Bonneville Power Administration's (BPA) reliance on the four Lower Snake River dams (LSRDs) as a piece of the federal hydrosystem is no longer viable or economical. Holding on to the dams suppresses the potential recovery of salmon runs in Idaho, leaving these fish at risk of near-term extinction. The legal, environmental, economic, and cultural implications associated with vulnerable Snake River salmon populations necessitate BPA to proactively plan for replacing the dams' energy generation. The Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative (CBRI) is a regional Tribal-State blueprint for recovering native fish and restoring water quality while modernizing our infrastructure and building-out the energy grid to meet future demands. The CBRI builds on decades of science pointing to the LSRDs as a primary salmon survival bottleneck and includes dam removal as a centerpiece action. Crosscutting all of this is a rapidly warming climate that will bring less snow, earlier runoff, and more frequent and severe droughts across the Northwest, all of which negatively impact the viability of our aging hydropower system.

Take a moment to add your voice to our growing petition to modernize the 1872 Mining Law that governs hard rock mining on all Federal public lands.
You can learn more about the need for mining reform here.

The Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NPCC) is updating its 5-year Fish and Wildlife Program – a regional plan for mitigating harm to endangered native fish affected by hydropower operations on the Columbia and Snake rivers.
With the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement abandoned and continued efforts to weaken the Endangered Species Act, the NPCC 2026 Fish and Wildlife Program is the best path to mitigate further harm to fish from hydropower operations in the Columbia and Snake rivers and make actionable progress towards recovery goals.
Read more here

Take action