Hydro Interests Fight to Keep Dams Operating in Pacific Northwest

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Written by John Egan for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Drought isn't the only challenge confronting hydropower interests in the West. Well-funded environmental organizations like the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) (New York, New York), Earthjustice (San Francisco, California) and the Sierra Club (Oakland, California) want to dismantle four dams on the Lower Snake River. Some groups see this as a first step to making the Pacific Northwest hydro-free.

Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Power Plant Database can click here for a list of detailed plant profiles for the four Lower Snake River dams.

"There is a lot of money behind the anti-hydro forces, and it's not just about the Lower Snake River dams," Kurt Miller, executive director of Northwest RiverPartners (Vancouver, Washington), told about 1,700 attendees from 34 countries at the opening keynote session for the HYDROVISION International 2022 conference on Tuesday.

Miller said his organization is seeking to save hydropower in the Pacific Northwest. "Advocacy for hydropower is important if you want to preserve hydro," he told conference attendees in Denver. "Time is not our friend." This was the first time that HYDROVISION had a face-to-face conference in four years.

Those environmental groups began targeting the Lower Snake River dams because of the negative impact they have on the salmon population, and their campaign is working, he told conference attendees. "This would be a bad precedent" if those dams were dismantled. The four dams on the Lower Snake River have aggregate generating capacity exceeding 3,000 megawatts (MW).

His group is countering the dam teardown advocated with their own media campaign, "Our Power is Water." The digital advertising campaign has had some success changing the opinions of Millennials and Gen Z.

In case HYDROVISION International attendees thought Miller was mistaken in his claims, the same day he spoke the Biden administration released two reports finding dam removal is needed on the Lower Snake River to recover salmon to fishable levels in the Columbia and Snake rivers, and that replacing the energy produced by the Lower Snake River dams is feasible.

An estimated two-thirds of electricity in the Pacific Northwest comes from hydropower. Removing the dams on the Lower Snake River could cause electricity prices to jump 25% or more, according to his organization's campaign.

"Our industry is jeopardized," he continued on Tuesday. The Pacific Northwest will be the start, but not the end, of this conflict over water use. "Our message is powerful, but it costs a lot of money to change public opinion." He concluded his talk with a plea for funding.

One draft report, Rebuilding Interior Columbia Basin Salmon and Steelhead by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (Washington, D.C.), found sweeping changes are needed to restore salmon to fishable levels, from removal of one to four dams on the Lower Snake, to reintroduction of salmon to areas entirely blocked by dams.

"Business as usual will not restore the health and abundance of Pacific Northwest salmon. We need a durable, inclusive and regionally crafted long-term strategy for the management of the Columbia River Basin," said CEQ Chair Brenda Mallory, who is coordinating a federal interagency effort, launched in October 2021, to develop information and analyses in support of federal and regional decision-making in the Columbia River System. Mallory did not speak at the HYDROVISION event.

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton addressed the HYDROVISION event, which was sponsored by Clarion Energy (London, England). She didn't directly address the growing anti-dam attitudes in the Pacific Northwest, but she did say dams managed by the Bureau deliver about 40 million megawatt-hours of emission-free electricity each year, keeping about 18 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) from being released into the atmosphere annually.

"Hydro is a vital component of an emission-free electricity future," she said.

While the Bureau long ago stopped building dams, she said the Bureau will be distributing about $12.4 billion in Infrastructure Invest and Jobs Act funding: "Working together, we can solve the water and power challenges facing the West."

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