Dam Removal Update Pt 1

Dam Removal Update Pt 1

Bob Larson
Bob Larson
I'm Bob Larson. It's political ploy some are calling shady. Imagine that? Advocates for removing four dams in the lower Snake River have called on perhaps the only farmer sympathetic to their cause to speak on their behalf.

Representative Joe Schmick of Colfax is frustrated by what he calls a misrepresentation ...

SCHMICK ... "Well, an environmental group from Seattle found one farmer in Eastern Washington who wants to remove the dams and he's trying to say he represents all the farmers."

Schmick says this effort supports the governor's task force to study removal of the dams which, among other things, would cripple the ability of farmers to move their crops to market ...

SCHMICK ... "First of all, barging of our products right now, barges keep about 700-thousand trucks off the highways. Just imagine that, 700-thousand more trucks out on the highways."

Schmick says someone isn't really thinking this through ...

SCHMICK ... "Think about how much more carbon, because that's what we're talking about on the House floor, how much more carbon that would burn and releasing up into the air. Trucking is expensive to get product to the coast, to the ports."

On top of that, Schmick says the governor wants to spend $750-thousand to study how dam removal would help feed the Orcas by releasing the salmon when NOAA has already done extensive studies ...

SCHMICK ... "Scientists have said this, maybe if we took them all out they would increase the population of Chinook salmon by two percent."

Listen tomorrow when we hear from Representative Mary Dye on dam removal.

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