Keep the Snake River dams or breach them? - that is the question

Remove the lower four dams on the Snake River system or keep them?

That is the question the Medical Lake High School Future Farmers of America Agriculture Issues team is posing to businesses, state officials and others for their "forum."

Forums are where an agricultural issues team researches the pros and cons of an agricultural topic. The team will present their topic at the state FFA convention in May where judges will grade them on their research and theories.

The team chose to debate whether or not to remove the four dams - Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite - on the river system.

Last year Medical Lake's Ag Issues team debated whether or not to reintroduce salmon into the Upper Columbia Basin. It was there they met Ian Turner, project manager for the Bureau of Reclamation at Grand Coulee Dam, who FFA chapter president Mollee Gray said "sparked our interest" in this year's topic.

Although the issues were different, Mariah Huey said the background information about rivers and fish from last year helped the team in their research on this year's topic.

The team has already presented their forum to several groups, including Eastern Washington University's science department, Avista and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Gray, Camille Flores and Jon Harper were tasked with arguing for keeping the dams. During the 15-minute presentation, the group used sources to explain the various positive impacts the dams have in the Pacific Northwest, such as providing river navigation to transport cargo, cutting down on trucks on the road, hydropower to numerous homes and irrigation to farmers. They also argued that removing the dams would cost thousands of jobs.

Huey, Selena Plute and Darius Withrow, took the side of removing the dams. The trio argued that breaching the structures would restore freshwater habitat, help restore the endangered salmon population to sustainable levels and provide additional recreation opportunities. They also said the hydroelectric power lost from removing the dams could be replaced by wind power.

Throughout the presentation, both sides presented rebuttals to each other's arguments.

As part of their research, the team spoke to organizations on both sides of the issue.

"We wanted to go back and forth on our topics and if something didn't have a counterpoint to it, we put it in our background research," Huey said. "We gathered the information to balance both sides."

When asked how they personally felt about the issue, all six team members said they recognized the positive impacts the dams had in the region, yet there could be some good outcomes in removing the structures.

"If it's that easy to try, we could remove them and see if it helps," Gray said.

Al Stover can be reached at [email protected].