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Michigan must support Salmon Planning Act

by Rob Sisson, president of REP's Michigan Chapter
published in the Kalamazoo Gazette on May 6, 2005

A new bill was introduced in Congress recently and it made little splash among Great Lakes representatives. HR 1615, aka the Salmon Planning Act, authorizes proper planning to secure the preservation and recovery of salmon and steelhead populations in the Columbia River Basin of the Pacific Northwest.

The mere facts that the Great Lakes salmon fishery accounts for almost $4.5 billion in business each year and that the fishery originated from stocking of Pacific Northwest fish species in our waters should be enough for our congressional delegation to "return the favor" and co-sponsor the legislation.

When one considers how precarious our own fishery is with threats from invasive species and pollution, we may well need a healthy Pacific fish population to rebuild our own. The bottom of the food chain in the Great Lakes is disappearing at an alarming rate and could cause a collapse of predator species populations like salmon.

A more significant reason for our representatives in Washington to support this legislation is the fact that the federal government has spent $6 billion so far and plans to spend more than $500 million annually to try to restore the Columbia River Basin salmon runs. Thus far, all efforts have been futile. Most biologists and fishery experts now believe that removal of four "flow-of-the-river" dams on the lower Snake River is the only action that can save five types of salmon from extinction. HR 1615 does not mandate removal of those dams, but does allow the National Academy of Sciences to consider it as an option in its study of the problem.

The dams do not impound water in reservoirs and only irrigate about 40,000 acres of land -- all of which can continue to be irrigated after breaching of the dams. Approximately 4 percent of the electricity consumption of the Northwest is produced by these dams. The RAND Corporation has determined that simple conservation measures can offset that small drop in output and that investment in clean energy technology suitable to the region (wind turbines) can producer a greater amount of energy should the dams be taken off line.

There are two huge reasons -- our own fishing industry and a colossal waste of taxpayers' money -- why Michigan representatives in Congress should support this bill and no logical reason to avoid co-sponsorship. Michigan sportsmen and taxpayers need to contact their elected representatives today and urge co-sponsorsihp of HR 1615 -- the Salmon Planning Act.