Bonneville Dam

It was dams, roads, schools, that sort of thing, bridges, that the WPA worked on.

In our area, the Bonneville Dam was happening at the same time as Timberline Lodge.

Hmm.

But there were some influential people in Portland who, uh, had always dreamed of a ski lodge on Mount Hood.

Yeah.

It's pretty cool.

You know, truth be known, he came out to dedicate both Bonneville Dam and Timberline the same day, and he had a motorcade that came up from Portland up to Timberline Lodge.

Never tell people that part.

According to a recent estimate from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, the 2026 steelhead run for the Columbia and Snake Rivers is predicted to be the lowest ever recorded.

The revised estimate, which is based in part on early returns, shows a total return of 56,900 steelhead at Bonneville Dam, with just 18,900 of those being wild.

Those totals are around half of the 10-year average and look to also be well below the former lowest count, which was a return of 69,104 in 2021.

The dismal count is triggering restrictions, including reducing bag limits in the region, which is widely considered one of the last best places to target steelhead in the lower 48.

Yeah.

Why? I didn't really know all that much about them, and then I recently went to an event at the Bonneville Dam called Lamprey Palooza, which was fantastic.

And I learned all about them, and now I really wish I'd had them in the book.

Yeah.

So hundreds of millions of dollars are spent by utility customers around the Northwest to mitigate the impacts on the hydropower system.

A- and if you look at data from the University of Washington, fish returns have nearly tripled on average into the federal system since the first federal dam, Bonneville Dam, went into service in 1938.

This case has basically called into question federal plans and whether they're adequate for certain species of salmon, certain species and certain geographies of salmon throughout the system.

Our advocacy has been, and we've been frankly asking Governor Ferguson and Governor Kotek, so Governor Ferguson of course of Washington, Governor Kotek of Oregon, and others, to convene a conversation about how we can get out of the courtroom and deal with those areas where we have not made the progress that we need to recover salmon and other fish species.

As the Lewiston Tribune first reported, the return forecast is less than half of what fishery managers expected earlier this year.

More than 133,000 steelhead were predicted to reach Bonneville Dam, but that's now been downgraded to about 62,000 fish.

That would be the lowest return on record since Bonneville Dam was built in 1938.

In response, Oregon and Washington have closed steelhead fishing on the Columbia River, along with other tributaries that feed it.

Idaho Fish and Game says it can't point to any single factor causing the potentially record low return.

And so like we, we, we do the first half of the season and, basically fishing off of imaginary numbers and imaginary forecasted numbers, we'll call them.

And then until those fish actually show themselves at Bonneville Dam and they're counted, the pit tags are registered and the coated wire tags show up in the catch.

Then they become real, like, paper fish.

Like, these are ones we've actually

The bottom line is what's been going on in the Hanford Reach has been honestly practically criminal because obviously a lot of fish are not showing up there.

We're getting good counts to the river.

We're getting good counts to Bonneville Dam.

After that, they're gone.

We could all have cheaper electricity.

I just this morning learned that the Bonneville Dam, you know, that provides most of the electricity here in this region, they've got to cut their output because the water levels are, we're in a drought, right? And so they're asking for a 6%, this is for the salmon, they're asking for a 6% increase.

in their electric, what they can charge at wholesale, which is going to show up as a 6% or 7% or 8% or 10% increase in our electric bills.

Now, I've got solar panels on my house and I've got an electric vehicle.

In

fact, we did, and this can't happen anymore because of security, but one year they called it the best dam bike ride in Oregon because we rode over Bonneville Dam.

Mm-hmm.

Which was super cool.

Okay.

Well, they're doing that here in Oregon, you know, because we've got the Bonneville Dam.

So I've been there, seen that.

Paul in Woodinville, you are on the air with Congressman Pocan.