— from Sean O’Leary, Communications Director, NW Energy Coalition —
In a recent letter to the editor of Orcas Issues News & Views, Lopez Island resident Michael Karp said of removing four lower Snake River dams, “. . . orcas here in the Salish Sea would have the best overall chance of survival by benefitting from the increases of endangered and threatened salmon and steelhead native to the lower Snake River and the ecosystems that depend upon them.”
Karp was responding to a resolution recently passed by OPALCO (Orcas Power & Light Co-op) that condemned the idea of dam removal as a means of saving starving orca whales by restoring salmon populations that have been decimated by the dams. The OPALCO resolution traffics in three myths about the plight of salmon, the role the four dams play in the Northwest power system, and the efforts currently underway by the state of Washington to examine the problem.
At one point, the OPALCO resolution says, “We oppose the removal of the dams because we don’t believe it will solve the problem for our fish and the food chain and may worsen the situation.”
“Worsen the situation”? It’s hard to see how. The facts are that the dams have depleted Snake River salmon populations by more than 90%, Snake River salmon are a primary food source for orcas that are now dying of starvation, and previous dam removals have been highly successful in restoring fish populations.
The second myth, which isn’t overtly stated but implied, is that the Northwest power system would somehow be harmed or compromised by removal of the dams, which generate an average 1,000 megawatts or about 4% of electricity in the Northwest. In fact, last year the NW Energy Coalition released an operational study, which determined that the power and grid services provided by the dams can be replaced by a portfolio of clean energy resources including wind, solar, storage, and energy efficiency at little cost, with little or no increase in greenhouse gas emissions, and with a net gain in the reliability of the power system.
Finally, the OPALCO resolution condemns a state-funded stakeholder process to examine the implications of possible dam removal on the grounds that the effort is redundant with the federal government’s preparation of a court-ordered environmental impact statement. OPALCO’s contention represents a fundamental misunderstanding about the purpose of the stakeholder process, which is not being conducted to determine whether or not the dams should stay or go, but rather to examine the economic and social implications of dam removal and to make sure that people in the Northwest understand the effects that dam removal and restoration of the river and fish populations would have on them and their lives.
That is not at all redundant with the federal EIS process that will have a more narrow focus and that will leave important questions unanswered unless we take it upon ourselves as residents of the region to explore those questions. And, when we do, we’re likely to find out that the news is good.
In his letter to the editor, Michael Karp points to a recently released study by ECONorthwest, which concluded that removing the dams, replacing the power they provide, and restoring the Snake river and its fish populations would produce a net economic gain of $8.2 billion for the region.
Taken together, these facts lead to a single conclusion. The Northwest can have a clean, affordable and reliable electric system that harms fish and orcas. Or we can have a clean, affordable, and reliable electric system that helps save them. The costs are pretty much the same. It’s just a question of what we want and what we plan for.
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There are few topics that feel as important as the health and recovery of Southern Resident orcas. We understand that if a person believes that the dams are the reason that the orca are endangered, then it would be natural to call for their breaching. We’ve also reviewed the ECONorthwest report on the lower Snake River dams (LSRDs), so we empathize with people who see reports like these circulated in the media.
While well-intentioned, here’s where the ECONorthwest study falls short:
• It vastly understates the amount of energy needed to avoid energy shortages in the Northwest. The study did not consider the full impact US West’s retirement of over TEN THOUSAND megawatts of coal fired generation over the next decade.
• With new carbon legislation in WA (and other western states who compete for a piece of our federal hydro system), the demand for carbon-free resources will be greater than ever.
• Hydro is a clean and renewable resource that will be increasingly in demand to firm up the intermittent resources like wind and solar. The dams are critical to adding the renewable power that the NWEC study envisions. BPA uses the lower Snake River dams to help balance over half of the region’s 9000 MW of wind generation.
The ECONorthwest report does shed some important light on the actual effect of breaching the LSRDs. Page 94 of the report states:
If the LSRD are removed only some of the factors leading to mortality will be alleviated, while others may be introduced. When projecting changes to mortality and salmon population recovery levels there is extreme uncertainty due to the variety and magnitude of factors that contribute to overall populations, many of which change on a year to year basis.
For our part, we believe as a board that it is dangerous to eliminate carbon-free resources, like the LSRDs, that produce enough energy annually to power a city the size of Seattle.
The actions that must be taken IMMEDIATELY to help our whales on the timeline that we have left to impact their survival are all things that each of us can contribute to:
• Urge your legislators to reduce vessel noise and restrict contaminant pollution
• If you heat with fossil fuels or drive a fossil-fuel powered car, switch to electric
• Support a shift in salmon harvest practices
OPALCO is positioned to see the pressures on the power market, which are coming quickly: capacity issues, competition for our hydro system, carbon legislation, climate change and rising costs. We need our hydro system to meet our members’ power needs. Read the 2020-2040 Integrated Resource Plan (www.opalco.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/OPALCO-2020-2040-IRP-Draft-September-2019.pdf) to understand the Co-op’s vision for the future of our power.
OPALCO is a forward-thinking organization with the expertise to build a healthy energy future while caring for our sensitive marine environment and wildlife. The Board takes its responsibilities very seriously. We understand there are many different opinions, and that they all generally come from a place of good intent. We want you to know that we carefully examined the facts before supporting our resolution.
Ms. Olson is right to be concerned about power system reliability and I don’t doubt her commitment to the recovery of salmon and orcas. However, she is simply incorrect in her contention that power system reliability would suffer if energy and grid services from the dams were replaced by renewable resources. She is also incorrect in saying, “The dams are critical to adding the renewable power that the NWEC study envisions.”
The NWEC study found that a portfolio of renewable resources including wind, solar, storage, and energy efficiency could replace the power from the dams without any additional balancing services and that the portfolio would result in a reduced loss of load probability, which is another way of saying that the electric system would be made more, not less, reliable.
The study employed the same data and the modeling tools used by northwest power planners and the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and was conducted by an independent energy analytics firm that regularly works for utilities and state and regional planning organizations.
Also, the NW Energy Coalition an evidence-based energy policy organization whose members include some of the Northwest’s largest electric utilities and customers of the Bonneville Power Administration. In short, we go where the evidence leads and the study’s conclusions concerning the viability and cost-effectiveness of clean energy replacement portfolio were unequivocal.
I encourage Ms. Olson and anyone who is interested to review a 4-page summary of the study which explains the methodology and findings. It can be found at https://bit.ly/2n9MZZP. Or you can download and read the study in its entirety at https://nwenergy.org/featured/lsrdstudy/.
Finally, with respect to Ms. Olson’s three bullet-pointed alternative recommendations for orca and salmon recovery, think about them and consider whether they are likely to be adequate to reverse the damage done by the dams, which have reduced Snake River salmon populations by more than 90%. And, if you conclude they are not, then consider that the dams can be removed with little increase in cost, little or no increase in greenhouse gas emissions, and with no loss of electric system reliability. Then the question is, why not remove them and restore the river and fish populations so we can stop our orcas from starving?
Seal bounty.