Who Gives A Dam?

Potential Snake River Dam removal paves the way for the return of salmon.

Photo by Peyton Perdue

Story by Mars Wetzbarger

December 14, 2024

Ann Willis's nose filled with the musty and rich smell of decaying plants in the muddy-colored river in front of her: The site of the now-removed Klamath dam. The river’s path changed, releasing centuries of dead algae and sediment. 

“I felt a lot of peace watching the river flow past me, knowing that healing was taking place and that the power of the river to heal itself was far beyond what any person could do," Willis said, the California Regional Director at American Rivers. “I felt a relief.” 

The Klamath Dam removal is the largest dam removal project ever, according to Willis, the four Lower Snake River dams would take that title if removed. Currently, the dam removal is waiting for a political window for Congress to pass the breach, or removal, of the Snake River dams.

To do so, pressure needs to be put on our leaders, according to Owen Begley-Collier, a member of Students for Climate Action at Western Washington University. 

In 2023, the Biden-Harris administration announced a partnership with Tribes and states in the Pacific Northwest to support the restoration of wild salmon and expand clean energy production in the Columbia River Basin. The partnership will support the removal of the Lower Snake River Dams if Washington state Congress authorizes it, according to the Columbia River Basin Initiative.

“The dams will come down. It's just a matter of will they come down in time for salmon?” Begley-Collier said.

Sarah Dydrahl, northwest region director at American Rivers, studied environmental systems and river restoration in college. She then worked as a field restoration ecologist to heal rivers, landscapes and the communities surrounding them. She spent 20 years doing this work only to find out that it hadn’t improved conditions for salmon. 

“The science came back and it said, all of this effort that you've been spending in the Columbia Basin is not showing,” Dyrdahl said. “It was not demonstrating the need for salmon recovery, and that was devastating.”

Since the building of the dams, several species of salmon have become endangered according to a study by Oregon and Portland State Universities on dam removal politics.

The salmon don’t have to worry themselves with the drag of politics; slack water, slow-moving water filled with sediment behind the dams, weighs them down instead, according to Begley-Collier.

As salmon go through a puberty-like transition to move from freshwater to saltwater, they race against the clock to reach the ocean. Slack water holds them back like a car stuck in the mud.

Begley-Collier found his transition to dam removal advocacy through his passion for orca whales. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Begley-Collier wanted to educate himself on what he could do to help save the southern resident orcas, the community of orcas in the Northeast Pacific Ocean.

Eventually, that led him to the Snake River Dams.

“Breaching those dams would be the biggest bang for the buck action to bring salmon back into the water for the southern residents,” Begley-Collier said.

Predators of salmon can kill them easily when they are slowed down even before they make it to the ocean Begley-Collier said. When they don’t accomplish their ocean journey other species are affected. The decline in salmon population leads to orca’s health and population being diminished since orcas’ main diet is salmon according to the Whale & Dolphin Conservation.

The lives of indigenous communities and tribes have also been altered since the building of the dams. 

“It was not an environmental campaign, it was life or death for the tribes,” Willis said.

According to a report about the Tribal Circumstances and Impacts of the Lower Snake River Project, from the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, the building of the dams has led to the loss of tribal fishing, land and livelihoods. 

“The salmon are a life source that we all depend on. We will continue to fight for their survival together because just as we are united with each other, we are also united with the salmon; we are all salmon people,” said Samuel Penney, the Nez Perce Tribe Chairman as cited in the Nez Perce statement on the Lower Snake River Dam removal. “We are here speaking for the salmon and upholding our commitment to them as they have done, and continue to try to do, for us.” 

The Tribes surrounding the Snake River are at an overwhelming rate of poverty and unemployment. It is between three and 13 times higher than that of non-indigenous regions, according to the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.

“Poverty came with the Reservations. We were forced to live away from our salmon and our other resources,” said Warms Springs Fish Commissioner Nathan Jim Sr. in the tribes’ report.

For the Nez Perce tribe specifically, it is estimated that 2.8 million pounds of salmon were harvested. Now, according to the tribal fisheries commission’s report, it is 160 thousand pounds. Ninety percent of treaty salmon have been lost. The development on the river has left no place for salmon and little place for the tribes.

Willis views rivers as a living system, like a body. 

“If you think of a dam like a tourniquet and somebody just put a tourniquet on your body and left it there for a century, not just that part of your body is going to be injured, but more systemic things will start to fail,” Willis said.

According to a case study on breaching the Snake River dams, the dams' purpose is to provide waterways for barges, irrigation to farmland, and electricity through hydropower. The reservoirs, a lake the dam creates, are used for recreational purposes such as fishing, camping and swimming.

Eastern Washington representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers believes the dams should stay up. 

In a January 2024 at a subcommittee hearing on the devastating impacts of removing the Snake River Dams, McMorris Rodgers said: “We are deeply disturbed by the blatant disregard for the enormous hydropower, irrigation and navigation benefits these dams provide, as well as a willingness to ignore the voices of those who depend on the dams the most.” 

Alternatives exist for the services that dams provide: wind and solar power replicate the energy created by hydropower, rail structures replace barges and pump systems compensate for irrigation needs, according to Begley-Collier. 

According to Willis the role of protest and advocacy in dam removal is crucial. The collective mentality around dams needs to change, Willis said. Dams were a tool that provided a service, and removing them improves that tool.

“Rivers have an incredible power to heal themselves and stay healthy,” Willis said.  “When the environment around them is healthy, then the communities within those environments tend to be healthier, too.” 

Education is the basis of all mobilization, according to Joseph Bogaard, executive director of Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition. 

Save Our Wild Salmon is a non-profit that brings conservation organizations, fishing groups and clean energy advocates to restore salmon and steelhead populations in the Columbia River Basin.

The coalition educates about how fish populations have been diminished and what needs to be done to restore them. Their goal is that people will take that information and mobilize. By rallying a large number of people to engage policymakers, elected leaders can understand what is important to voters in their region.  

“The tribes are healing. The river is healing. Salmon are coming back,” Bogaard said.