The Federal District of Oregon (Judge Redden) has ruled on the legality of the new interpretation of the ESA as it applies to the Columbia River salmon stocks.

American Rivers has it posted on their website:

http://www.americanrivers.org/site/News2...news_iv_ctrl=-1


In short, the Federal government got it's head handed to it on a plate.

For anyone interested in the future of the Pacific salmon stocks in the Columbia and elsewhere, this is very good news indeed.

I was cautiously optimistic this would happen. great news, if you care about wild salmon

Awesome!! Good to see some common sense in this process. Don't expect GW and crew to roll over tho, they will not stop on the issue, too many political paybacks to make. I like the part where they judge said this plan is in "sharp contrast" to plans done prior to it, gee I wonder why.

RM

NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICE!!!!!!!

YES

Good deal, let's remove all the dams now! We can the build new nuke plants for billions of dollars.......or sit around and eat raw salmon in the dark. Yeah....blow the dams

Yes, blow all of the Snake R. Dams. They are good for nothing and generate insignificant ammounts of power (5%) that could be compensated for by Coulee Dam. Why are we still debating this??

The Rand Corporation did an analysis of the costs and benefits of breaching the four dams on the Snake River. While some agrue with the Rand report, many agree that Rand , a highly respected research firm , with a client list the includes Ford Motor Company and the U.S. Government, has reached the proper conclusion.

I know it very hard to get an unbaised report from any group, but the Rand Report looks pretty solid to me. The following link discusses some questions and answers about the Rand report.

http://www.nwenergy.org/outreach/docs/RAND_Q&A.pdf#search=\'rand%20snake%20river\'

I can understand why a wheat farmer or tug pilot would oppose dam removal. I cannot understand for the life of me why a salmon fisherman would oppose dam removal?

I can't understand it either Wild Chrome. Keep in mind that the barges operating on the mainstem Columbia and Snake are highly subsidized by taxpayers, otherwise they wouldn't be able to operate. Beyond that, farms are also subdizided to the tune of billions of dollars. Understand too that there are thousands of farms in this country that don't have a river to take their product to market and yet these farmers still manage to "farm". So why can't farmers in the Northwest live without barging on some rivers?

Fishing is big business and when the fish don't come people suffer, this year being a good example. Millions of dollars were lost to merchants of all types up and down the Columbia River Basin when the springers didn't show. Not long ago, thousands of people lived on the salmon in the Columbia River and people were employed by canneries, boat manufacturing, etc. Much of this industry disappeared with the salmon.

The farming and other industries that may be impacted by changes that benefit salmon always say "what about me"? They fail to recognize that thousands before them in the fishing industry were put out of work because of changes to river management...what about these people? Noone seems to care about them anymore.

We subsidize farmers, loggers, barges, etc. Great, lets keep doing that but at the same time build the best possible salmon runs we can so that society will benefit from the billions of dollars generated from this fishery and the joy that comes with having them in our rivers again. It doesn't have to be farms/logging or salmon, we can easily have both.

RM

I'm so proud of my brothers and sisters in the fish biz! As are most of my co-workers.

Yet none dare call it conspiracy, or you may be labeled a conspiracy theorist.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

"It will cost northwest electricity consumers $100 million a year to spill water for the fish during the summer months" is the cry from the other side.

So let's see. $100 million dollars. Split between what, 3-5 million residents of the northwest? 20-30 bucks a year, 2-3 dollars a month...........to do what it takes to preserve these runs............and there's still a bunch of sniveling. Some from anglers who spend 50 bucks a year on a license. Rocket scientists, I'll tell you.

Yeah..........dams are a natural part of the environment. How very Bush Administration.

Our power supply is becoming more and more nationally integrated. Over time, the cost-per-customer will be less and less.