Wednesday December 18, 2024
Columbia Gorge News —
Back in October, officials announced that water supply on the Lower Snake River in southeastern Washington is sufficient to meet demand, even without reservoirs provided by the Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite Dams, according to initial research.
Since construction in the 1970s, the dams have pushed multiple salmon runs toward extinction, causing rounds of litigation for nearly 30 years. Under the Biden Administration, four Tribal nations, Oregon, Washington and several conservation groups signed the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement, which, in part, directs agencies to study the impacts of Lower Snake River dam removal.
“All indications are that the availability of water in the Lower Snake River far exceeds existing demand,” said Devin Stoker with the Jacobs Engineering Group, which was contracted to complete the study along with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and Washington’s Department of Ecology.
“We’re still refining numbers and turning some knobs on some models, but that’s roughly an order of magnitude higher than the sum of the existing authorized water uses in our study area,” he said.