On behalf of the hundreds of businesses in the Pacific Northwest who depend upon robust fisheries, outdoor recreation and healthy rivers, the undersigned are writing to strongly urge immediate actions from your Administration to ensure the fishery resources our industries, Northwest Indian Tribes, and imperiled Southern Resident Orcas depend upon are restored to abundance. The centerpiece action for salmon recovery must include breaching of the four lower snake river dams in southeast Washington State.

The momentum to make the big policy changes salmon need continues to grow. This spring, building on the findings of Sen. Murray and Gov. Inslee’s final Lower Snake River Dam Benefit Replacement Report and Recommendations, the Washington State Legislature secured over $7 million in the state’s final 2023-25 Transportation and Operating Budgets to plan for the replacement of the energy, irrigation, and transportation services currently provided by the four aging dams on the lower Snake River. We ask that your administration coordinate closely with Washington State on these planning measures and secure additional federal investments and assistance to effectively transition the irrigation, transportation and energy services in a time frame that reflects the urgency for salmon and steelhead and the irreplaceable benefits they bring to the Northwest and nation.

Dam removal must be a “centerpiece action” for a durable long-term solution to salmon recovery in the Snake River Basin, and investments must be identified and prioritized to ensure economic development opportunities for the recreation, tourism, and fishing industries that rely on abundant salmon and steelhead populations, and healthy free-flowing rivers. By restoring the lower Snake River and replacing their services, we will regain 140 miles of riverfront to fish, hunt and recreate while also modernizing and expanding agriculture, transportation and clean energy infrastructure in the Columbia Basin. Further, in order to achieve our regional goal of sustainable, harvestable fish populations, a comprehensive plan must also include reintroduction of salmon and steelhead to habitat blocked for decades by dams in the Upper Columbia Basin.

We want to restore salmon and rebuild the region’s infrastructure for a sustainable, prosperous future. For the last three decades, we’ve spent billions of dollars on failed recovery efforts. We ask that your Administration immediately produce a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement that accurately reflects the current science, upholds treaty responsibilities to Tribal Nations, and addresses anticipated impacts to our fishing, tourism and outdoor recreational industries.

We can not let this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity pass us by. The future of Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead, our community’s cultures, and our fishing industry hang in the balance.

The costly, failing status quo continues to bring great risk, including complete Basin-wide sportfishing closures, loss of outdoor recreational opportunities, constraints to competitive transportation options, and ultimately having the courts step in to breach the dams as a necessary measure to comply with the Endangered Species Act. The status quo is strangling fisheries and other valuable outdoor recreational activities across the Pacific Northwest, and is a path to certain extinction.

In 2021, Rep. Simpson started a critical conversation by presenting his bold vision. In 2022, Sen. Murray and Gov. Inslee identified key recommendations and next steps. During the 2023 Washington State legislative session, policymakers funded measures to begin to plan to transition the services of the four lower Snake River dams. Your Administration must now work with Northwest policymakers and stakeholders to secure investments to remove the dams, replace their services, and protect and restore the fish that our Pacific Northwest communities and ecosystems rely on.

Sincerely,
Recreational fishing and outdoor retail and guide businesses and supporters…