Bureaucrats are not just targeting the four lower Snake River dams, they’re targeting every dam, a Northwest online advocate for the dams says.

“I really think there needs to be a growing sense of alarm in the ag industry,” said Adam Ratfliff, a filmmaker and social media content creator.

Among his projects is “Armchair Engineer,” described as a “web series about bridges, dams and common sense.”

Ratliff spoke during Idaho Wheat Commission’s “From the Field” webinar June 27.

The lower Snake River dams represent “the single most impactive environmental and economic issue” for the region, largely driven “by a side that’s not afraid to fudge the facts,” he said.

Ratliff said public perception that the dams block salmon migration, produce very little power and are old and obsolete, are all not true.

“There certainly is a case to be made about dams playing a role in ecological decline,” he said. “However, the exaggeration is so large, it makes me question the motives of some of the people involved in this, because if you truly do want to restore Snake River salmon, you wouldn’t be focused on those four dams.”

Campaign to remove dams

Ratliff cited an “ongoing, long-term campaign” to persuade the public to tear out almost all dams, calling it an “incrementalist strategy.”

“We’re talking about irrigation projects that touch everyone’s lives, from the Columbia River to the Snake to the Yakima River, even up to the middle Snake in southern Idaho,” he said. “There are people out there who believe that we would be better off as a society if every river ran free.”

The conversation has a lot of momentum behind it, he said, “largely because nobody’s speaking up on Team Sanity.”

The lower Snake River dams might be a good “low-hanging target for the dam-breaching community” because it’s difficult to find other dams that are as large and remote, Ratliff said.

“They’re so hard to get to, it’s a three-hour drive from anywhere,” he said.

The most critical thing about the dams is that they extend the river transportation corridor from the Tri-Cities to Lewiston, Idaho, another 250-some river miles. Removing them would shorten the river highway by 40%, Ratliff said.

“It diminishes the economic impact of the four dams you leave in place,” he said. “By going after the four lower Snake River dams, you’re basically turning your sights on the rest of the dams because you’re lowering the value of the river highway as a whole.”

Fish myths

The dams “absolutely” are affecting the salmon population, Ratliff said.

“The myth, though, is that we used to have this many salmon, then we built the dams, and the fish went away,” he said.

The collapse of the fish population happened between 1880 and 1920, during the era of massive overfishing around Portland and Vancouver.

“After World War I, we have never seen the kind of numbers in the river that Lewis and Clark saw in 1805,” he said. “That was gone by the time World War II came around, and it had nothing to do with the dams.”

The concern is that if the dams are breached and the salmon don’t return, dam-breaching advocates would then target other dams, Ratliff said.

“At that point, you may as well go up to Grand Coulee (Dam),” he said. “It’s that incrementalism myth that we have to bust here.”

The pros of the dams are “too many to list,” Ratliff said, citing electricity and transportation benefits they provide. Other countries around the world are “desperately” trying to build similar dams, he said.

“This is an asset that is how we ensure sustainability both environmentally and economically for the next century,” he said. “It would be crazy to tear this down right now.”

”From the Field”: Navigating the Controversy of the Snake River Dams

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNH67S-WJ7E

Adam Ratliff

Adam Ratliff