Protecting Our Hydro Legacy
By Terry Flores
In the Northwest, we say the Columbia River hydro system is the lifeblood of our economy. It powers our homes and businesses. Locks ease cargo vessels up and down an inland waterway. Reservoirs protect us from damaging floods. Irrigation diversions nourish our agriculture. Riverside parks and boat ramps underpin a large recreation industry.
But we often take for granted the contribution dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers make to our prosperity and quality of life. And vocal opponents of dams have grown louder and more effective.
If we want to protect this amazing resource, we have to summon the guts and determination that got the dams built. Already, we have lost 1,200 megawatts of firm energy from the system and much of its flexibility, largely from changes imposed by regulations and courts, where dam-busters have taken the fight.
New fronts in the battle were opened in state legislatures, where lawmakers have been convinced to leave hydropower off the list of renewable resources.
What could be more clean, green and sustainable than our hydropower?
It took foresight, leadership and courage—not to mention engineering know-how—to lay the foundation for the Columbia River hydro system in the 1920s and 1930s. Leaders muscled through authorization and funding for the dams against significant opposition.
Grand Coulee Dam, the system’s 6,809-megawatt crown jewel, and Bonneville Dam, its 1,092-megawatt bookend in the lower river, were the first projects in the system to be authorized. Congress balked at building Grand Coulee because of questions about whether it was needed and the cost. It took strenuous effort by members of Congress from the Northwest to gain authorization for Bonneville Dam.
Today, the Northwest has in the hydro system an incredible legacy of vision and political will, and we have a carbon footprint half that of other parts of the country.
We have been caught up in two decades of expensive litigation, ostensibly over salmon recovery, but loaded with thinly veiled attacks on dams. Why else would advocates for the lawsuits continue to push for destroying the lower Snake River dams when other measures are rebuilding salmon and steelhead runs?
Recent polls tell us 75 percent of people in the Northwest support hydropower as green and renewable, and 70 percent think state and federal legislators should include it in renewable portfolio mandates. They recognize hydro provides low rates and economic benefits.
But our message needs a boost.
As beneficiaries of the system, we must more aggressively promote the vision of a healthy Northwest fueled by the dynamic hydro legacy of our past.
Generations before us took on the job of providing an enduring resource. We can’t be asleep at the switch as well-funded interests make repeated, persistent runs at sapping the lifeblood of our region. They are not going to quit or go away. It is up to us to fight for the Columbia River system and to preserve and protect its benefits.
Terry Flores is executive director of Northwest RiverPartners—an alliance of farmers, utilities, ports and businesses that promotes the multiple benefits of the Northwest’s hydroelectric system.
