Well, we have had this debate before, and this is my take(very simplified);

People who claim dams are the reason for declined fish runs are wrong. If the dams were the major cause of depleted fish returns, we would have no returns at all by now.(The proof exists) As was stated earlier, Snake river steelhead runs are in fact as healthy as ever.

There is also more than one study out there that suggests dams have made adult return easier than pre-dam.

Priest Rapids is not 'perfectly controlled' to protect redds and smolts, or they wouldn't have stranded and killed what they estimated was 4-5 million of them last spring by rapidly changing the water level do to the need for power generation outwaying the need for fish protection.

Dams produce cheap power(not as cheap now), irrigation for farms, and transportation for products both up and down the river. If I have to choose between these benefits, or fish I say....both. We've already proven that it can be done. They CAN co-exist. Maybe not at historic levels, but again that is not the fault of just dams. Stream habitat degredation, improper logging, storm drain run-off, the list goes on and on. And you can't fix everything to pre-dam, or pre-man levels for that matter.

So, am I pro-dam? Not necessarily, but as populations continue to increase, demands on our water systems will to. We have to find a balance between the way things use to be, and the way things have to be now.

In the meantime, I hear a lot more people blaming dams for everything, when we can't even get the city of Portland, along with many, many other cities, to quit dumping raw sewage in our rivers. Now that, should be getting more attention for protecting fish runs at this point than dams do......