Oregon Strategist

Reinventing the Oregon Dream

The Morrow Pacific Project: Killing the Columbia

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BargeJobs that promote the destruction of our environment are not jobs for the future. Jobs that fit us into a more rhythmic balance with nature are integral for our future. The Morrow Pacific Project will further entrench the barging industry and create further dependence upon the dams that block our most precious river. The proposal is a proposal that runs counter to the interests of our local communities and the Native Americans.

The Morrow Pacific Project, a proposal to transport coal from Wyoming and Montana to Oregon for shipment to China, Korea and Japan, must be altered. The coal would be shipped via rail to Boardman, Oregon where it would then be loaded onto barges for transport down river to the Port of St. Helens. The project would result in an additional 12 barge tows on the Columbia. Such a proposal would further entrench the barging industry and make them all the more powerful in a bid to keep dams operating on our rivers.

About two hundred dams (http://www.psmfc.org/habitat/salmondam.html) were built along the Columbia between 1930 and the late 1970s. This helped foster the barging industry that used the slowed river to advance goods up and downstream and created an artificial reliance upon this form of shipment. Since then, the industry has trucking and training beat for offering the best prices on shipment of goods and has boasted that its power blocked proposals to lower the river to expose the beauty of Celilo Falls.

Oregonians face an uphill battle to alleviate the strain upon our river systems. Bonneville alone is a behemoth that no one really believes can be broken. However, Congress authorized to build the Bonneville dam in 1930, emphasizing the “taming of the Columbia.” This dam will soon run its lifecycle. In order to replace a dam of this size and magnitude with low-impact technology that leaves the river partially open for fish passage, effort must begin now to build awareness regarding Oregonians and Washingtonians’ options.

For those seeing such an effort as a lost cause, it may be helpful to think about how large corporate interests can also be on the side of freeing the Columbia. Oregon company and outdoor recreation outfitters Columbia Sportswear, among others, would benefit tremendously from a river that teemed with fish and rapids.

Oregon must put in place leaders in Washington willing to promote the proper industries to make this dream a reality. Additional rail lines are needed to support a shift away from barging to carry wheat and other agricultural products across the state to Portland.

The Bonneville dam and many others on the Columbia River including the John Day dam are referred to as “run-of-the-river” dams, meaning that they do not back water up to create a reservoir. If electricity can be generated in such quantity from these operations, how could “run-of-the-river” technology be utilized to construct dams that do not impeded the full width of the river?

Portlanders have the option on their energy statement from Portland General Electric to source their energy from Green Source and Clean Wind resources. See www.greenpoweroregon.com. Choosing these local options is the first step. Putting the right folks in Washington D.C. is the second step.

A Bold Earth Day

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Portland celebrated Earth Day with high volunteer turnout as the Johnson Creek Watershed Council (“JCWC”) tilled the soil, putting down Ash tree, native grasses and shrub roots at the mouth of the creek where it meets the Willamette River. The JCWC has been a forerunner for salmon restoration efforts in the Portland region and has served as a premier example in Oregon for the transformative effect of volunteerism and local compassion for habitat renewal, sustainability, and species co-existence particularly in an urban environment.

This Earth Day weekend provides Oregonians a special opportunity to reflect on our vision for the state’s rivers and tributaries – perhaps our most precious resource here in the Northwest. Oregon’s waters have irrigated our farms, brought energy to our homes and businesses, and have made possible the transportation of goods across the state. The times, however, are largely different from those when the first federal levees rose out of the waters of the Columbia River by the Public Works Administration and President Roosevelt’s New Deal during the 1930s.

Over the previous five to ten years, much effort has been made to remove four obsolete dams on the lower Snake River: Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose, and Lower Granite. Their removal could bring such potential benefits as new nature tourism and fishing, outweighing the costs of dredging backed-up silt and dam maintenance. However, these dams remain standing today. And our fish populations continue to bear the impact.

A chasm stands between what we, as those who live and are sustained by the river, desire for our future and the removal, not merely of dams, but of outdated ideas. New ideas must take shape that meet our energy demands but that leave our rivers flowing more like rivers and less like a gauntlet for fish. As we learn to become less energy dependent and, likewise, as energy is created at a more local level and stored in a more efficient manner, perhaps our need to dam their flow will wane. In the meantime, politicians, elected and appointed officials, and administrators must take bold steps, perhaps even overturning unpopular international treaties regulating flood control, in order to realize our vision for a renewable and sustainable Oregon.

Today, Oregonians are uniting behind the salmon and wild fish populations that are crucial not only for the full expression of our rivers and streams but also for the future generations of our state. Our uniting begins and ends with the time we volunteer restoring these waters. Our uniting begins and ends in local efforts such as those of the Clackamas County Democrats, who, last Thursday, voted to endorse a different kind of levy (Measure 26-152) that would be used to enhance the renewal and restorative efforts of organizations like the JCWC.

To paraphrase from David James Duncan’s inspiring keynote address to the “Extinction Stops Here” rally in 2006, we’ll give up fighting for the salmon’s birth rivers and safe passage to the sea on the same day we see a wild salmon give up migrating. And we all know that they will never give up.