PORTLAND — Congress is tiring of shelling out millions to save Snake River salmon, and four dams on the river should be breached to help the runs and free the money for alternative energy and to protect river users, two former governors said Friday.

"What is at stake here goes far beyond the issue of salmon and dams and the regional economy," former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber told the Portland City Club.

Government agencies, meanwhile, defended the dams and said efforts to save salmon are getting results.

"The simple question is not whether we breach these four Snake River dams," Kitzhaber said, but whether there is a regional desire to restore the health of the Columbia River ecosystem.

Bruce Babbitt, a former governor of Arizona, said, "I want to leave you with a sense of urgency of this issue. We've been grappling with it for 15 years now."

After billions of dollars, he said, "The game is just about up."

"In the time that we've been spending this money the Snake River coho salmon have become extinct. The sockeye salmon has become functionally extinct. There is no way to justify such spending for those results."

Babbitt said the $600 million to $700 million a year spent to help the salmon runs could be used to help farmers get their grain to market by improving the rail system and guaranteeing fair shipping rates.

Babbitt said the dams generate only 5 percent of the power of the Bonneville Power Administration grid and about 2 percent of the power used in the Pacific Northwest.

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2003293141_salmon07.html