Feds place Idaho fish and water in jeopardy The Idaho Statesman

The plan makes the wild assertion that man-made dams are part of the natural environment fish must navigate on their way to and from the Pacific Ocean. Now the agencies say the dams do not jeopardize the long-term survival of the species, although the dams kill many fish. Agencies use legal maneuvering to defend this scheme. They say they can consider the lower Snake River dams a natural part of the river system because they were built from 1962 to 1975, and Snake River salmon were added to the federal government's endangered species list years later.

This is illogical. The dams aren't coincidental to the salmon's precarious future; the dams are the central reason the salmon are in trouble. There's no debate here. Treating the dams as a fact of life, or of death, ignores decades of science. The Statesman in 1997 recommended breaching the Snake River dams. We said then that this was the best way to preserve Idaho salmon and defend Idaho water.

More.