Hennings: Recent Efforts To Breach Snake River Dams Alarming

In his 2019-21 budget proposal this session, Governor Jay Inslee requested $750,000 for a Snake River dam task force.  The purpose, according to the Governor’s office, is to look at the economic impact to Eastern Washington if the Snake River dams are breached to help Puget Sound salmon.  The request of the Governor has drawn the ire of many whose livelihood depend on those dams.  Michelle Hennings with the Washington Association of Wheat Growers said such a proposal from Inslee is alarming.

“They’re going to spend of course tax payer money to do this when in reality it’s already being done at the national level.  There’s an EIS already going on, they are doing research, they are going to the community level asking for feedback.  To me this is duplicative effort on our state part.”

Hennings added its concerning that this task force has already determined that the dams need to be removed, rather than looking at the best outcome for all parties.

“I think that if the research has been structured, or the wording had been structured a little bit better to basically to ways we could look at saving the salmon population instead of saying let’s research removing the Snake River dams.  With all the work that’s been done with the Snake River dams, we are improving fish and salmon.”

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