IRU Returns to Court to Defend Snake River Salmon & Steelhead
For nearly as long as we’ve been an organization, Idaho Rivers United has been standing up in court to defend Idaho’s salmon and steelhead from the harms caused by the Lower Four Snake River dams - and we have consistently prevailed. Over the history of litigation, three different federal district court judges have declared six different federal dam management plans illegal.
Last week, IRU, represented by Earthjustice, along with our longstanding conservation, fishing, and clean energy partners, filed a motion requesting the U.S. District Court in Oregon to end a multi-year pause on our long-running litigation surrounding the harms caused to endangered Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead from federal dams.
Our request to lift the stay was joined by the states of Oregon and Washington, as well as the Nez Perce Tribe, the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, and the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs, collectively known as the Six Sovereigns.
Following our challenge of the 2020 federal management plan, which continued to jeopardize salmon and steelhead, a decision was made to pause litigation to work with the Biden administration to finally develop a comprehensive path forward. In December of 2023, the result of this lengthy mediation was the historic Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative (CBRI) and associated Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
This new initiative provided a comprehensive roadmap for salmon recovery that was supported by the federal government and management agencies, and included significant investments and plans to replace the energy, transportation, and irrigation services provided by the four Lower Snake River dams so that they may be breached.
However, this all changed when the Trump administration decided to unilaterally terminate the MOU and walk away from a regional, collaborative roadmap that aimed to change the status quo for fish. This decision to abandon the agreement completely nullified the basis for the pause in litigation and left us with no alternative but to return to court to seek critical relief for these imperiled species.
Despite the recent moves from the federal government representing a significant step backward, decades of science from regional fisheries managers and now the CBRI framework from the Six Sovereigns still support breaching four dams in order to recover Idaho’s Snake River salmon and steelhead to healthy and harvestable abundance.
Dam removal on the Lower Snake continues to be a massive opportunity for the region to restore 140 miles of river and upstream salmon runs into thousands of miles of pristine central Idaho habitat, replace the energy generation, irrigation, and transportation services provided by the dams, and add long-term, sustainable value to local economies via restored natural resources.
While returning to court protects the bottom line of salmon and steelhead survival in the near term, we will continue to advocate for increased buy-in from key stakeholders on the CBRI blueprint and communicate the common-sense opportunity that Lower Snake dam removal provides across the region. IRU, along with the diverse coalition advocating for salmon recovery, will continue to push for the removal of these deadbeat dams and the return of a river, because the incredible resilience of salmon and steelhead deserves nothing less.
We know many of you have been with us on this fight since the very beginning, and we thank you for your support. We will continue to provide updates to our members as soon as they are available.
Stephen Pfeiffer
Wild Fish & Hydropower Policy Manager
Idaho Rivers United