— from Michael Karp, Lopez Island —
I have been distraught that the OPALCO board decided to adopt a resolution on September 19 that opposes the best chance our Southen Resident Orcas have to avoid extinction here in their home of the Salish Sea. OPALCO, the only utility that has a service area exclusively in the Salish Sea, was evidently swayed by their conservative energy association and voted recently to oppose breaching the dams, the best chance salmon have of getting to the Salish Sea and into the mouths of Orcas for much needed nutrition.
Additionally, in their arrogance, included in the vote was to not further study the removal of the dams as recommended by Governor Inslee’s Southern Resident Orca Task Force report. This vote was done without meaningful outreach to the OPALCO membership about our opinion.
ECONorthwest has a recent comprehensive analysis about breaching the Four Lower Snake Dams and the huge positive economic benefit for the region in doing so. There would be a very significant net gain financially from breaching the dams even after costs of removal, energy replacement, paying off irrigators and transportation from the river.
But most importantly, 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. This report, the latest of many reports over many decades that have similar conclusions. Please take the time to read the report and form your own opinions.
If you are as appalled as I am about both OPALCO’s action against our iconic cultural local species, and the lack of effort to poll members on such a critical issue for our culture, economy, and our sense of urgency to do everything we can to save these orcas, then let your board members know how you feel, and use your voting power to ensure there is a healthy outreach in the future on this and other compelling issues.
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What outrageous news. And shameful indeed. Please everyone educate yourselves about the sanity and sense of removing the snake river dams at damsense.org – an educational, intelligent and science-based site by former Army Corps engineer Jim Wadell. No one is more articulate, knowledgeable, and persuasive for the need to breach the dams before the salmon runs and orcas are indeed beyond saving. If you are not include to that, try a 7 minute videa to start you off (https://vimeo.com/channels/thenewlocalism/132785443)
The lobbyists who over and over again are behind the obstruction of breaching the dams likely have stuck again and very well could be behind the ‘facts’ that supported this resolution. The board should have to defend and explain clearly the basis for this highly controversial decision, and I for one would like to demand that the evidence they used to support this decision be made public to all members. Please, everyone, do you homework, and take action. Opalco needs to hear from us, let’s make it loud and clear.
Is there an impeachment process for OPALCO board members?
Alas, OPALCO has gone the way of too many private masquerading as public, organizations. Accountability no longer pertains, democracy? Well, she seems to be on life support.
I can’t remember the last time OPALCO asked for member input. Is this actually a coop? This decision is sickening.
OPALCO stands with our whales AND supports our hydro system. The Board of Directors unanimously passed a resolution to support effective actions to save the resident orcas whales and restore salmon runs while working through the ongoing federal environmental study of dam operations in order to understand the full web of interdependent issues at play that includes water temperature, vessel noise, ocean acidification, pollution, forage fish habitat and climate change. Read the full article and resolution at http://www.opalco.com/news.
Suzanne, your response on behalf of OPALCO is doublespeak… and means literally nothing.
Thank you Michael for your important voice on this issue. I was unfortunately the lone voice in the room against the resolution when the OPALCO board considered passing it last Thursday. While I understand that the board was trying to come at this issue from the electricity perspective, I felt the decision didn’t represent the values of much of OPALCO’s membership. In OPALCO’s own words, a “National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) study (already funded and underway) will provide the science necessary to understand the full web of interdependent issues at play, including water temperatures, ocean acidification, pollution and climate change.” So why rushed in the decision to oppose dam removal and further study on it? Why not wait for the NEPA study to conclude first before we can safely say that lower snake dams do not significantly affect the chance of salmon and orca survival? I hope with more feedback from its membership, OPALCO would reconsider its decision affecting not the salmon and orca, but also our island economy, identity and the Salish Sea ecosystem.
The OPALCO resolution states pretty clearly, “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.”
If OPALCO was really “standing with the whales” it wouldn’t be opposing the removal of the dams BEFORE THE STUDIES ARE FINISHED. Listen to the science.
The OPALCO Board made an unpopular decision in opposing demands to remove of the four lower Snake River dams. They made the RIGHT decision. The Board’s responsibility is to provide safe, reliable and cost effective electricity to their member/owners. At the same time, they make every attempt to do this with the environmental costs fully in mind. They are all for saving the orcas. Removing these dams would impact the region’s electric system stability. At the end of the day, having a stable power system in our county, in our state, in our region and in the country as a whole is extremely valuable. In my view, this is the Board’s primary responsibility.
Running the region’s power system (encompassing the western 1/3 of the US, western Canada and a bit of the Baja peninsula) is a complex and interconnected problem. You do one thing and that impacts several others. Everything is connected in some way or another. For example:
Preservation of salmon in the Columbia and Snake Rivers requires water to be spilled over dams to keep salmon eggs covered with water. This means less hydro generation and thus more fossil generation to meet loads. More fossil generation means more CO2. But too much water spilled means increased nitrogen levels that harm juvenile fish.
More unreliable renewable generation added to the system means less CO2 emissions but also a loss of system stability. To regain this stability more fossil or hydro generation must be available. This means more CO2 and less fish management.
Removing the four lower Snake River dams would also involve tradeoffs. This loss of generation (about what Seattle used in a year) would have to be made up by more generation from fossil fuel plants along with more CO2 emissions. The support these dams provide to the stability of the power system would also need to be replaced as we add more solar and wind. By removing these dams, more salmon could be returning to the Columbia River. These salmon, as they return from sea to the Columbia River, could increase the food source for the one pod of the Southern Resident orcas that travels to the Columbia to feed in winter. Would they really swim up to Puget Sound to benefit orcas’s here?
If we are going to meet our environmental goals and at the same time we want things like EV’s, electric ferries, increased population and a high standard of living, we are going to have to have a strong economy to pay the bills. This requires a power system that is stable and that can provide power at reasonable cost.
Do we really need more study when the independence of multiple species is as clear as a day in fall on the Elwha where the salmon are returning in a copious display of nature’s resilience. More salmon, less study.
I continue to wonder why no one ever seriously discusses a MORATORIUM on Chinook fishing as a way to address the declining resident orca population. It is clear that lack of food–which the resident orcas, unlike their transient cousins–seem to insist be Chinook–is the primary and possibly the only material problem the residents encounter.
Take all the millions that we spend on studies, commissions, meetings, conferences, and visioning and use it to reimburse the commercial fisheries and the tribes for the inability to take Chinook, for several years. (This is, of course, in the commercial and tribal/commercial fisherfolks’ own best interest. Without some effective action, they will have nothing to fish.)
Decommissioning the Lower Snake River Dams Would Help Resolve the Energy Oversupply Problem In the Pacific Northwest and Save Snake
River Wild Salmon from Extinction
https://damsense.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Pacific-Northwest-Energy-Oversupply-Fact-Sheet-10.14.2016.pdf
Peak Power Demand Is a Phony Excuse for Keeping the Four Lower Snake River Dams
https://damsense.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Peaking-Power-Fact-Sheet-10.17.16.pdf
It’s true that OPALCO’s mandate is to provide reliable electricity to San Juan county. And it is also true that there is no source of electricity and other energy that does not do harm to the natural world. Not one. If we want power, we are doing harm. That’s just a fact of life.
So we are at an impasse, right? Well, no. We could decide to use less energy. Not just a little less; a LOT less. So much less that the dams aren’t needed, that the tar sands aren’t needed, that the coal mines aren’t needed, that the fracked gas isn’t needed, that the silver mines aren’t needed (for making solar panels, which require a LOT of silver), that the copper mines aren’t needed (for making batteries, EVs, power grids, etc. which all require a LOT of copper), that the lithium mines aren’t needed (for batteries, which require a LOT of lithium) and so on.
We could do that. Use a lot less energy, and save the natural world, which.. after all… we depend on for our own lives, because we too are nature.
Will we?
I’m beyond disappointed in the OPALCO Board’s decision. I’ve read the reasoning; the worst of it is their decision to not further consider any other proven scientific data on what would be essential for orca recovery, including the data cited by Norris Carlson. NEPA studies are a joke; invariably, they do NOT go far enough to protect the environment. Why not a SEPA?
But a more pressing question would be; how can we reduce energy usage? (yet if we do, OPALCO will raise our rates to make up for the monetary “loss” – where’s the incentive in that?)
Many people are unwilling to make the lifestyle changes necessary to save fuel (how many “monster trucks” do you see compared to economy cars), let alone save the orcas, the forests, or even ourselves. In this week of purportedly standing with our youth on climate change and facing down the gun-barrel of the 6th mass extinction, this seems like another nail in the coffin.