Submit Comments to Urge Agencies to Protect Columbia and Snake River Salmon

For twenty years, the US Army Corps of Engineers has failed to address the primary causes of salmon declines on the Columbia and Snake River Systems. Instead they have scapegoated fish-eating birds like cormorants and terns for doing what comes naturally. In fact, they have lost five times over the last twenty years in Federal Court over the insufficiency of their plans. It is long past time for real solutions, but the Corps has once again brought forward a plan that fails to address the dams. We need your voice to demand real solutions. It is time to address the dams!

The new plan that they have released perpetuates 25 years of illegal and costly management that has pushed salmon, orca, and other fish and wildlife populations to the brink of extinction. This status quo approach will extend the persecution of native wildlife such as the Double Crested Cormorant and other natural predators, while ignoring the root cause of salmon decline – the dams. 

Talking Points

• The Agencies preferred alternative perpetuates an approach that has pushed salmon, orca and other fish and wildlife populations to the edge of extinction, and led to the unnecessary scapegoating of native wildlife like Double Crested Cormorants 
• The Agencies preferred alternative is a huge waste of public resources and perpetuates the status quo – which has been rejected 5 times by a federal court over the last 25 years. 
• An Alternative  Plan must focus on three things: Removal of four obsolete Snake River Dams, increased flows over Columbia River Dams and habitat restoration
• Persecution of native predator species must be eliminated from this plan
• Real solutions for NW salmon, other wildlife and people will come from NW people – policymakers, sovereigns (states and tribes), stakeholders, and communities working urgently together to craft inclusive, creative solutions to our shared problems and bring all communities forward together.
• The comment period was insufficient. 45-days is woefully inadequate to review a plan of this complexity and many people had trouble getting through on the phone hearings.