06/07/05 Snake River hearing

Washington Ag June 7, 2005 The future of the Snake River system was the subject of a congressional field hearing in Clarkston, Washington yesterday. Northwest Ag Information Network's Andy Patrick was there. Patrick: "Demonstrations supporting the lower Snake River dams versus demonstrations supporting salmon recovery. Inside a standing room only group of attendees with a who's who of witnesses ranging from Washington State Farm Bureau president Steve Appel to leaders of the Yakima and Nez Perce Tribes. All this for a U.S. House Subcommittee on Water and Power hearing on the future of the Columbia and Snake River System. The hearing touched everything from the recent judicial rejection of the federal fish recovery biological opinion for the Columbia-Lower Snake System to possible economic impacts of potential dam breaching of four lower Snake River dams. But the hearing for the committee gained a greater significance as U.S. District Court Judge James Redden, the judge that ruled both the original and revised Bi-Ops invalid, is set to rule Friday on an environmentalist injunction calling for increased summer spill over some federal dams to improve fish recovery:" Judge Redden's recent ruling rejected considering the Snake River dams as part of the environmental baseline. I'm Bob Hoff.