"To breach or not to breach, that is the question."

A proposal has been floating around to breach Snake River dams for salmon migration.  Fish ladders haven't done as well as hoped. 

On the other hand, electric power needs, in the pacific northwest, keep growing driven by population increase.  Decade of 1990s saw 20% rise in Washington State population.  Since hydroelectric capacity doesn't increase (there are only so many rivers to build dams on in the region) new energy is increasingly coming from natural gas fired plants. 

The proposal to breach was discussed quite a bit in the late 1990s when energy and natural gas were both cheap.  Now the idea is less plausible as energy prices rise. 

People can't "have it all."  Pristine salmon runs and the "American family home with new kids on the block." 

Breaching two Elwa River dams, on the Olympic Peninsula, is more likely.  The Elwa dams don't generate that much power.  They are the only dams in that entire river system.  Down stream from the Snake River are also four Columbia River dams.

See my alternative energy poem.

Reader comment

Some slow time at work, so I visited your site. 
There are 21 dams between the Pacific Ocean and the headwaters of the
Snake. The only dams being considered for breaching are the 4 wholly in
Washington. I have long thought that if you kick over that rock, it's
water rights that squiggle out, not salmon.
Food for thought.

Mike