Talking salmon to death
Just about everyone from President George W. Bush down through
every conceivable interest group has had a say about Snake River salmon and
whether the one-time phenomenon of Idaho’s waterways is headed for extinction
and why.
While talk goes on and on, extinction draws closer and closer.
But wait. Idaho junior U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo believes more talk
might find some solution, indirectly: He convened an all-day session of some 40
representatives of the Nez Perce Tribe, environmentalists, agriculture, industry
and federal and state agencies.
Since Sen. Crapo chose to meet behind closed doors Saturday,
we only have shards of information on what was said. But we know this much: Talk
behind closed doors seemed to emphasize how to divvy up water in the upper Snake
River among competing interests rather than how to save the vanishing salmon.
This is very much like heirs discussing how to divide a
benefactor’s estate rather than seeking medical attention while there’s still
time.
All interest groups at Sen. Crapo’s conference table have
choices of how to use water allotments in plentiful times and scarce times. But
the most interested party not at the table—salmon—has no control.
In fact, the principal cause for the salmon population’s
frightening decline is the series of lower Snake River Dams that make salmon
migration a Herculean task for the fittest, an inevitable death trap for the
frailest.
And that one topic—dam breaching—seemed to have been the one
topic Sen. Crapo avoided discussing while diverting attention to water
allocations.