Dam Removal & Orcas Pt 2

Dam Removal & Orcas Pt 2

Bob Larson
Bob Larson
I'm Bob Larson. Representative Mary Dye says the part of the Governor Jay Inslee's proposed plan to save the Orcas and salmon by tearing down dams on the lower Snake river is misguided and a waste of time.

In a recent interview with KONA radio, the Pomeroy Republican said the effort is not about just one or two solutions and has to be multidisciplinary in its approach ...

DYE ... "There are 17 agencies working at Lower Granite alone studying this problem and bringing real science to the table. Let the experts develop the plan in a very broad, multidisciplinary way to try and find the solution and stop letting the judge just circumvent all of those people and demand to run the water over the spillway."

Besides not helping the salmon and reducing power generation, Dye says the Governor's disconnect also fails to recognize the dam's importance when it comes to transportation ...

DYE ... "I don't know. It doesn't seem like these different points of view ever make a connection in the middle. Not just rail, I mean, we're talking trucking. I mean, every barge on that river, 500-plus trucks are taken off the road and that's where your global warming is. This is clean transportation. This is a major corridor. This is Eastern Washington's I-5 and we're not dirty. We don't produce carbon on our I-5."

Inslee is proposing a $1.1-billion Orca recovery budget, and is asking for $750,000 just to STUDY the removal of the dams which are run by the federal government and out of the governor's jurisdiction.

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