Wednesday May 4, 2022
Idaho Statesman —
The threat that dams and climate change pose to wild salmon and steelhead landed the lower Snake River on a national environmental group’s list of the nation’s most endangered waterways.
American Rivers released its annual list of rivers the group deems to be critically endangered and placed the Snake in the second spot. That is down one spot from the 2021 list that had the Snake as the nation’s most imperiled.
The Snake was replaced in the top spot by the Colorado River, where drought and overappropriation threaten the drinking water of tens of millions of people and the intricate ecology of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The Snake River has made the group’s list frequently over the years because of the poor condition of wild runs of sockeye, spring, summer and fall chinook, and steelhead that are listed as either threatened or endangered.