The “new approach” for our leaders

Ed and others,

Hope you are all having a nice day!

The “new approach” is for our leaders, elected and agencies, to realize that immediate action is required to save salmon, Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKW), and Bonneville Power Authority (BPA).  Collaboration needs to be about rounding up some of these leaders and to agree and how to get these two agencies and their overseers in DC to agree to immediate breaching.  More meeting about anything else is the “old approach” and should be avoided.  If they don’t understand the peril these creatures, fisherman and ratepayers are in, then help me arrange a briefing for them. I can also show them how the option of immediate breaching is real.

The Columbia River Systems Operations (CRSO) was a planned train wreck and is so fatally flawed as to render it useless accept as cannon fodder in the next round of legal battles between the NGOs and Feds.  Which is just fine with them.  Our leaders need to stand up to this protracted discussion, studies, litigation, etc. and take decisive and immediate action on breaching. That would be “new”.  Here is the link to a document submitted to the CSRO process that lays out the 14 Fatal Flaws in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS).  https://damsense.org/fourteen-fatal-flaws/

Also, the COVID 19 crisis will most likely wreck much of the salmon and orca restoration initiatives, whereas breaching does not cost the state a dime, saves 8 million juvenile smolts, goes a long way to restoring fisheries and those jobs, and could create 2-3 thousand jobs in eastern Washington.  That is what our leaders ought to be talking about, not more collaboration about anything but immediate breaching and how to expedite the mitigation that keeps virtually everyone whole and that have already been identified.   Along those lines I have attached a letter we recently sent to Governor Inslee making these points.

I applaud Ron Allen for raising this issue with Congressman Kilmer, and he just may be the person in the Pacific Northwest who has the business acumen and courage do to what is right before it is too late.

Thanks for sharing this.

Respectfully,

Jim Waddell Civil Engineer, PE USACE Retired and Clallam County PUD Commissioner.
These views are my own and do not represent a position by the CC PUD

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