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Biologist Reverses Fish Stance

Posted on: Thursday, 11 August 2005, 18:00 CDT

MCCALL, Idaho (AP) -- An Idaho biologist who argued for a quarter century that fish ladders were good enough to prevent salmon from dying out now says four dams on the Snake River in Washington ought to be removed to help the endangered fish.

Don Chapman, 74, wants to get rid of the Ice Harbor, Little Goose, Lower Monumental and Lower Granite dams, located between the Idaho border and where the Snake River flows into the Columbia River. They produce 1,239 average megawatts of power, enough to light Seattle, and have allowed barge shipping of grain and other goods from Lewiston, Idaho, to Portland since they were built, starting in 1962.

Chapman for years worked as a consultant for electric utilities, arguing that man-made fish bypass systems on the dams such as ladders and barges were enough to keep salmon populations viable. He said he now believes that warming of the Columbia River and its tributaries and changes in the Pacific Ocean that may be caused by global warming necessitate breaching of barriers to help fish migrate upstream.

Chapman said his change of heart has scientific and political origins: He believes President Bush's salmon recovery plan, which characterizes dams as an insignificant factor in the survival of salmon, on grounds that they were there at the time the fish were listed under the Endangered Species Act, is flawed.

"It's so contrary to logic and common sense that I feel offended," Chapman said.

Some runs of salmon that swim up the Columbia River toward the Snake and its tributaries in Idaho have been listed under the federal Endangered Species Act since 1992.

In May, U.S. District Judge James Redden in Portland, rejected the Bush administration's plan for protecting salmon from federal dams. Redden then ordered federal dam operators to spill water over the dams.

Environmental groups, including the Save our Wild Salmon coalition, as well as American Indian tribes such as Idaho's Nez Perce who use salmon for ceremonial and subsistence purposes, advocate the removal of the four Snake River dams, saying it's needed to help the fish recover.

Source: Columbian

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