By Taxpayers Association of Oregon Foundation
A federal judge has rolled back the Trump administration’s plans for hydroelectric dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers that he says would have greatly harmed salmon already struggling to survive. According to The Oregonian/OregonLive, U.S. District Judge Michael Simon sided with Oregon, Native American tribes, conservationists and anglers when he ordered changes to dam operations that would keep water levels of reservoirs at 2025 levels to help fish travel through them faster and maintain water spills so fish pass over dams instead of through treacherous turbines. After years of litigation, trying to balance power generation with the salmon safety, the Biden administration struck a deal in 2023 to spend $1 billion on salmon restoration and boost clean energy projects for tribes—a deal the Trump administration killed after describing it as “radical environmentalism” that could breach four Snake River dams and threaten power supplies and irrigation. Before the 1930s, when the first hydroelectric power dams were constructed, the Columbia River Basin had 16 types of salmon and steelhead, but today four are extinct and seven threatened or endangered.
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