Letter: Don’t breach the Snake River dams

I disagree with breaching the Snake River dams. It would have a devastating impact in the Northwest. It would destroy irrigated farmlands, ruin stakeholder networks, devastate family lives and reduce distribution of consumable goods. Once these dams are gone, restoration of the fish species can take 30 to 60 years!

One solution to ensure the fish migration is increased barging of the fish upstream. This practice had been successfully used for several years and seems to be the most logical and economical approach. The problem is finding the fish to accomplish this task. They are no longer in large numbers in the Columbia River and even fewer are found along the Oregon and Washington shorelines. Why?

Overfishing is one of the biggest offenders. No doubt this has been a global problem because of high-tech harvesting of all species of fish from world oceans. Overfishing occurs when more fish are caught than the population can replace through natural reproduction. Reference the article in National Geographic Magazine’s April 2007 issue, titled “Still Waters, The Global Fish Crisis.” A second solution is to maintain restricted fishing boundaries for the Pacific and Atlantic coastal fisheries.

This story was originally published November 24, 2016 at 4:08 AM with the headline "Letter: Don’t breach the Snake River dams."