Obama plan to save salmon includes ultimate option of breaching four Snake River dams

The Obama administration announced Tuesday it would continue to pursue the basic elements of the Bush administration plan for rebuilding salmon population in the Pacific Northwest, adding one significant change: the possibility of breaching four lower Snake River dams if fish populations slip closer to extinction, Matthew Preusch of The Oregonian reports. The decision received criticism from environmental groups who thought the administration didn't go far enough and from regional politicians who saw the inclusion of the Clinton-era breaching option as an economic threat. (Oregonian graphic by Michael Mode)

"Most efforts to offset challenges to salmon have centered on habitat restoration, extensive hatchery operations, barging of young ocean-bound fish around dams, and attempts to provide ample cool water for fish while meeting the demands of farms and growing cities," Preusch writes. Janet Lubcheno, an Oregon marine biologist who head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told Preusch: "We believe the actions in the plan will prevent further declines, but we've added these contingencies just in case." (Read more)

U.S. District Judge James Redden, who is presiding over the legal challenge against the government brought by environmentalists, fishermen, the state of Oregon and the Nez Perce Indian Tribe, has already rejected two federal plans for restoring salmon and is expected to rule on the Obama plan in the next two weeks, William Yardley of The New York Times reports.

“The extremists who brought this lawsuit may be critical about this plan because dam removal wasn’t delivered on a silver platter with promises of wrecking balls arriving next week, but they got what they wanted from the Obama administration, and they’ll try and convince Judge Redden to give them even more,” U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., told Yardley. Nicole Cordan, policy and legal director for Save Our Wild Salmon, a coalition including many of the plantiffs in the federal case, told Yardley: “Yes, dam breaching is on the table, but the table is over the river and through the woods and 1,000 miles away.” (Read more)