[atlas:bill]

TO THE HONORABLE WILLIAM J. CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, AND TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE AND THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED:

We, your Memorialists, the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Washington, in legislative session assembled, respectfully represent and petition as follows:

WHEREAS, The federally owned or licensed dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers in this state provide the fundamental building blocks that support the northwest way of life; and

WHEREAS, The dams provide the electrical power that fuels one of the greatest economies in the nation and do so without contributing the air pollution faced by expanding economies elsewhere; and

WHEREAS, The dams provide their electrical power at a cost that attracts the type of high-paying industrial jobs that support families and communities; and

WHEREAS, The dams provide their electrical power at a cost that is affordable by all of its citizens, a situation enjoyed almost nowhere else; and

WHEREAS, The dams provide a river route to eastern Washington for ships and barges and for allowing commodities and goods from the eastern part of the state, as well as potato products from southern Idaho, bentonite from Wyoming, talc from Montana, grain from the Dakotas, and lumber from Canada to compete in the world economy; and

WHEREAS, By allowing these commodities and goods to move on the river system, the dams relieve the state's highway system of the incredibly expensive job of accommodating the truck and other traffic needed to support that commerce; and

WHEREAS, Some have nonetheless asked that dams on the system be breached to allow a more natural operation of the river to accommodate fish runs; and

WHEREAS, In 1995, the United States Army Corps of Engineers examined a wide range of options for operating the Columbia and Snake River basin to enhance anadromous fish runs and compared the costs and benefits of thirteen of these options; and

WHEREAS, One of the options examined was a "natural river" option for the Snake River in which the water levels at the four lower Snake River dams would be lowered to nearly river bed levels year-round and the water in the John Day Dam on the Columbia River would be lowered to the dam's minimum dam pool; and

WHEREAS, Although the Corps' 1995 study was for only one part of the system, the lower Snake River dams, its findings provide a warning that applies to all dams in the system; and

WHEREAS, The Corps found benefits to fish runs for the "natural river" option that merely approximate juvenile fish survival under other options that involve fish transport rather than breaching dams, and it also found the costs of such a dam-breaching option to be staggering; and

WHEREAS, The Corps found the costs of this Snake River option in electrical power alone to be in the range of one hundred thirty-two to one hundred sixty-seven million dollars annually; and

WHEREAS, The Corps found the cost to shallow draft transportation of thirty million to over thirty-seven million dollars annually; an increase in the cost of pumping municipal and industrial water of approximately four and one-half million dollars annually and a like increase in the cost of pumping irrigation water; and an annualized cost of forty-five million dollars just to implement the changes at the Snake River dams and the John Day Dam that would be necessary for such a "natural operation" of the river; and

WHEREAS, A follow-up to the Corps' study being conducted by a federally convened drawdown regional economic work group may find that the Corps' cost estimates are too low, with more recent estimates of the power costs in the two hundred million dollars per year range and increased costs to irrigators at ten million dollars per year; and

WHEREAS, These costs would be borne by the people of Washington in very real ways, with over four thousand jobs lost in this state alone and dramatic increases in power and transportation costs; and

WHEREAS, Any such breach-the-dams option would even damage the region's ability to repay its debt to the federal government for the Columbia and Snake River system by reducing the power revenues of the Bonneville Power Administration used to repay that debt;

NOW, THEREFORE, Your Memorialists respectfully pray that the federal government acknowledge that breaching dams on the main stem of the Columbia or Snake rivers or operating these dams under a natural river operating system would not be more effective than other options for enhancing anadromous fish runs and that these other options can be implemented without the staggering costs to the region caused by the dam breaching option, and pray that the federal government no longer consider breaching these dams as a productive option for enhancing anadromous fish stocks.

BE IT RESOLVED, That copies of this Memorial be immediately transmitted to the Honorable William J. Clinton, President of the United States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and each member of Congress from the State of Washington.