Dear HCN,
I cringed at the
photograph of myself on your June 18 cover, but I guess it is
churlish to blame HCN for the distance between
my self-image and how I actually look. So on to
substance.
It was a good article on the complex
intersections of salmon, dams, energy and money. I’d like to
underline two points. First, I am quoted as saying that 95 percent
or so of this year’s ocean-bound young salmon are going to die due
to terrible migration conditions. This is indeed our fear, but
there is still time to bring that number down. The Bonneville Power
Administration and other federal agencies can still get more water
into the Columbia and Snake, and return to the spill program (spill
passes salmon over dams) they themselves adopted in December and
promised to follow. When salmon are endangered, every reduction in
dam kills is important. The feds’ cover story is that the high
mortality is an act of God, due to drought. In fact, it is an act
of federal policy – and federal policy can change it.
Second, the article barely mentioned the folks
doing the most, right now, to help salmon in this critical year,
while also joining in the longer-term work to change politics and
structures. Those folks are the treaty tribes of the Columbia and
Snake rivers. When the day comes when salmon are restored in the
Snake and Columbia, the salmon themselves will deserve the most
credit, and the tribes will come next.
Pat Ford
Boise, Idaho
The writer is executive director of the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Tribes doing most for salmon, feds least.
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