For more than a decade, Sen. Larry Craig has been the bad guy to advocates who want to save salmon in the Columbia and Snake rivers. He tried to kill a federal fish-research center and has refused to discuss removing four Snake River dams.

But the Idaho Republican says the bad-guy label is not fair. He wants protection for salmon balanced with protections for the region’s hydroelectric power, ports and agriculture, he says, and wants to use his status as the Northwest’s senior senator to find a resolution to the intractable salmon debate.

How? He wants the governors of Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Montana to meet with federal officials to draft a consensus plan to manage the Columbia system for fish and power. He has no immediate plans to introduce a federal law to force such a plan. But he told the Idaho Statesman last week that he will consider in the next couple years suspending current lawsuits if that’s what it takes to get the governors to come up with a plan.

“Fish are an important part of the equation in my book,” Craig said. “They are an equal part, but they are not a primary part.”

Salmon advocates, including Kathryn Brigham, an Umatilla tribal leader from eastern Oregon, like the idea of a regional forum that puts all salmon options on the table for discussion. But they disagree with Craig on suspending lawsuits: It’s the court pressure that will force regional river managers to go beyond the status quo, they say.

How the region resolves the debate depends on whether governors and members of Congress can work together to find a political resolution before a federal judge decides for them, or before the matter becomes moot for Northwest struggling salmon.

For Northwest residents, the outcome will decide what they pay in electric bills, how they irrigate their farms and lawns, and what kind of salmon their grandchildren will be able to watch and catch.

Scientific, but not political, consensus

Since the 1980s, a scientific, political and legal debate has raged over the fate of declining populations of salmon and steelhead in the Columbia and Snake rivers. The debate is no nearer resolution today than when Snake River sockeye salmon were first protected in 1991.

Much of that debate has centered on the effects of eight Snake and Columbia hydroelectric dams and the best way to get migrating salmon past the dams. Dams change river flows that aid migration, and spillways kill fish outright or stress them so severely that they later die. Remedies — such as catching and barging the fish around the dams, or redesigning the spillways — may help but not enough to reverse the declines.

Twelve stocks of salmon and steelhead in the two rivers are listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act, a sweeping federal law that places fish survival above the region’s other interests.

That’s why federal judges have repeatedly ruled since 1992 that federal officials who oversee the dams and the fisheries have to do more — including possibly breaching the four Snake River dams. Last year, a federal judge ordered for the fifth time that federal dam operators and fisheries officials must rewrite their plan for ensuring that the eight dams that stand between Idaho and the Pacific don’t send salmon into extinction.

A consensus of fisheries biologists says the only way to restore Snake River salmon to viable populations may be to breach the dams in Washington.

But federal officials from President Bush down and regional political leaders oppose breaching the dams that provide up to five percent of the region’s electricity and allow barges to carry grain from Lewiston’s inland port to the sea.

An independent team of scientists released a report earlier this year that said everyone in the region — including salmon advocates who support continued fishing — are going to have to do more if wild salmon are to survive the next hundred years.

With the region’s population expected to more than double in that time, human demands for water, power and land that is now prime salmon habitat will overwhelm current efforts to save the fish, said Robert Lackey, the fisheries biologist who headed the Salmon 2100 project.

“It’s up to the public to decide on the tradeoffs that are necessary if wild salmon are to continue in significant numbers throughout this century,” Lackey said.

Craig’s salmon role

Craig has been a major player in the region’s salmon debate since 1990, when the first petitions to list the fish as endangered species were filed.

Craig balked when then-Gov. Cecil Andrus developed an Idaho salmon plan that called for drawing down reservoirs behind the four Snake dams in Washington to aid salmon migration without additional Idaho water.

That plan would have left large, ugly mud flats around Lewiston and seasonally halted barge shipping from Lewiston. Andrus’ plan pleased southern Idahoans but left Lewiston high and dry.

“The one thing I will not allow to happen on this issue for me is the state become divided,” Craig said in the interview last week.

Andrus’ drawdown plan never happened. In 1995, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers found that breaching the four dams would be less costly and more effective than the seasonal drawdowns, but the agency rejected both alternatives.

A group of Idaho interests — including Lewiston’s Port supporters, irrigators, rural electric cooperatives and the city of Idaho Falls, which relies on federal hydropower — banded together with Craig to build a coalition against breaching that survives today.

Meanwhile, a coalition of environmental groups, tribes, fishing industry associations and sportsmen seeking bolder salmon-recovery steps also has formed to keep the issue — and the possible removal of the four Snake River dams — before the courts.

Craig’s ‘rider’ threat

In 2005, Craig opened a spillway of anger, criticism and legal action with an anti-salmon legislative maneuver.

He inserted language into a budget bill that would have shut down the Fish Passage Center, an agency that had reported on the fish’s problems getting through eight dams on the rivers. The battle over the center remains tied up in the courts.

Rumors this fall that Craig was plotting a similar congressional maneuver had the salmon coalition sounding the alarm. The rumors are that Craig plans to add a provision to a budget bill — known as a “rider” — this year to prevent a federal judge from ordering more water drained from southern Idaho reservoirs like Lucky Peak that aid migrating salmon.

The Idaho Water User’s Association did press Craig to add the rider to relieve the threat to Idaho. But that could place more of the burden of salmon restoration downriver in Oregon and Washington.

Craig said the rumors are untrue on two counts.

“I do not have a rider ready now to introduce,” Craig said.

If he does write a future rider, he said, it wouldn’t be limited to protecting Idaho water: It would be to suspend the lawsuits while regional governors negotiate a salmon plan.

“I would mandate that Judge Redden would step back and that Idaho, Montana, Washington and Oregon would again convene their governors to work with NOAA fisheries to build a consensus,” Craig said.

Craig said he then could take that consensus plan and “legislate into law the management of the river system.” If Craig tries such a move, he won’t do it alone.

Regional political cooperation

He would need the full support of Northwest Democrats who will hold the balance of power in Congress come January. And Craig has time: U.S. District Judge James Redden won’t likely take any action until after federal fisheries officials roll out a new salmon- and dam-management plan next summer, as Redden has told them to do.

If Redden elects to order even more harsh and costly measures — as he has threatened — then Craig might not have a problem enlisting the aid of Oregon and Washington Democrats.

Craig has had such aid before. His efforts against the Fish Passage Center in 2005 could have been blocked by Washington state Democratic Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, who are supported by environmental groups, Craig noted. But they didn’t.

In fact, he works closely with most of the Northwest delegation to protect the Bonneville Power Administration, which markets electricity from federal dams and provides the bulk of salmon restoration funding.

Salmon advocates say they recognize the political reality that even allies like Cantwell don’t support the “major overhaul” the federal judge said — as far back as 1995 — was necessary to prevent the salmon from going extinct. That’s why they’re in court.

“I think many of the current status-quo river users are in denial,” said Todd True, a staff attorney with the Seattle office of Earthjustice. True leads the legal fight for salmon advocates.

Facing the scientific reality

But neither side in the political debate has been willing to tell Northwest residents how hard it will be to preserve wild salmon, said Robert Lackey, the scientist who headed the Project 2100 said.

Polls consistently show that up to 90 percent of the public support saving salmon.

“If that’s true, why doesn’t society do what we know will save the fish?” Lackey said. “Close fishing, close hatcheries and take out the dams.”

Salmon groups recently called for compensating the farmers, industries and communities who would lose if the four Snake dams were removed. Craig counters that they also should consider a compensation plan to end all fishing, except for religious and ceremonial harvest by the region’s tribes and perhaps limited sport fishing.

Brigham, an Umatilla leader who has fought hard to protect tribal treaty rights, said tribal fishers have limited their fishing for decades. But she doubted Craig’s idea was realistic even if it were to help fish.

“Our fish go up to Alaska,” Brigham said. “Does he mean were going to pay our Alaskan fishermen? How about Canada? Will we pay Canadian fishermen.?

Power politics

Craig’s stance puts another twist on the debate: Why should he be willing to consider removing dams, he asks, when salmon advocates aren’t willing to consider building the clean, dependable power plants necessary to replace them? Dams provide a supply of electricity that can be depended on at a moment’s notice.

“Why should we take a clean base of energy that costs us X cents per kilowatt hour and build a new base of energy that’s going to cost us five times or six times that at the very beginning when it goes on line?” Craig said.

Craig isn’t willing to talk about removing the dams, but he is willing to talk about what it might take to replace them. Three nuclear plants would be needed in the region, Craig said: Two to replace the power lost from the dams and another to meet the future needs in the growing Northwest.

“Base load is something you only build in a big unit, whether it’s nuke or coal-fired,” Craig said. “It won’t be another dam. ... That’s just the reality of the world we’re working in when we’re talking about taking out those we already have.”

Salmon advocates say conservation and new wind power can offset the loss of the dams. But Idaho Rivers United executive director Bill Sedivy said he’s willing to talk with Craig about supporting new power plants. That’s why he thinks the time is ripe for a regional forum like Craig describes.

“It’s going to be damn tough because there are so many competing interests,” Sedivy said. “In the end, everybody has to walk away from the table with something, and that’s the only way this will work.”

To offer story ideas or comments, contact reporter Rocky Barker at rbarker@idahostatesman.com or 377-6484.

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