Free the Snake River

Free the Snake River

By D.S. Mitchell 

Continuous Legal Action

For nearly 40 years the Native American tribes, who consider the salmon part of their spiritual and cultural identity, conservation and fishing groups, and the states of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho have waged a legal battle against the federal government to ensure protections for migrating salmon. The migrating salmon are killed in large numbers by the massive dams that have been constructed along the Columbia and Snake Rivers, most particularly four dams on the lower Snake River.

Biden Agreement

In 2023, things began to look up when in a landmark deal the Biden Administration paused the legal action in favor of finding long term solutions; in fact, promising to spend more than a billion dollars over the next decade to restore salmon viability while boosting tribal clean energy projects. The historic agreement was torpedoed in 2024 when Trump came back into office, declaring the agreement “radical environmentalism,” sending the multiple plaintiffs back to court.

Federal Judge Steps Up

On 2/25/26, U.S. District Judge Michael Simon, in Portland, Oregon, lamented what he described as “a disappointing history of government avoidance and manipulation instead of sincere efforts at solving the problem.” Oregon and other plaintiffs had asked Simon to lower the levels of reservoirs behind the dams, which proponents argue would help fish move through them faster and increase the amount of water spilling past them which can help the fish pass over the dams instead of through the dam’s turbines. The Trump administration on the other hand sought higher reservoir levels.

The Size of Texas

The Columbia River Basin is approximately the size of Texas and was once the world’s greatest salmon producing river system with 16 stocks of salmon and steelhead. Today, four are extinct and seven are threatened or endangered. Another iconic Northwest species, the Orca or killer whale, who are dependent on salmon are starving. Almost 50% of the chinook salmon in the Columbia River Basin previously came from the Snake River and her tributaries.

The Dams Are The Problem

Salmon habitats in the Snake River Basin remain in good shape. The dams are the problem, removing them is the single greatest opportunity to restore salmon to the NW. The habitats are there including over 5,500 miles of cool clean streams, many in protected wilderness areas. Federal fisheries experts concluded in 2022 that removing the lower Snake River dams is “essential” to any serious plan for salmon recovery.

How Dams Hurt Salmon Runs

The dams harm salmon in numerous ways, including forcing the salmon into turbines, warming the slow moving water in the reservoirs to intolerable high temperatures, while dramatically slowing the young salmon’s journey to the Pacific Ocean. Before the construction of the dams juvenile fish reached the Pacific in two or three days from the upper Snake River, pushed along by the river’s swift moving currents. Today, the journey past the eight dams literally takes weeks, during which time the young fish are exposed to multiple predators and other dangers.

What Experts Are Saying

Fishery experts from Oregon, Idaho, and Washington found that the removal of four dams on the lower Snake River and restoring the ecological health of that section of river “is the single largest step we can take to increase salmon abundance for orcas at critical times of the year.” These dams produce low value hydropower which can be replaced with renewable energy sources and energy conservation.

Popular Myths

There are five popular myths that keep coming up when discussing changes to these dams. The dams in question on the lower Snake River are Little Goose, Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, and Lower Granite and on the Columbia River The Bonneville, The Dalles, John Day and McNary.

MYTH 1: We Need the Hydropower

Most all power produced by the Snake River dams is produced mostly in the spring when demand is low and lots of hydropower is available. Most of the year the Snake River Basin flows are much lower than in the Columbia River Basin because of drier regional conditions, thus producing very little energy in summer and winter when it is needed the most. Replacing the Snake River dams with renewable energy that generates power at crucial times could result in $69-$143 million per year of energy value above and beyond what the lower Snake River dams provide. Financially the removal makes sense. The hydropower turbines are 50 plus years old and need continuing and extensive maintenance; and will soon require replacement, estimated at more than a billion dollars. These pending upgrade costs add risk to BPA’s competitiveness and make no sense with the lower cost of renewable energy.

MYTH 2: We Need Them for Shipping

An early purpose of the dams was to facilitate barge navigation through the lower Snake River accommodating the shipment of grain and other agricultural commodities. What used to be is not today’s reality. Today the locks that allow passage through the lower Snake River dams are 5 decades old and need maintenance and rebuilding which makes no economic sense considering that river shipping has declined by over 70% in favor of rail transport.

MYTH 3: We Need Them for Irrigation 

These dams provide minimal irrigation. Only one of the four dams even provides water for irrigation, and for only a handful of irrigators; 92% of the irrigated lands are managed by only nine land owners. Irrigation options are available, such as adjusting intake pipes to pump water from river level rather than reservoir level and increasing depths of current wells.

MYTH 4: The Dams Provide Flood Control

The lower Snake River dams are all “run-of-river” dams and are not designed for flood control. It is true that many of the Columbia River Basin dams provide important and necessary flood control for risky areas like Portland, Oregon. However, the Snake River dams in question do not provide flood control and were never intended to provide flood control.

MYTH 5: The Dams are Needed for the Economy

The fact is that there are many more benefits from removing the dams than keeping them. (1)The restoration of Snake River salmon will be a big help for NW fishing economics. Experts estimate an added 1 million spring chinook salmon annually. (2) The native peoples paid a big price when these dams flooded tribal lands and choked off fisheries. It would be a good time to honor tribal treaties and restore the cultural and economic value the tribes surrendered when the dams were built. (3) Hydropower should be replaced with modern solar and wind generation, energy efficiency, along with demand-response technologies that will create jobs. (4) Local investment to reduce the impact of the dams removal; such investments include added rail capacity for grain shipping and riverfront improvements in Clarkston, WA, Lewiston, ID, and other effected communities.

Support For Salmon Recovery Is Growing

Leadership for salmon recovery in the Snake and Columbia Rivers is growing exponentially. It is time to remove these Snake River dams and allow the Snake River restoration. Unfortunately, as long as Trump is in office that is an unlikely scenario. When we vote it is important to include environmental activity in our voting calculus.

Sources: Portland Oregonian, February 26, 2026 and the Sierra Club Restoration Campaign Bulletin 2024.