Inslee Reaffirms State’s Course On Columbia Basin Salmon Recovery

Outgoing Washington Governor Jay Inslee is reaffirming the state’s commitment to salmon recovery in the Columbia Basin even after his term wraps up in the coming weeks.

Yesterday, he signed an executive order directing WDFW and a host of other state agencies to collaborate with Oregon and four tribes east of the Cascades on their Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative as well as with the federal government and its Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement, among other measures aimed at increasing Chinook, coho, steelhead and other stocks.

“We need to think of our state and its waters as borrowed rather than inherited. We owe future generations a healthy state,” Inslee stated in a post on the Governor’s Office’s Medium blog. “These fish and these waters are our responsibility to defend. We’ve charted a course for salmon recovery, and this order holds us to it.”

The order is essentially the latest chapter in a long-running federal court case over the Columbia hydropower system and its impact on salmon and steelhead runs. That litigation was stayed last December for a period of 10 years after the so-called “Six Sovereigns” – the two states and Umatilla, Yakama, Warm Springs and Nez Perce – and Biden Administration reached agreements to address a host of factors impacting returns and habitat, including the question of the four lower Snake River dams and how to replace their services.

“Complete, as soon as possible, the replacement needs studies for energy, water, transportation, and recreation, as described in the RCBA and called for in the 2022 Murray/Inslee Lower Snake River Dams: Benefit Replacement Report, for understanding and securing continuity of services provided by the Lower Snake River Dams (‘LSRDs’) should Congress decide to authorize removal of the LSRDs,” reads one of Inslee’s 17 directives to state agencies.

The future of the overall effort has been subject of some speculation since Donald Trump won reelection as president last month. Democratic states have been bracing for the new administration, but breaching the Snake River dams was actually first pushed to the forefront by Idaho US Representative Mike Simpson (R). Inslee and US Senator Patty Murray, both Democrats, were more guarded about it.

Still, one of Eastern Washington’s US Representative, Dan Newhouse (R), termed Republicans reclaiming the Oval Office and Senate and holding the House a “big win for the lower Snake River dams” and said he was “looking forward to putting policies in place that keep our dams safe and strong,” in an article late last month from the Lewiston Tribune.

Breaching Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite Dams is considered to be one of a set of actions with the highest likelihood of making “progress towards healthy and harvestable stocks” in the face of climate change, per a 2022 National Marine Fisheries Service report, and it is especially important for the survival of fishery-constraining Snake River wild spring Chinook.

Liz Hamilton, who is the policy director for the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association and has been working on this question for forever, was pleased to see Washington’s governor commit state agencies to continue working towards the goals.

“This executive order by Governor Inslee, along with similar bold action taken by Oregon Governor Kotek in September, affirms our region’s commitment to restore the Pacific Northwest’s imperiled and irreplaceable salmon populations to healthy and harvestable abundance,” she said in a press release from Earthjustice. “We will continue to work in partnership with states, tribes, the federal government, lawmakers, plus diverse stakeholders and partners across the Pacific Northwest, to make this vision reality in a timeframe that prevents further extinctions.”

Inslee’s executive order takes effect immediately and is to be reconsidered after the 10-year stay of the court case, or if one of the six sovereigns pulls out of the state-tribal agreement or the federal Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement is terminated.

“The duration of this Executive Order is to be guided by its intent to recover salmon habitat statewide and to promote full implementation of the CBRI until salmon and steelhead are restored to healthy and abundant numbers,” the order states.

According to another press release out today, this one from the Columbia Snake River Campaign, Governor-elect Bob Ferguson “has pledged to continue this critical work.”