||| FROM SUSAN BAUER for OWC ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION TEAM ||| 

The Orcas Women’s Coalition’s Environmental Action Team (“EAT”) recently adopted a resolution that calls for Congress, by 12/31/2022, to set aside funds and draw up plans for the breaching or removal of the four Lower Snake River dams in the Columbia Snake River System.

We adopted this resolution in order to help recover wild salmon, steelhead and other native fish of the Snake River and Columbia River Basin. The Southern Resident Killer Whales (“orca whales”) rely on wild Chinook salmon of which almost 50% historically came from the Snake River but today only between 1-2% of adult wild fish return. In fact all of the Snake River’s wild salmon and steelhead face extinction as do the Southern Resident Killer Whales (orca whales). 

Although the orca whales are in the Salish Sea (their “Summer Core Area Critical Habitat”) roughly 1/3 of each year, these individuals rely intrinsically on Columbia River Basin salmon as they travel both to and from our area. According to Dr. Deborah Giles, Killer Whale Researcher at UW’s Center for Conservation Biology and a resident scientist at the UW Friday Harbor Laboratories, “It is clear that lower Snake River restoration, including dam removal, is the single biggest and most effective step we can take to restore the Endangered Species Act-listed Snake River salmonids and the critically endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales. The evidence of continued decline for both Southern Resident Killer Whales and Snake River Chinook also highlights the great urgency to take this action as soon as possible. It is my opinion that any margin for error in recovering these orcas has disappeared. Unless the four lower Snake River dams are breached in in the very near future as part of the recovery measures, the Southern Resident orcas will not survive or recover.”

This is also an issue of restoring broken Tribal Nations’ treaty rights and preserving indigenous peoples’ cultural values. A 2021 resolution of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians stated “…these [Lower Snake River] dams and others were built through the use and destruction of lands, rivers and fisheries we have lived with for millennia.” 

EAT is merely a group of concerned citizens. We have no staff. We found out belatedly, this past January, that the Biden Administration had joined the already existing initiative to study these dams created by Senator Patty Murray and Governor Inslee. This is the first time in decades that a presidential administration has joined the effort to help decide once and for all the fate of these dams and to study replacement of services these dams may provide.

The Biden Administration’s Council for Environmental Quality (“CEQ”) has been conducting listening sessions around our region to gather input for a findings report due out in July, 2022. Their draft report is due out this very month (May). Our county has not been included in these sessions and when our group asked in April for the San Juan County Council to consider adopting this same resolution or at least to weigh-in in their own fashion directly with the Murray-Inslee-Biden initiative, the Council refused even to put it on an upcoming agenda for discussion. That was/is direct censorship of our voices. And as a county situated in the middle of critical habitat for the orcas and with a front row seat to the species collapse of both wild salmon and the orcas, our own place at any fact-finding table is conspicuously empty. We need to enter this discussion and the time to have our voices heard has almost run out.

What can you do? I realize there are many national and global issues claiming our attention right now.  But this issue is supremely time-sensitive and you can make a difference.  Simply use the peer-reviewed, scientific citations within our EAT Resolution for your own reference and for use in either phoning or emailing our legislators or their communications teams. Here is contact info you may need. 

Also here is a link to a survey which feeds directly into the initiative. It’s not necessary to answer each question. Just explain what you know:  https://www.wildsalmon.org/projects/restoring-the-lower-snake-river/2022-survey-resource-page.html

Thank you for caring about restoring our marine environment, broken Tribal Nation treaty obligations, our local economy and a large part of our local identity.

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