Letter: Which Snake River dams are still serving their purpose?

I disagree with your March 12 editorial about the Lower Snake River dams. Where is your data on “the economic impact the dams have on agriculture, jobs, energy production, transportation and tourism?”

Only one of the dams provides irrigation, which can be replaced with intake pipes from a free-flowing river.

Breaching the dams would create thousands of recreational jobs, according to one economic report. Another report finds that with upcoming maintenance on the aging dams, they will cost taxpayers more than $200 million a year.

The dams produce energy at only one-third of their name-plate capacity, which could be replaced by efficiency upgrades.

Transportation is why the dams were built, but has declined 70 percent in 20 years. The Army Corps considers the river “a waterway of negligible use.”

Columbia-Snake river salmon have been endangered for 20-plus years and there still isn’t a recovery plan that meets court mandates. Loss of these salmon is cited by NOAA as the greatest change in prey for the endangered Southern Residents orcas.

We don’t want to take all dams down; we want to re-evaluate which dams are still serving their purpose. Looking at the facts, breaching these dams makes sense biologically and economically.

This story was originally published March 23, 2017 at 4:38 AM with the headline "Letter: Which Snake River dams are still serving their purpose?."