Power officials are bending the truth to dismiss their harm to salmon | Opinion

The Bonneville Power Administration and an association representing some Pacific Northwest utilities are misleading the public again — this time over the recent court ruling to increase spill over the eight dams on the lower Columbia and Snake Rivers to save salmon and steelhead.

Emergency court ordered measures for endangered salmon are not the reason our region is facing energy affordability and reliability issues – and won’t cause blackouts either, as the Public Power Council falsely claims.

Let’s look at the facts and some history to explain how we got here.

In 2023, the Six Sovereigns (the four lower Columbia Treaty Tribes and the states of Oregon and Washington) and the U.S. government reached an historic agreement to recover Columbia Basin fish and make investments needed to foster an affordable clean energy future. The Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement (RCBA) provided a comprehensive pathway forward for our region, continuity for hydropower operations, and a pause in long-standing litigation. In 2025, the Trump Administration terminated the RCBA, and soon after BPA proposed 2026 hydropower operations that would be devastating to imperiled salmon and steelhead populations.

The plaintiffs (tribes, states, conservation, fishing and clean energy groups) were left with no other choice than to return to court to request emergency injunctive relief to protect wild salmon and steelhead from extinction. In February 2026, the court granted the injunctive relief request for increased spill to aid juvenile salmon out-migration through the end of August, stating “summer spill levels are identical to previous summer spill levels that have been ordered by the Court before.”

Notably, the Judge also stated in the order, “The Court builds into the injunction flexibility for the Action Agencies to adjust spill for emergency power generation and transportation needs. The Court is unpersuaded by arguments that spill will create various catastrophic results. Defendants have raised these concerns each time spill is litigated without them coming to fruition. The majority of the spill has been implemented over the years without such negative repercussions, and the Court does not anticipate such calamities will ensue from the current spill order.”

BPA responded by making unsubstantiated cost estimates to comply with the court order, and then initiating a rate case to pass expenses on to customers, blaming salmon instead of using the existing management options it could utilize to minimize rate impacts.

The Public Power Council, meanwhile, is falsely claiming the court order will spike electricity rates and lead to blackouts. This is simply inaccurate and harmful, as stated in the court’s ruling, “The Court recognizes the dire situation these species are facing. … ‘and’ this disappointing history of avoidance and manipulation instead of sincere efforts at solving the problem and genuinely remediating the harm.”

It’s clear, emergency court ordered measures for endangered salmon are not the reason our region is facing energy affordability and reliability challenges. According to a recent analysis by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Brattle Group, higher rates are being driven by extreme weather and wildfire mitigation; overdue repairs to the transmission system; increased demand; gas price volatility, and costs to integrate new wind and solar projects into an outdated grid. Not salmon recovery.

Instead of falsely blaming imperiled salmon, BPA and regional utilities should address our region’s growing energy and transmission needs that they have neglected for years. A recent Tri-City Herald article mentioned intermittent power outages in Spokane in 2021 during a heat wave. It’s important to understand the role our outdated grid system had in those rolling blackouts. Avista representatives at the time had explicitly noted that “the issues with Avista’s system (causing the outages) are with distribution, not supply.” This emphasizes the need to more accurately understand the current challenges facing our energy system and the best solutions, so we can hold BPA and utilities accountable to their obligations to us as utility customers and our region.

Meanwhile, decades of data have identified spill over the dams as one of the two most important variables affecting the number of adult salmon returning to spawn; the other variable, water flow, is in part dependent on spill. The court keeps ruling in favor of spill and other measures that support salmon because scientific data shows it mitigates harm (as BPA is required by law to do), and salmon need it.

This is only a short term emergency action to prevent extinction though, and wild salmon populations are not recovering after decades of litigation and failed mitigation efforts. Of the 16 salmon and steelhead stocks that historically return to spawn above Bonneville Dam, four are extinct, and seven more are listed under the Endangered Species Act as endangered or threatened, including all that return to the Snake River. For most of these ESA-listed salmon species, by far the largest threat in their freshwater life stage is the harm caused by federal dams and their hot, stagnant, toxic reservoirs. Wild adult spring/summer chinook in the lower Snake River, which are now beginning their migration back to spawn, persist at 0.7% of historic levels. Many other populations persist at 1-2% of historic abundance, and only one population across the Basin is anywhere near recovery goals.

We can protect and recover our salmon while also scaling up to meet our rapidly increasing energy demands, but we must develop additional non-hydropower energy sources and modernize our grid with clean, affordable options.

Together, we can invest in a future with healthy and abundant salmon populations and affordable and reliable power. We urge BPA and our utilities to sincerely join us in this effort, and develop real solutions based on facts, data, and science—not waste our time perpetuating false claims and harmful rhetoric.

Tanya Riordan is policy and advocacy director at Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition. Stan Kuick is a Tri-Cities fisherman and salmon advocate.