaw, Breaching DamMyths, Oregon Quarterly, Autumn 2000.39 Ed Whitelaw, Breaching DamMyths, Oregon Quarterly, Autumn 2000.40 Draft Lower Snake RiverJuvenile Salmon Migration FeasibilityReport/Environmental Impact Statement,U.S. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,December 1999, Table ES-12. 41 Draft Lower Snake RiverJuvenile Salmon Migration FeasibilityReport/Environmental Impact Statement,U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,December 1999, p. I13-1.42 Draft Lower Snake RiverJuvenile Salmon Migration FeasibilityReport/Environmental Impact Statement,U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,December 1999, p. I13-2. 43 See, e.g., Creating Jobs byRestoring Salmon: Employment After PartialRemoval of the Four Lower Snake RiverDams, American Rivers, July 2000; Reviewof the Draft Lower Snake River JuvenileSalmon Migration FR/EIS, prepared forTrout Unlimited by ECONorthwest,April 28, 2000, pp 8-1ó8-14; GrainTransportation After Partial Removal of theFour Lower Snake River Dams: An afford-able and efficient transition plan, Dr. G.Edward Dickey, September 1999;Irrigation After Partial Removal of the FourLower Snake River Dams, American

Rivers, November 1999; Going with theFlow, Replacing Energy From Four SnakeRiver Dams, Natural Resources DefenseCouncil, April 2000; Restoring the LowerSnake River, Saving Snake River Salmonand Saving Money, Philip S. Lansing,Oregon Natural Resources Council; AnEconomic Strategy for the Lower SnakeRiver, prepared for Trout Unlimited,ECONorthwest, November 1999.44 Review of the DRAFT LowerSnake River Juvenile Salmon MigrationFR/EIS, prepared for Trout Unlimited byECONorthwest, April 28, 2000, p 8.2.45 Creating New Jobs by RestoringSalmon: Employment After Partial Removalof the Four Lower Snake River Dams,American Rivers, July 2000 [citationsomitted].46 Changing Course, A New, MoreBusiness-like Approach to Joint Production ofColumbia River Basin Anadromous Fish andHydroelectric Energy—Recommendations forRecovery of Snake River Basin SalmonPetitioned for Review Under the EndangeredSpecies Act, Northwest ResourceInformation Center, January 1991.47 Summary, Improving SalmonPassage, Draft, The Lower Snake RiverJuvenile Salmon Migration FeasibilityReport/Environmental Impact Statement,Army Corps of Engineers, December 1999, p. 1.

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