Here is the complete text of Peavey's comments. The Idaho ranchers may be a "strange bedfellow" for us. But hell, let's worry about it after the dams are gone!
Leland.
Twin Falls Times News
March 22, 2005
Dams remain the hurdle for salmon
John Peavey
As a rancher and former state senator, I am well acquainted with the various water issues facing the state of Idaho today.
Earlier this month, I testified before the House Resources Committee in support of bills needed to ratify the Nez Perce-Snake River Basin Adjudication agreement. Since our state was short-sighted years ago, I believe this agreement is the best chance we have now for protecting Idaho's agricultural economy.
At the same time, I urged legislators to begin negotiations to address one of the most critical issues surrounding Idaho's water woes -- salmon recovery.
Why is Idaho water being used to defend four dams in Washington State?
The Nez Perce-Snake River Basin Adjudication agreement calls for more than 427,000 acre feet of to be drained from the upper Snake River basin to flush young wild salmon downstream through four dams on the Lower Snake River. Flushing the fish to save the dams has been tried for many years and has failed. The wild fish are still in serious decline.
It is extremely important to keep this water in Idaho if an economic Armageddon is to be avoided. Thousands of acres of productive farm land could easily revert to sagebrush if calls for Idaho water to protect salmon persist. Meanwhile, the 427,000 acre feet of water could be used to quiet farmer vs. farmer lawsuits and help recharge the diminished East Snake Plain Aquifer, the source of these legal battles.
As far as Idaho's salmon are concerned, the four Washington State dams are the problem.
Our ranch once had a U.S. Forest Service sheep grazing allotment on Marsh Creek near Stanley. It was a major salmon spawning stream and is a tributary of the Middle Fork of the Salmon. In the 1950s and '60s, there were 20 bands of sheep and several cattle allotments in the area, and lots and lots of fish. But after the four Lower Snake River dams were built, the fish all but disappeared, and today, there is almost no grazing in the Marsh Creek area.
The solution to the salmon problem and our water woes is obvious -- take the Lower Snake dams down. If we do this, we can save Idaho's salmon, and there will be no need for "flush" water from southern Idaho or Dworshak Reservoir. Take the dams down, and we can build Idaho's salmon fishing economy and save farms in southern Idaho.
But back to my original question: Why should Idaho water be used to defend Washington state dams? Why are Idaho's people -- who caused none of the problem -- being asked to shoulder the entire burden of bringing the salmon back?
I asked these questions in a large meeting of farmers last year and one of Idaho's leading water experts responded that President Bush would not approve breaching the dams. If the issue has become so political, our leadership should go to Washington, D.C., and remind the president that Idaho is a red state and Washington State is a blue one.
History will not judge us kindly if we lose our farmers and our small towns, ruin the state's economy and lose the salmon, too. But I am afraid that is where we are headed.
Such disasters can be averted, though, if our leaders begin working in earnest to achieve removal of the Lower Snake Dams -- a solution that will save our farms, small towns and the fish.
John Peavey of Carey is a third-generation sheep and cattle rancher and a farmer who irrigates a portion of his ranches in Minidoka, Lincoln and Blaine counties. He served 21 years in the Idaho State Senate, where he was a senior member of the Resources Committee.