Contact the Obama Administration: Wild Salmon Need the Freedom to Roam!

Wild salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River Basin today are at serious risk of extinction. The lower Snake River dams, in particular, and other forms of habitat destruction have degraded migration corridors and cut salmon and steelhead off from the largest, wildest, and best-protected salmon habitat remaining in the continental United States.

Right now, the Obama Administration presents perhaps our nation's best opportunity to right a historic wrong and protect and restore endangered Snake River salmon from extinction by removing the four costly dams on the lower Snake River.

You can help! Please send a message to the Administration urging it to convene a stakeholders table immediately - to bring people together to work collaboratively to craft a restoration plan that works for both wild salmon and steelhead and coastal and river communities of the West Coast. Tell me more

Subject:

Dear [ Decision Maker ],

(Edit Letter Below)

I am writing to urge you and the Commerce Department to take immediate action through NOAA-Fisheries to ensure the protection and restoration of the Snake River, its legendary wild salmon and steelhead runs, and the jobs and communities that depend on this precious resource. An effective plan must include the removal of the four lower Snake River dams and replacement of their limited services with modern alternatives, like clean, renewable energy and rail. With the right investments in our communities, we can restore an endangered national treasure and regional economic resource, create thousands of family-wage jobs, and promote a clean energy economy.

The 2008 Bush-era Columbia-Snake River Biological Opinion is severely flawed and will not prevent the extinction of numerous unique populations of Pacific salmon. It does very little to restore migratory access to the highest, wildest, largest, and best-protected spawning and rearing habitat remaining in the continental United States. Reconnecting the endangered Snake River salmon populations with the high-quality habitat found in central Idaho, eastern Oregon, and eastern Washington is critical to the future of this national treasure. I remain hopeful that President Obama's promises that science will guide policymaking will prevail as NOAA-Fisheries and your Department of Commerce reviews this clearly inadequate Biological Opinion, and develops a path to a lawful, science-based and durable solution.

I strongly support including the removal of the four costly lower Snake River dams in any new plan. Years of scientific inquiry demonstrate that these dams are extremely harmful to the threatened and endangered populations of wild salmon and steelhead. These Snake River dams, combined with the four dams downstream on the Columbia River, kill as many as 90 percent of the young salmon and steelhead as they migrate to the ocean. Dam removal is the only action scientists have identified that will help these fish survive in the short term and eventually recover to healthy, sustainable, and fishable numbers.

The Department of Commerce can help restore this salmon fishery and make local communities whole again by working to bring together key stakeholders in the Northwest as part of a much-needed settlement process. We strongly believe that representatives of differing interests can work to craft an effective, legal, and science-based blueprint in a manner that produces healthy salmon populations, sustainable new jobs, healthy economies, an improved transportation system, and clean and affordable energy.

The recovery of a Snake River salmon fishery through the removal of the four lower Snake River dams would also generate hundreds of millions of dollars in jobs and income every year through restoration of the recreational, commercial, and tribal fishing communities. A free-flowing lower Snake River would also provide an estimated $310 million annually in new non-fishing recreational opportunities such as boating, hiking, hunting, and camping. In addition to these significant economic benefits, dam removal itself and replacement of their limited services with alternatives would generate many thousands of jobs and save many millions of taxpayer dollars over the long-run.

There are no other fish in the world like those that return to the Snake River and its tributaries. Thanks to their high elevation spawning grounds, Snake River salmon and steelhead are well-positioned to thrive in spite of global warming as long as sufficient numbers are able to survive the migration to the Pacific Ocean and back.

Thank you in advance for your leadership on this important issue.

Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your address]

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Secretary Gary Locke

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