George Bradshaw
President
Larry Collins
Vice-President
Lorne Edwards
Secretary
Lori French
Treasurer

PACIFIC COAST FEDERATION
of FISHERMEN’S ASSOCIATIONS California Office

P.O. Box 29370
San Francisco, CA 94129-0370
Tel: (415) 561-5080
De(415) 561-5464
Fax:

www.pcffa.org
Reply to: fish1ifr@aol.com

Mike Conroy
Executive Director
Glen H. Spain
Northwest Regional Director
Vivian Helliwell
Watershed Conservation Director

In Memoriam:

Nathaniel S. Bingham
Harold C. Christensen
W.F. “Zeke” Grader, Jr.

Please Respond to: Northwest Office
P.O. Box 11170
Eugene, OR 97440-3370
Tel: (541) 689-2000

Statement on the Value of Columbia Basin Salmon
byGlen H. Spain, Northwest Regional Director, Pacific CoastFederation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA) and the Institutefor Fisheries Resources (IFR)
28 June 2022
Governor Inslee and Senator Murray, to their great credit, have begun the long overdue processof crafting a new pathway for the Pacific Northwest out of the morass and gridlock over Columbia
Basin salmon restoration issues that has gripped the region for nearly 30 years, all while theirreplaceable salmon1 runs of the Columbia River, once the largest salmon runs in the world,
continued to decline.
The release of their recently commissioned report Lower Snake River Dams: Benefit
Replacement Draft Report (June 9, 2022) (the Report) is a landmark in that effort – but must be
viewed as only the beginning. The period for public comments on the Report is currently
underway. These comments are supplemental to other comments that may be presented by theCommercial Fishing Industry Representatives to the Columbia Basin Partnership, and are offeredto provide better socio-economic as well as historical context for these upcoming decisions fromthe viewpoint of the region’s several billion-dollar commercial salmon fisheries.

For purposes of this discussion, we use the term “salmon” to include all the various species of the genus
Oncorhynchus, which includes steelhead as well as Chinook, Coho, sockeye, chum and pink salmon, all of which
may occur within the Columbia Basin. Some species, such as steelhead, are primarily recreational fishery stocks,
while others like Chinook, Coho and sockeye are also or primarily commercially fished. But all these fish are coldwater, anadromous species requiring similar in-river conditions to successfully spawn and rear.
1

1

Over the next several months, the Pacific Northwest has a golden opportunity to push for aserious Columbia River salmon recovery plan that finally does something real and lasting toaddress the devastating impacts on the Pacific Northwest’s valuable salmon fisheries from four
federal Lower Snake River dams. This chance to finally get it right comes after decades of trying
to fix a broken system, at a cost of several billions of dollars and climbing, with little or no result.
This is because the minor tweaks and adjustments to the system previously called for (out ofpolitical expediency) have never directly dealt with the main cause of these declines – the four
lower Snake River dams.
After decades of dam building on the Columbia, four final dams – Ice Harbor, Lower
Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite – were built on the Snake River, the ColumbiaRiver’s largest tributary, in the 1960’s to 70’s. Before they were constructed, however,Washington’s own Department of Fisheries strongly opposed these dams and warned that the
proposed Lower Snake River dams would spell disaser for salmon, as follows:“The development would remove part of the cost of waterborne shipping from the shipper
and place it on the taxpayer, jeopardizing more than one-half of the Columbia river salmon
production in exchange for 148 miles of subsidized barge route. This policy of water
development, the department maintains, is not in the best interest of the over-all economyof the state. Salmon must be protected from the type of unilateral thinking that would harm
one industry to benefit another. Loss of the Snake River fish production would be so seriousthat the department has consistently opposed the fourphase lower dam program that would
begin with Ice Harbor dam near Pasco.” (From the State of Washington Department of
Fisheries Annual Report for 1949.)
Unfortunately, that prediction made by the Washington Department of Fisheries all the way
back in 1949 about the damage four Lower Snake River federal dams would do to the region’s
most valuable salmon fisheries has now come to pass. Once built, they proved to be simply fourdams too many. Furthermore, the relatively minor economic benefits they provided were neverjustified, as compared to the enormous economic, ecological and social toll taken by lost fishingeconomies. This is also why the project was opposed for decades by the US Army Corps ofEngineers, as well as by the States of Washington and Idaho.2

2

For a fascinating historical summary of the decades of heated debate over the proposed construction of the Lower
Snake River dams, and how this proposal was ultimately just rammed through Congress anyway, against therecommendations of the USACE and both Washington and Idaho State governments, see Keith C. Petersen’s book,
River of Life: Channel of Death – Fish and Dams on the Lower Snake, Confluence Press (1995), particularly
Chapter 5 (pp. 87-97). These dams were, of course, built two decades before any legal requirements forenvironmental impacts analysis, which only became obligatory for federal construction products with the passage of
the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) (42 U.S.C. §4321 et seq.) in 1969. Thus there has never been aformal NEPA analysis of their impacts.

2

Today, nearly all the salmon species and subspecies “runs” of salmon once abundant in the
Columbia Basin are listed as “threatened” with extinction, or “endangered” and facing imminent
extinction, under the federal Endangered Species Act (“ESA,” at 16 U.S.C. §1531, et seq.) Manyof those salmon species are also the basis of economically and culturally important commercial,recreational, and Tribal fisheries which have enormous value to the Pacific Northwest
economically, ecologically and culturally, as set forth in more detail below.

1.0. Identifying and Accounting for Non-Monetized Values
In the following discussion of the value of intact salmon-bearing river ecosystems, we use thePacific Northwest’s Columbia Basin-origin salmon runs and their related commercial and otherfisheries as but one obvious example of the many economic and other values that will be positively
affected by having more protective Columbia Basin water quality (especially temperature)
standards, a result of better fish passage after the Lower Snake River dams have been breached,than currently exists.3
Salmon harvests have the benefit of being easily quantifiable in monetary terms of “fiscal andeconomic effects.” But additionally, there are numerous other salmon-related values and benefits
that will flow from improved water quality as well as improved fish passage in the Columbia Basin,
including both cultural and ecosystem benefits, which are termed “non-monetized values,” butwhich – although difficult to translate directly into dollars – are nonetheless of great value to the
Pacific Northwest as well as to society as a whole, including multiple stakeholder groups,
communities and their own economies.
These non-monetized cultural and ecosystem values cannot be ignored! When asking thebigger question not just of costs, but rather, “What are all the values and benefits of an intact andfunctioning riverine ecosystem?” these so-called “non-monetized values” may include multiple
cultural, lifestyle, food production, clean water and other social benefits that, if they could bemonetized, would likely greatly exceed whatever purely localized (and purely monetary) value
could be obtained by industrializing those same river systems.
Indeed, the Pacific Northwest’s still relatively healthy river systems and watersheds are a major
component of what makes life livable in our region, providing multiple societal benefits which in3

Since salmon are a highly migratory set of species, and circulate widely throughout the North Pacific Ocean,
Columbia-origin salmon runs are a major component of the entire Pacific Northwest’s salmon fisheries, especiallysince these salmon mostly migrate north into cooler waters where they can be harvested in Washington, British
Columbia and Alaska fisheries. But Columbia-origin salmon also make up a significant portion of ocean salmon
catches well into Oregon and northern California. Indeed, weak stock management constraints are not uncommon
on harvest quotas of Oregon and northern California ocean salmon fisheries triggered by weak Columbia Riversalmon stocks.

3

turn create multiple economic opportunities, including providing the vast majority of the region’s
potable drinking water for its growing population.

2.0. Economists’ Guidance Principles for Salmon Restoration
Project Costs vs. Benefits Analysis
When considering whether or not to go forward with any particular salmon habitat restoration
proposal (dam removals being one type of this restoration effort), one needs to look objectively atboth the social costs as well as the social benefits of such an action, and on both sides of theequation. This is usually done at the agency decision-maker level through some type of “costsbenefits” analysis.
However, as a number of professional natural resource Economists have noted, while purely
economic costs of compliance (or change, in this case) are important in many analyses of impacts,
both the economic and non-monetized social benefits of salmon habitat restoration proposals areoften given short-shrift or ignored in most current, standard agency “costs-benefits” analyses. Thisinitial analytical bias greatly distorts the economic balance sheet and thus unfairly pre-biases
public policy decision-making toward one end of the spectrum.
The socio-economics analysis team for this report is in danger of falling into this trap, when it:(a) fails to account for all the “costs of doing nothing,” including the enormous costs to society as
a whole of the loss of the remaining remnants of region’s wild salmon resource, if nothing is done
and the current highly destructive status quo is allowed to continue to push them toward extinction;(b) when it does not take into account the enormous federal subsidy that is being given to a handfulof grain barging companies, including billions of dollars in mitigation measures intended to prop
up the grain transportation system the dams created in what has been called the most highly
subsidized transportation corridor in the world; (c) when it assumes that there will be no efforts byenergy managers to compensate, adjust or adapt to power losses resulting from the removal ofLower Snake River dams by shifting to other renewable power generation resources (which areever more abundant at ever lower costs), including assuming the most pessimistic (and thus
expensive) net power loss scenarios with little effort to mitigate those losses, and; (d) failing toaccount for not only the enormous economic and socio-economic value of recovering currently
depressed salmon runs to society, in effect pre-assuming that the current salmon runs will not
greatly improve in abundance above recent highly depressed baselines, once the impediments tofish passage the dams create are removed.
Professional Economists tell us that we must account for the fact that salmon recovery (and byextension, water pollution mitigation efforts) will generate economic benefits as well as costs. To
understand the net benefit (a net cost if negative) to the economy as a whole, one must consider
the effects on the production of all goods and services. The effects on goods and services that are4traded in markets, such as commercial salmon, timber production, and agricultural production,
should receive the same consideration as those, such as recreational fishing, clean streams, andbiodiversity (i.e., non-market values) that are not. Economists also tell us that a full accounting
must be provided of the true value of each affected good or service, taking into account the market
price, where appropriate, as well as all factors, such as subsidies, taxes, and environmental
externalities, that may distort the level of supply or demand.
In addition, a true “costs vs. benefits” analysis should take into account “the costs of doing
nothing.” These costs are largely ignored in the analysis of the Report. In an already highly
degraded ecosystem (which all too many Columbia basin watersheds are now suffering from),
there is an often very large social cost of maintaining the degraded status quo. That negative social
cost is a net drag on the economy that could include economic costs that are monetizable as well,including at least: (a) greatly depleted (even ESA-listed) salmon runs, which then under weak
stock management constraints can foreclose other major ocean salmon harvest opportunities anddrain coastal fishing-dependent communities’ jobs and incomes; (b) complete or partial fishpassage blockages, such as the four Snake River dams, which have numerous cascading impacts;(c) perpetual and mounting costs (now estimated at well over $12 billion, with no end in sight) thathas been invested in failed mitigation measures in efforts to undo the damages done by the Lower
Snake River dams; (d) warm water reservoirs behind the dams that not only encourage salmon
preditors, but also create additional water treatment costs to local municipal water providers who
are required to filter out pollutants, reduce water temperatures, and treat water for additional warmwater pathogens; (e) lost recreational activities because of health-code restrictions on recreationaluse of polluted water bodies (including closures caused by toxic algae blooms that are becoming
much more common in warmer, slack-water reservoirs), thus reducing the recreation-based incomeof local affected communities; (f) loss of local property values triggered by poor water quality as
well as the above impacts, and; (g) numerous monetary and infrastructure costs for hidden
subsidies, such as costs of maintaining in-river barge traffic (maintaining locks, loss of water
through the locks that could otherwise produce hydropower, channel dredging and the costs ofmaintaining the dams themselves.
These very real costs of the lower four Snake River dams and the poor water quality in thereservoirs behind them are often ignored or dismissed as “externalities,” but in any legitimate costs
vs. benefits analysis this “cost of doing nothing” must be the baseline condition – and these socalled “externalities” can mount to very high social costs indeed.
That said, attached for reference are two well-respected Guidance Letters from numerous
western-based professional resource Economists that contain principles of costs-benefits analysis
they believe should apply to future salmon habitat and water quality protection efforts such as
those proposed in the Report, as well as to all other western U.S. natural resource decisions. (SeeAPPENDIX A)
5

3.0. The Value of Pacific Northwest Salmon
There are a multitude of good policy as well as ecosystem, economic and cultural reasons forthe protection and restoration of the Pacific Northwest’s dwindling salmon runs. Furthermore,since the Columbia River’s salmon runs are highly migratory, the value they bring to society is
disbursed over a wide region, from at least central California to southeast Alaska, where salmon
harvests provide food, jobs and economic value to many people and support multiple food chainsand ecosystems.

3.1. Salmon Ecosystem Benefits
The once-great salmon runs of the Northwest never existed in an ecological vacuum, but wereinstead an integral part of an entire food-web that still supports many other species. Salmon are amajor or important food source not just for humans, but for at least 138 species of birds, mammals,
amphibians and reptiles native to the Pacific Northwest that have been identified by scientists as
predators or scavengers of salmon at one or more stages of the salmon lifecycle. Of this group of
138 species, 9 species have a strong-consistent relationship with salmon, and another 58 have arecurrent relationship with salmon. Yet another 25 species have indirect relationships that depend
upon healthy salmon runs to support their direct prey base.
As a recent survey of these salmon-driven ecological relationships notes:“Salmon act as an ecological process vector, important in the transport of energy andnutrients between the ocean, estuaries, and freshwater environments...... As a seasonal
resource, salmon directly affect the ecology of many aquatic and terrestrial consumers, andindirectly affect the entire food web.” 4
Indeed, the return of salmon back to their natal watershed as adults is the one known mechanism
for returning irreplaceable land-based nutrients, otherwise lost by erosion, back to the land. But
as the region’s salmon runs have collapsed, so has this important nutrient recycling mechanism.
Recent calculations by Gresh, et al. indicate that only about 3 percent of the marine-derived
biomass once delivered annually by anadromous salmon to the rivers of the Puget Sound, the4Species numbers and quote from introductory Abstract in Cederholm, C. J., D. H. Johnson, R. E. Bilby, L. G.
Dominguez, A. M. Garrett, W. H. Graeber, E. L. Greda, M. D. Kunze, B. G. Marcot, J. F. Palmisano, R. W.
Plotnikoff, W. G. Pearcy, C. A. Simenstad, and P. C. Trotter. 2000. Pacific Salmon and Wildlife – EcologicalContexts, Relationship, and Implications for Management. Special Edition Technical Report, Prepared for D. H.
Johnson and T. A. O’Neil (Managing directors), Wildlife-Habitat Relationships in Oregon and Washington. WA
Dept. of Fish & Wildlife, Olympia, WA. (Hereinafter “Pacific Salmon and Wildlife.)

6

Washington coast, Columbia River, and the Oregon coast is currently still reaching those streams.5
In other words, lack of returning salmon in recent decades is starving whole inland ecosystems,with unknown ultimate consequences.

Table 1: The nine wildlife species identified as having (or historically had) a strong, consistent relationship withsalmon in Oregon and Washington. An “X” identifies the life stage(s) of salmon applicable to the species (fromAppendix 1, Pacific Salmon and Wildlife, supra).
Incubation
CommonMerganser
Harlequin
Duck

X

Freshwater
Rearing
X

X

Saltwater

Spawning

Carcass

X
X

OspreyBald Eagle

X

Caspian TurnBlack Bear
Grizzly Bear
Northern River
Otter
Killer WhaleX

Comments

X
X

Strong relationship w/drift eggs andalevin; indirect relationship with carcassderived insects.
X
X

X

X
X
X

X
X
X

Strong relationship w/salmon; also
indirect relationship – feeds on gulls,
terns, and waterfowl that eat salmon;
occasionally have been seen catching andconsuming smolts.

X

X
X

3.1.1. The Plight of Southern Resident Killer Whales: As just one current example of theintimate food-web dependency of many species on healthy Northwest salmon runs, consider theplight of the endangered Southern Resident killer whales (SRKW) (Orcinus orca). In 2005, due
to their small population size and significant threats to their survival, NOAA Fisheries issued afinal rule designating Southern Resident killer whales as endangered under the U.S. Endangered
Species Act.6 Scientific studies have shown that this whale population is food-limited, withdeclines in survival,7 fecundity,8 and social cohesion9 during years with low Chinook salmon
availability.

5

Gresh, T. J., Lichatowich, and P. Schoonmaker. 2000. An estimation of historic and current levels of salmon
production in the Northeast Pacific ecosystem: Evidence of a nutrient deficit in the freshwater systems of the PacificNorthwest. Fisheries 25(1):15-21.
6
70 Fed. Reg. 69,903 (November 18, 2005).
7
Ford JKB, Ellis GM, Olesiuk PF, Balcomb KC III (2009) Linking killer whale survival and prey abundance: food
limitation in the oceans’ apex predator. Biol Lett 6:139–142.
8
Ward EJ, Holmes EE, Balcomb KC (2009) Quantifying the effects of prey abundance on killer whale reproduction.
J Appl Ecol 46:632–640.
9
Parsons KM, Balcomb KC III, Ford JKB, Durban JW (2009) The social dynamics of the southern resident killer
whales and implications for the conservation of this endangered population. Anim Behav 77:963–971.

7

These orcas depend almost exclusively on salmon, with salmon comprising over 98 percent of
their diet.10 Of that, roughly 80 percent of their diet is Chinook salmon. A lack of prey, principally
Chinook, is among the greatest threats to Southern Resident killer whale recovery and survival.
The science shows they are feeding on salmon off the outer coast of Washington, Oregon, andCalifornia between January and June, and that these orcas concentrate near the mouth of theColumbia River at times that coincide with the return of spring Chinook.11
The 2008 NOAA Fisheries Southern Resident killer whale recovery plan states: “Perhaps the
single greatest change in food availability for resident killer whales since the late 1800s has been
the decline of salmon in the Columbia River basin.”12 Salmon restoration efforts at a region-widebasis are necessary to help achieve Southern Resident killer whale recovery goals. Yet given thepotential for substantial salmon recovery in the Columbia River basin, conservation efforts madethere can contribute significantly to adequate and abundant prey for Southern Resident killer
whales.
3.1.2. Salmon and Healthy Forests: Trees need salmon as much as salmon need trees.
Throughout the Pacific Northwest and northern California, where soils are often nutrient-poor, thesalmon lifecycle is an important driver of the forest nutrient cycle that supports forest health.
Salmon are “anadromous” – this means they start their lives in freshwater lakes, streams and rivers,
then migrate to saltwater where they spend, according to species, from two to seven years at sea
before returning as adults to freshwater to spawn.
But when they return to spawn, salmon become a conveyor belt for nutrients from the oceanback to land. For example, an adult chum salmon returning to spawn contains an average of 130
grams of nitrogen, 20 grams of phosphorus and more than 20,000 kilojoules of energy in the formof protein and fat; a 250-meter reach of salmon stream in southeast Alaska receives more than 80
kilograms of nitrogen and 11 kilograms of phosphorous in the form of chum salmon tissue in justover one month.13
As the bodies of spawning salmon break down, nitrogen, phosphorus and other nutrients
become available to streamside vegetation. According to Robert Naiman of the University ofWashington, streamside vegetation gets just under 25 percent of its nitrogen from salmon. Other
researchers report up to 70 percent of the nitrogen found in riparian zone foliage comes from
salmon. One study concludes that trees on the banks of salmon-stocked rivers grow more than
10

Ford MJ, Hempelmann J, Hanson MB, Ayres KL, Baird RW, Emmons CK, et al. (2016) Estimation of a Killer
Whale (Orcinus orca) Population’s Diet Using Sequencing Analysis of DNA from Feces. PLoS ONE 11(1):e0144956.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0144956.
11
Haneson MB, Emmons CK, Ward EJ (2013) Assessing the coastal occurrence of endangered killer whales using
autonomous passive acoustic recorders. J. Acoustic Soc. Am. 134(5) 3486-3495.
12
National Marine Fisheries Service (2008) Recovery Plan for Southern Resident Killer Whales (Orcinus orca).
National Marine Fisheries Service, Northwest Region, Seattle, Washington. At: II-82.
13
For a summary of these studies, see Mathew D. Kirckhoff, Effects of salmon-derived nitrogen on riparian forest
growth and implications for stream productivity, Ecology (Dec. 2003), available at: https://doi.org/10.1890/023121.

8

three times faster than their counterparts along salmon-free rivers and, growing side by side withsalmon, Sitka spruce take 86 years, rather the usual 300 years, to reach 50 cm thick.14
3.1.3. Salmon and Healthy Estuaries: Salmon occupy the estuaries of the Pacific Northwest
in two life-stages: (1) as very small out-going juvenile smolts that are adapting to ocean life inbrackish salt water marshes and estuaries as a transition state to ocean migrations, and; (2) as
returning, in-migrating adults. In the first stage they are important prey species for many othertypes of fish, but in the adult stage they are both predator as well as important prey to marine
mammals such as sea-lions and orcas, and to much larger fish. In both roles they are an important
contributor to the ecological health of the region’s estuaries, as well as linked to the overall healthof these estuaries as critical habitat.
The Columbia River estuary ecosystem contains more life per square inch than the richest
farmland and provides for multiple species of wildlife. The greater number of distinct habitats
within an ecosystem, the more species it supports, the more ecological processes and functions it
provides, and the better it withstands disturbances. Unfortunately, its historically wide range ofcomplex, diverse habitats is now greatly diminished in the lower Columbia estuary. In the last 100
years more than 114,000 acres of lower Columbia River estuary floodplain have been converted
to agricultural, urban, or other uses – a habitat loss in excess of 50%. Loss of critical estuary
habitat has also been a factor driving regional salmon declines. Therefore, restoration of criticalestuarine habitat for salmon should also be a part of any comprehensive salmon restoration
strategy.
3.1.4. Salmon as Highly Migratory Ocean Species: Most Columbia-origin salmon species
are highly migratory, and once they reach the ocean they can travel literally thousands of miles
both north and south as they search for food and grow to maturity, with established coastal-shelfmigration routes down the west coast to as far south as San Diego, and far north well into southeast
Alaska, with many of these routes overlapping. These typical ocean migration routes are
diagrammatically show in Chart 1 below.

Helfield, James M., “Effects of Salmon-Derived Nitrogen on Riparian Forest Growth and Implications for Stream
Productivity"(2001). Environmental Sciences Faculty Publications. 19. https://cedar.wwu.edu/esci_facpubs/19;
Reimchen, T., et al. 2003. Isotopic evidence for enrichment of salmon-derived nutrients in vegetation, soil andinsects in riparian zones in coastal British Columbia. American Fisheries Society Symposium 34:59–69.
14

9Chart 1: Ocean migration routes of the major west coast salmon runs.

Columbia Basin-origin salmon thus constitute a significant portion of ocean harvests in all theseareas. More important, these widely migrating salmon become a major component of the entire
west coast ocean ecosystem, in the roles of both predator and prey, during their whole life stage inthe oceans. Their value in supporting and contributing to abundant ocean ecosystems and foodwebs is of incalculable (but clearly large) value to those ocean biological systems.
10

3.2. Salmonid Specific Economic/Monetary Benefits
Commercial, recreational and Tribal subsistence fisheries support many communities andeconomies in the Pacific Northwest, including (as examples) the following:
3.2.1. Ocean Commercial Fisheries: Commercial fishing generates or supports thousands ofjobs in smaller coastal communities that lack the diversity of economic opportunity present inmajor urban areas.15 For example, in 2015, the Washington coast town of Westport had under
2,000 residents and over 600 were employed in commercial fishing activities.16 In 2016,
commercial salmon landings in Washington State were about 15.8 million pounds, valued at morethan $26 million at ex-vessel (point of landing) wholesale prices.17 Alaska’s fishing families also
depend on Washington’s salmon because so many of the salmon caught off the coast of Southeast
Alaska (roughly 50%) are from Washington via the Columbia River system.18 In 2016, commercial
salmon landings in Alaska were 542.6 million pounds, valued at $380.5 million.19
From boat builders to seafood processers, commercial salmon fishing generates many
additional jobs in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. In 2015, Washington’s commercial fishingand seafood processing sector employed 15,900 workers and generated $9.4 million in revenue.20
And in 2013, the Alaska seafood industry created 23,900 jobs and $1.34 billion in labor income in
the Puget Sound region, including jobs directly attributable to commercial fishing (active permit
owners and crew members who travel to Alaska to fish) and Washington-based processing of
Alaska-caught seafood.21 Between 2012 and 2015, an average of 5,380 full-time equivalent jobs
in Alaska and 3,090 full-time equivalent jobs in Washington were attributable to the commercial
15

Community Attributes Inc., Washington State Maritime Sector Economic Impact Study at 37-40 (2017),
https://www.maritimefederation.com/uploads/2/9/9/6/29962189/cai.wmf.maritime_cluster_
study_2017_update.2017_0413.pdf. See also Wash. Dep’t of Fish and Wildlife, Final Report: Economic Analysisof the Non-Treaty Commercial and Recreational Fisheries in Washington State at 12 (2008 & Supp. 2012),
https://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/00464/wdfw 00464.pdf [hereinafter Final Report]; Gordon Gislason & Gunnar
Knapp, Economic Impacts of Pacific Salmon Fisheries, Pacific Salmon Comm’n, at 27 (2017), available fordownload at http:// www.psc.org/download/333/special-reports/9337/economic-impacts- of-pacific-salmonfisheries.pdf.
16
Community Attributes Inc., supra n.6, at 40.
17
Nat’l Marine Fisheries Serv., Fisheries of the United States at xxiii (2016), available for download athttps://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/resource/document/fisheries-united-states-2016-report. See also Gislason & Knapp,supra n.6, at 12 (showing 2015 harvests with ex-vessel value of over $27.5 million for Washington).
18
See William D. Templin & Lisa W. Seeb, Clues to Chinook Salmon Nearshore Migration in Southeast Alaska
from Estimates of Stock Composition in Troll Harvests, Alaska Dep’t of Fish and Game,
https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/static/fishing/PDFs/research/chinook_migration_poster.pdf. (showing the origins ofchinook salmon caught in the commercial troll fishery in the nearshore waters of Southeast Alaska).
19
Nat’l Marine Fisheries Serv., supra n.8, at xxiii (values at ex-vessel wholesale prices). See also Gislason &Knapp, supra n.6, at 12 (showing 2015 harvests with ex-vessel value of over $111 million for Southeast Alaska).
20
Community Attributes Inc., supra n.6, at ii.
21
See Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, Ties That Bind: The Enduring Economic Impact of Alaska on
the Puget Sound Region 18-22 (2015), https://www.seattlechamber.com/docs/default-source/Events-and-ProgramsDocuments/ties-that-bind-report-feb-2015.pdf?sfvrsn=2.

11

salmon fishing industry alone.22 Like the commercial fishing jobs, many of the additional jobs
generated by the salmon fishing industry are located in smaller coastal communities whose
economies are heavily dependent on the fishery.23
When Columbia River-origin juvenile salmon hit the ocean, many of them also swim and growto adults well south from the Columbia River estuary, when they can later be harvested in Oregon’s
and northern California’s ocean commercial and recreational fisheries. According to the Oregon
Department of Fish & Wildlife, even greatly reduced in size as they have been in recent years,
Oregon’s ocean coastal commercial salmon fisheries still generated an average over the years
2010-2017 of 396,728 landed pounds of salmon in its multiple coastal ports, representing an exvessel (i.e., essentially at the wholesale price at the boat-processor delivery point) of an average of$2,073,481 – which would have created, because of typical economic multipliers, more than
$5,000,000 in net economic impacts to mostly poor Oregon coastal communities through the chainof commerce.24
Oregon coastal salmon landings during 2019, however, were improved over seriously
depressed immediately prior year averages: 985,000 landed pounds, valued at (ex-vessel prices)$4.1 million – an increase of 34,000 pounds (4%) but a decrease of $1.5 million (27%) in ex-vessel
value compared with landings for 2018. In that same year, Washington’s salmon landings (towhich Oregon-origin salmon, primarily via the Columbia River can contribute) were 7.2 million
pounds valued at $13.1 million ex-vessel prices.25 But both of these 2019 harvests were still far
below what was landed in earlier decades, reflecting overall declines of salmon runs coastwide,
which in turn were the result of decades of deteriorating inland river habitat. Serious water quality
problems created by the many dams in the Columbia River basin also contributed to these declines
in that and prior years.
3.2.2. Ocean and Inland Recreational Fisheries: Recreational fishing is also a major
economic driver in the Pacific Northwest, especially in smaller communities. In Washington in
2006, for instance, 142,000 anglers fished recreationally for salmon and another 113,000 fishedfor steelhead.26
From fishing guides to small bait-and tackle store owners, from drift boat dealers to local hotel
proprietors, from authors of fishing guides to local restaurants, from charter boat operators to
outfitters, the annual economic ripple effect from these hundreds of thousands of anglers is huge.
A 2010 report concluded that Washington’s annual economic activity from sport fishing generates

22

See Gislason & Knapp, supra n.6, at iv, 14.

See Final Report, supra n.6, at 12 (These jobs are “important at the community level along the Washington
Coast, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the Puget Sound areas.”).
24
See ODFW publication (Sept. 2019): https://www.dfw.state.or.us/MRP/docs/Backgrounder_Comm_Fishing.pdf.
25
National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Fisheries of the United States (FUS 2019) at xxii and xxiii (2019),
available for download at https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/resource/document/fisheries-united-states-2019.
26
Id. at 18.
23

12

$1.1 billion in economic activity and 14,655 associated jobs.27 On average between 2012 and 2015,
recreational salmon fishing and associated industries contributed 3,160 full-time equivalent jobs
in Washington and 1,220 full-time equivalent jobs in Alaska.28 During those same years, theaverage total economic impact of the recreational salmon fishing industry was $394 million in
Washington and $153 million in Alaska.29
Though we have focused primarily on Washington and Alaska in the examples above, similarsalmon economic benefits occur in Oregon and Idaho. A “snapshot” economic study of the entire
Pacific Northwest for the year 1988 showed Oregon’s commercial salmon fisheries in 1988
generated $89 million, supporting 4,450 family-wage jobs, while its recreational salmon fisherygenerated $186 million, supporting 9,500 family-wage jobs. Idaho has no commercial salmon
fishery, but recreational salmon fishing that same year in Idaho generated nearly $93 million inincome, supporting 4,750 family-wage jobs.30 Even though most of the juvenile salmon emerging
from the Columbia estuary would normally migrate northward where they contribute heavily to
Washington, British Columbia and southeast Alaska ocean fisheries, Columbia River-origin
salmon runs are still so large that they also contribute significantly to ocean salmon fisheries
throughout the Oregon and even well south to northern California ocean salmon fisheries.
3.2.3. Tribal and Subsistence Fisheries: We do not speak for the Tribes, but there are multiple
Tribal Nations throughout the Pacific Northwest, including in Washington and Oregon, to whom
the U.S. owes Treaty obligations to provide for the protection of their native river systems and thesalmon runs that use those systems.
The value of the Tribal salmon fisheries to their people and their Tribal economy, bothsubsistence fisheries and small commercial fisheries, cannot be easily quantified but is clearlyenormous in terms of support for Tribal cultures and providing these sovereign First Nations andtheir communities a secure economic future. Some of those cultural values, in the Tribes’ own
words, are identified below.

4.0. Salmon Cultural Values
Writer Tim Egan once defined the Pacific Northwest as “Wherever salmon can get to.” In fact,salmon are a major cultural icon for the entire region, and are woven into the lives and cultures ofmany communities throughout the Columbia River Basin. Coastal fishing-dependent communities
celebrate the return of the salmon every year, and hundreds of inland communities and businesses

Wash. Dep’t of Fish and Wildlife, Fish, Wildlife and Washington’s Economy at 1 (2010),
https://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/01145/wdfw_01145.pdf.
28
Gislason & Knapp, supra n.6, at v.
27

29

Id. at 18-23.
The Economic Imperative of Protecting Riverine Habitat in the Pacific Northwest, Pacific Rivers Council(January, 1992) Publication No. 5 (1992).
30

13depend upon recreational salmon fishing as a regular part of their incomes and annual family
recreation.
But nowhere is the connection between salmon and culture more direct than within the various
Native American communities widely distributed throughout the Pacific Northwest. Restoring thesalmon runs these Tribes depend upon for both their subsistence and fish marketing economies,
their cultures and their futures as Tribal people is a legal as well as high moral obligation. In thewords of these sovereign Tribal governments whose lands span the Columbia basin, from therecent Columbia Basin Partnership’s 100-year salmon and steelhead restoration plan, A Vision for
Salmon and Steelhead, the Columbia River Treaty Tribes particularly remind us:“The Columbia River Treaty Tribes are still here and are still committed to the same ancientcovenant with salmon. We will continue to speak for those that cannot. Columbia River
Treaty Tribes have been fighting for the rights and perpetuation of Columbia River salmon
since 1855 and will always hold the government, and those that settled here, accountable
to the intent of the treaties that were signed…. The treaty tribal baseline for tribal salmon
restoration and harvest remains 1855. This entitlement is a fair share of the salmon harvest
from all streams in their ceded areas – measured at the fully functioning product levels
observed in the mid-1800s. This was the tribal entitlement at the time of treaty signing. It
is still so today, and into the future.”
And as to looking at the “costs” of salmon protections, the Columbia River Treaty Tribes also havethis to remind us of:“Over the last 200 years, tribal resource losses, including reduced availability of salmon
and steelhead, are a direct consequence of the resource gains of others in the Columbia
Basin. It is a false equivalency to propose that all parties on this Task Force should be
willing to give up equally, because historical gain/loss balances weight heavily against
tribes…..”“Rather than debating how many salmon we need to meet everyone’s needs, we should
also ask how many apples the river reasonably needs to produce. How many potatoes do
we need? How many cows do we need? And to what cost are we willing, as a society, to
pay in the currency of salmon for the various economies the region now supports? To date,most can only demonstrate their anxiety by the money they will lose and how it will hurt
them, you, or me right now. Few have talked about their own ability for adaptation andchange.”31

31

Quotes from Tribal Statement in A Vision for Salmon and Steelhead, Phase 2 Report of the Columbia Basin
Partnership Task Force, supra., pages 110 & 114-115.

14

5.0. Declining Salmon Runs Threaten Entire Communities
Even though greatly diminished from historic baselines, Columbia-origin salmon runs still
contribute greatly to the Pacific Northwest’s economy, but for decades salmon have been
disappearing from the Pacific Northwest at alarming rates. Once too numerous to count, thesefish today persist at only a small fraction of their historic abundance.
The collapse of what were once the world’s largest runs of salmon has led the National
Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to protect 28 different West Coast salmon and steelhead
populations as either threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act. Manyother populations are already extinct. The blocking and degradation of available salmon habitat
has been a major factor in this decline and these extinctions.
Salmon are in trouble, and so are the fishing families who depend upon them. When fewer
salmon return from the ocean to Washington’s rivers, this translates directly to lower catch
limits, shorter seasons, and a reduced ability for commercial fishing families to earn a living.
Salmon harvests fluctuate from year to year, but the overall trend has been one of sharp decline.
Chinook (king) salmon and coho salmon are the most commercially valuable of western
Washington’s salmon species,32 but these are the species that have seen some of the steepest
declines.33 From 1950 to 1955 in Washington, commercial landings of Chinook salmon averaged
10,248,683 pounds and coho averaged 11,779,067 pounds, but from 2011 to 2016, chinook
landings averaged only 5,866,870 pounds, a reduction of about 43%, and coho landings averaged
only 3,102,894 pounds, a reduction of about 74%.34
Washington’s salmon sport fisheries have also been declining for decades.31 From 1971 to
1974, the annual sport salmon catch in Washington averaged 1,224,881 salmon, but from 2010 to2015, it dropped to an average of only 783,185 salmon, a reduction of about 36%.32 As with thecommercial fisheries, the more valuable fisheries have seen the steepest declines. Excluding pinksalmon (a numerous but less valuable species35), the sport catch in Washington dropped during

32

See Gislason & Knapp, supra n.6, at 12 Exh. 2 (compare weight landed with ex-vessel value).
See Wash. State Recreation and Conservation Office, Governor’s Salmon Recovery Office, State of Salmon in
Watershed 2016 at 2 (showing declining trend in non-tribal chinook and coho harvests from the 1970s through2015), https://stateofsalmon.wa.gov/governors-report-2016/.
34
Nat’l Marine Fisheries Serv., Annual Commercial Landing Statistics (searchable by state, species, and year),https://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/commercial-fisheries/commercial-landings/annual-landings/index.
35
See Wash. Dep’t of Fish and Wildlife, Species Info, https://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/washington/Species/9009/ (pinksalmon runs only occur in Washington in odd-numbered years); Kraig & Scalini, supra n.31, at 3 (nearly 40% of thetotal recreational salmon catch in Washington in 2015 were pink salmon); Gislason & Knapp, supra n.6, at 12 Exh.
2 (compare weight landed with exvessel value).
33

15

2010 to 2015 to an average of only 539,584 salmon, a decline of 56% from the 1971 to 1974
average.36
The good news is that much of what has been lost over the past decades in salmon economic
contributions could be recaptured through appropriate salmon habitat restoration investments.
One estimate is that restored salmon fisheries in the Columbia Basin could generate up to $500
million/year in regional personal income and support up to 25,000 family wage jobs.37 Learning
to make those investments wisely and efficiently is one of the underlying themes of this Task
Force. And these are “investments,” not costs – the return on these salmon restoration
investments, if done correctly, will bring great economic and societal benefits in perpetuity.

6.0. Thinking Clearly About Removing Dams
6.1. The Role of Columbia Basin Dams: With more than 400 dams38 in the Columbia River
Basin, more than half of them dedicated (fully or partly) to generating hydropower, the region’s
primary source of electricity, fish passage at dams has been a major concern for nearly as long as
dams have been built in the basin. Only 31 federal hydropower dams comprise the Federal
Columbia River Power System (FCRPS). The FCRPS dams’ operations are also coordinatedwith three major power dams on the Canadian side of the border through the U.S.-Canada
Columbia River Treaty.
There is hardly anything more controversial in the Columbia Basin than discussing the fate ofvarious dams. What is often missing in these debates, however, is a clear pathway for organizing
such discussions in a rational way. It was not the Columbia Basin Partnership’s mission toweight the merits of any particular dam, nor did it do so. But as a contribution to reasoned
discourse on this subject, and in view of the 100-year restoration time frame the Columbia Basin
Partnership methodology requires, here are some of the assumptions that we believe should beincorporated in any such future discussions:6.2. Dams are Merely Human Constructions: Many of us have grown up with ColumbiaRiver dams already in place, and so we often take them for granted, forgetting that every dam
ever built was built by humans and designed in its time by engineers to provide specific social
benefits and only for a specific engineered lifespan, not forever. It is therefore a human societal
choice whether to build, repair, reconfigure or remove dams. The issues and debates over thefates of dams are therefore ones of policy, not of engineering capability.

See Kraig & Scalini, supra n.31, at 14 tbl. 4 (average of total sport catch in even numbered years – 2010, 2012,
and 2014 – is 539,584).
37
The Cost of Doing Nothing: The Economic Burden of Salmon Declines in the Columbia River Basin, Institute forFisheries Resources (Oct. 1996), available at: http://pcffa.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/CDNReportColumbia.pdf. Those numbers are in 1996 dollars and so would be greater today.
38
This is an estimate from the NW Power Planning Council. However, no universally agreed up census of dams in
the Columbia Basin seems to exist.
36

16

6.3. Dams Are Designed to Provide for Certain Benefits vs. Certain Impacts: In
general, dams are engineered and built to provide some combination of the following benefits tosociety:••••

Hydropower production
River transportation
Agricultural or urban water diversions
Flood control

In return for these social benefits, yesterday’s policy decision-makers (i.e., those who made theoriginal decisions to build any particular dam) chose to accept various negative impacts onsociety that can also be caused by dams, such as: partial or complete blockage of salmon
migration routes; adverse water quality and quantity impacts; loss of natural river functions suchas sediment recruitment and seasonal flushing flows that support healthy riverine ecosystems;
channeling of rivers that reduce the natural meander of rivers over time; reduced river ecosystem
functions generally.
These were clearly policy decisions, albeit hopefully based on the best available science at thetime. But it must be remembered that in return for the benefits of any dam there have always
been negative impacts and tradeoffs.
6.4. No Dam Lasts Forever: Being human-designed and built objects, each dam has anengineered lifespan. Beyond that lifespan, there is increased risk of catastrophic dam failure aswell as loss of function generally (e.g., reduce storage capacity from sediment infills).
Currently, there are more than 91,000 dams in the U.S., and according to the National
Inventory of Dams maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, with some 15,600 of themclassed as “high-hazard structures” as of 2019. The average life expectancy of a dam is about
50 years, again according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, with 25% of the dams in the
Army Corps of Engineers National Inventory of Dams now more than 50 years old. This
number is increased to 70% by the year 20205.39 A number of these aging dams are in the
Columbia Basin.
6.5. Over the Next 100 Years, Most Dams in the Columbia Basin Will Need to be
Upgraded, Replaced or Removed: The vision and planning horizon for salmon restoration in
the Columbia Basin as outlined in the Columbia Basin Partnership report is for the next 100
years. During that 100-year time frame, all of the FERC-licensed hydropower dams in the39

Maclin E, Sicchio M (1999, 16). Dam removal success stories: Restoring rivers through selective removal ofdams that don’t make sense. American Rivers, Friends of the Earth, & Trout Unlimited, December
1999. http://www.michigan.gov/documents/dnr/damsuccess_513764_7.pdf. See also Army Corps of Engineers
National Inventory of Dams
(NID) http://nid.usace.army.mil/cm_apex/f?p=838:1:0::NO::APP_ORGANIZATION_TYPE,P12_ORGANIZATI
ON:2

17

Columbia Basin will be up for license renewal at least twice (FERC licenses are generally for no
more than 50 years), a number of other non-hydropower dams will be silted up or become
otherwise dysfunctional, many will become safety hazards, many more will have to be upgradedor face escalating maintenance costs, and a large number of them will have exceeded theirdesigned lifetimes.
As to the Federal dams of the FCRPS (which require no FERC licenses), between 12 and 25
federal Administrations will have come and gone during that 100-year time frame. The U.S. –Canada Columbia River Treaty will also have to be renegotiated several more times. And mostof these federal dams will have reached or surpassed their engineered lifespans, after which they
become serious public dam failure hazards.
In short, there will be many opportunities over the next 100 years for reviewing the roles,
benefits, impacts and potential futures of each dam in the Columbia Basin. The four dams in theLower Snake River as simply part of that inevitable process.
6.6. The Value Placed on Social Benefits (or Impacts) Created by Dams Often Changes
Over Time: As society (and technology) continues to change, the purposes that any particular
dam may serve, and the value that society places on a dams’ particular mix of benefits vs.
impacts, will likely change over time. The state of the science and our knowledge of these
tradeoffs will also change and grow. Today’s and tomorrow’s dam policy makers will need torespond to those changes.
As an example, when the first federal dams were built in the Columbia Basin in the 1930’s,
they were the only viable sources of electrical power for their local power-hungry new cities.
Today, however, we have multiple sources of non-hydro electrical power, including nuclear,
natural gas and coal power plants, but also practical and low-cost carbon-free renewable sources
such as wind, solar and geothermal power, all available today through a complex, multi-state
power grid that is no longer dependent upon any particular generation facility, but which
combines and coordinates them all. Many of those changes were not foreseen in the 1930’s.
Society today also places a higher value on protecting and preserving the Pacific Northwest’s
salmon runs and watersheds than in the past. Northwest salmon are now the basis for a majorwest coast food industry, supplying valuable salmon to major fishing-based communities fromSE Alaska to central California, as well as for export. The role that salmon play in the overall
health of Pacific Northwest ecosystems, and the value that brings to society, is also much better
understood and appreciated than in the past.
Economists have also become more sophisticated in how they do public policy cost vs.
benefits analysis when comparing the benefits vs. deficits of dam construction proposals. It isvery important, Economists tell us, to objectively assess all sides of the costs-benefits equation,
including the costs as well as benefits of the baseline status quo, and not just the costs of the18

proposed change absent its benefits or vice versa. Every proposed change, they tell us, has bothplusses and minuses, and all must be considered in any legitimate costs-benefits analysis (seeAppendix A – Economists’ guidance letters on doing costs vs. benefits analysis on salmon
restoration).
6.7. Finding Ways to Replace Benefits of Dams with Lesser Impacts Will Reduce the“Frictional Costs” of Change: During the era of dam-building in the Columbia Basin, many
communities have grown up around the dams, and many stakeholder groups have become
dependent on the benefits they provide. Change, even once the need is clearly recognized, may
be difficult for those communities.
But change does not have to be a zero-sum game, with winners winning only at the expenseof losers. There have been and are many deals with “sweet spots” in which all sides may benefit
at least in proportion to what they must give up. Finding these “win-win” scenarios createsstable agreements and helps greatly to facilitate the desired change. To do this, Economists say,one must consider and carefully analyze – and if possible, reduce -- the “frictional costs” of the
proposed change.
“Frictional costs” are the costs to all parties of getting from where they are now (the statusquo) to the desired future outcome (the vision). The magnitude of “frictional costs” of change
will determine the speed of that change and may also determine its outcome, including whether it
can be achieved at all. Reduce those frictional costs and the proposed change will be easier, i.e.,
will have much less negative impact on stakeholders, and thus garner broader political support.
Fairly compensating stakeholders in some way for any lost benefits they may suffer fromchanges in the dams thus make excellent policy as well as economic sense.
6.8. When Dam Removal Makes the Most Sense: In general, dam removal makes the mostsense (or becomes the dominant option) for one or more of three major reasons:•

When a project no longer provides the benefits it was designed to produce, oralternatively when the value of the environmental benefits of removal become
proportionally greater than the value of keeping the project intact.

•

For safety reasons. As noted above, some 15,600 U.S. dams have now been classed as“high-hazard structures” by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The American Societyof Civil Engineers estimated in 2021 that total dam repair costs across the U.S. amounted
to $115 billion. All dams can eventually become safety hazards if they exceed theirdesigned lifetime.

•For economic reasons. This is especially the case when a project is no longer costeffective in that it will cost more to retrofit and relicense than the value of the benefits it
would then provide.
19

Among the more than 400 dams in the Columbia Basin, there are likely several candidates forremoval, particularly among older dams that have exceeded or soon will exceed their engineered
lifespans, no longer produce the benefits they were designed to provide, and which block
important salmon runs. In many cases, it would simply cost more to retrofit and relicense thosedams than the value of the remaining benefits such a project would provide. In such instances,when the costs of retrofitting and relicensing exceeds the value of the benefits such a dam could
provide, this makes them economically obsolete and thus good candidates for selective removal.
On the other hand, there are many other dams which could continue to produce major social
benefits, but which could be re-engineered or modified to have less impact on salmon runs andother ecosystem values (e.g., through better fish passage). These are candidates for “win-win”
solutions for retention with modifications to facilitate salmon passage or minimize passage
mortalities. The technology for safe fish passage continues to advance.
And in still other cases, building new dams – particularly off-stream water storage dams,
given likely future impacts of climate change – may also make sense. An objective and thoroughanalysis of all the benefits and all the deficits of any proposal should drive these kinds ofdebates.
Each dam has its own unique mix of historical reasons to exist, costs and benefits, plusses andminuses. It is therefore important that we remember that each dam project must be objectively
considered, and any potential future changes discussed, on a case-by-case basis and with an openmind. It is hoped that the analytical process outlined above will aid in that policy process.
Information on the more than 1,403 dams that have been removed from rivers in the UnitedStates over the past century (as of 2017) is now available to the public, compiled by American
Rivers:https://www.americanrivers.org/conservation-resource/american-rivers-dam-removal-databasenow-available-public/#####

PCFFA-IFR Comments on Col River Salmon Values 2022

20

APPENDIX A
Economists’ Guidance Principles for Salmon Restoration
Costs vs. Benefits Analysis
When considering whether or not to go forward with any particular salmon habitat restoration
proposal, one needs to look objectively at both all the social costs as well as all the social benefitsof such an action. This is usually done at the agency decision-maker level through some type of“costs-benefits” analysis.
However, as a number of professional natural resource Economists have noted, while costs areimportant the social benefits of salmon habitat restoration proposals are often given short-shrift or
ignored in most current, standard agency “costs-benefits” analyses. This initial bias greatly distorts
the economic balance sheet and thus unfairly pre-biases public policy decision-making toward one
end of the spectrum.
Economists tell us that we must account for the fact that salmon recovery will generate economic
benefits as well as costs. To understand the net benefit (a net cost if negative) to the economy as awhole, one must consider the effects on the production of all goods and services. The effects on
goods and services that are traded in markets, such as commercial salmon, timber production, andagricultural production, should receive the same consideration as those, such as recreational
fishing, clean streams, and biodiversity (i.e., non-market values) that are not. Economists also tellus that a full accounting must be provided of the true value of each affected good or service, taking
into account the market price, where appropriate, as well as all factors, such as subsidies, taxes,
and environmental externalities, that may distort the level of supply or demand.
Attached for reference are two well-respected Guidance Letters from numerous western-based
professional resource Economists that contain principles of costs-benefits analysis they believe
should apply to future salmon habitat restoration efforts such as those proposed by this Task Force,as well as to all other western U.S. natural resource decisions.
References:•

A Letter from Economists to Governors of Oregon (Kitzhaber), California (Wilson),
Washington (Loche) and Alaska (Knowles) and Premier of British Columbia (Clark).
(Sept. 9, 1998) [77 signatures]•

A Letter from Economists to President Bush and the Governors of Eleven Western States
Regarding the Economic Importance of the West’s Natural Environment. (December 3,2003) [95 signatures]
#####

21

09 September 1998
Governor John A. KitzhaberState Capitol Building
Salem, Oregon 97310

Governor Tony Knowles
Office of the Governor
P.O. Box 110001
Juneau, Alaska 99811

Governor Gary Locke
Office of the Governor
P.O. Box 40002
Olympia, Washington 98504-0002

Governor Pete Wilson
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, California 95814

Premier Glen Clark
Office of the Premier
Room 156, West Annex
Parliament Buildings
Victoria, BC V8V 1X4 Canada
Dear Governors Kitzhaber, Knowles, Locke, and Wilson, and Premier Clark:
Decisions regarding the management of Pacific salmon, many of which are experiencing
deep declines in numbers, can affect a vast landscape along the western edge of North
America and markedly influence the region's future economy. With this letter, we hope tohelp lay the foundation for the public debate over the economic aspects of these decisions.
Most of the discourse on the economic issues of salmon recovery has focused too narrowly,
concentrating almost exclusively on the costs of recovery. Costs are indeed important, butthey tell only part of the economic story. We encourage you and the members of yourAdministrations to adopt a broader perspective and consider the full range of economic
consequences of salmon-management decisions. Toward this end, we recommend that you
examine and weigh all these factors:* Costs, Benefits, and Net Benefits.
Salmon recovery will generate economic benefits as well as costs. To understand the net
benefit (a net cost if negative) to the economy as a whole, one must consider the effects on
the production of all goods and services. The effects on goods and services that are traded inmarkets, such as commercial salmon, timber production, and agricultural production,
should receive the same consideration as those, such as recreational fishing, clean streams,
and biodiversity, that are not. A full accounting must be provided of the true value of eachaffected good or service, taking into account the market price, where appropriate, as well as
all factors, such as subsidies, taxes, and environmental externalities, that distort the levelof supply or demand. Some of the benefits and costs will manifest themselves in theConcerned Economists to Kitzhaber/Knowles/Locke/Wilson/Clark

9 September 98

page 2

immediate vicinity of the resources affected by salmon recovery, while others will manifest
themselves at greater distances.
* Jobs, Incomes, and Transitions.
Salmon recovery will have diverse impacts on labor markets, increasing some demands forlabor and decreasing others. It also may affect the spatial distribution of the supply of laborby influencing the location decisions of some households. To understand the resulting
impacts on jobs and incomes, one must consider the salmon-related changes in demand andsupply against the backdrop of the markets' ability to adjust. One should examine both theoverall change in jobs and incomes as well as the transitions for affected workers, theirfamilies, and their communities.
* Distribution of Economic Consequences.
The positive and negative effects of salmon recovery will not be distributed equally.
Identifying the winners and losers can create opportunities to explore options for breaking
political gridlock–by clarifying mechanisms, for example, for the winners to provide somecompensation to the losers.
* Rights and Responsibilities.
Owners of natural resources affected by salmon-recovery measures have both rights
regarding their use of these resources and responsibilities not to exercise these rights inways that unreasonably restrict the rights of others. This is true of both private- andpublic-property owners. To understand the costs and benefits associated with salmon
recovery, one first must have a clear understanding of the relevant rights andresponsibilities, because society might assign very different values to two recovery actions
that are otherwise identical but one restricts a property owner's rights and the other forces
it to comply with its responsibilities.
* Uncertainty and Sustainability.
Nobody can eliminate the uncertainty regarding how salmon-recovery decisions will affectsalmon populations and the economy, and it is inevitable that some decisions will not yield
the desired outcomes. Reversing undesired outcomes is always costly, however, someoutcomes are less costly to reverse than others. Some, of course, are irreversible. To
understand the full economic consequences of salmon-recovery decisions, one should
consider the potential reversal costs if the decision should yield undesired outcomes.
* Looking Beyond Salmon.
To understand the full consequences of salmon recovery, one must look beyond those tied tothe salmon, themselves, and examine those linked to the productivity and use of thesurrounding ecosystem. Changes in ecosystem productivity may occur through therestoration of the ecological functions of salmon-bearing streams and the surrounding
watersheds that will accompany salmon recovery. Changes in the use of the resources of thelarger ecosystem may have both positive and negative effects on the economy.

Concerned Economists to Kitzhaber/Knowles/Locke/Wilson/Clark

9 September 98

page 3

We hope you will consider the factors outlined here, and use this outline to improve thepublic's understanding of the full economic consequences of salmon recovery.
Sincerely,

W. Ed Whitelaw
University of Oregon/ECONorthwest

Ernest Niemi
ECONorthwest

And the following co-signing economists:
Russ Beaton, Willamette University
Peter Berck, University of California Berkeley
Bruce Blonigen, University of OregonPeter Bohmer, Evergreen College
Richard Brinkman, Portland State University
Gardner Brown, University of Washington
Walt Butcher, Washington State University
Kevin Calandri, California State University Sacramento
Arthur Caplan, Weber State University
Ken Casavant, Washington State University
Laura Connolly, Oregon State University
Jeffrey Connor, Oregon State University
Robert Curry, California State University Sacramento
Elizabeth E. Davis, Oregon State University
Robert Deacon, University of California Santa Barbara
David Donaldson, University of British Columbia
Bryan Ellickson, University of California Los Angeles
Mark Evans, California State University Bakersfield
Anthony Fisher, University of California Berkeley
David E. Gallo, California State University Chico
Alan Gin, University of San Diego
Eban Goodstein, Lewis & Clark College
Lawrence Goulder, Stanford University
Theodore Groves, University of California San Diego
A.R. Gutowsky, California State University Sacramento
Steve Hackett, Humboldt State University
Brent Haddad, University of California Santa Cruz
Dan Hagen, Western Washington University
Darwin C. Hall, California State University Long Beach
Jane Hall, California State University Fullerton
Robert Halvorsen, University of Washington
Bill Harbaugh, University of Oregon
Martin Hart-Landsberg, Lewis & Clark College
Stephen E. Haynes, University of Oregon
John F. Henry, California State University Sacramento
Steve Henson, Western Washington University

Concerned Economists to Kitzhaber/Knowles/Locke/Wilson/Clark

9 September 98

page 4

Richard B. Howarth, Dartmouth
Lovell S. Jarvis, University of California Davis
Desmond Jolly, University of California Davis
Mary King, Portland State University
Van Kolpin, University of Oregon
B. Y. Lee, University of Oregon
Cathleen Leue, University of OregonPeter Lund, California State University Sacramento
Bruce Mann, University of Puget Sound
Carlos Martins-Filho, Oregon State University
Ray Mikesell, University of Oregon
Andrew Narwold, University of San Diego
Noelwah Netusil, Reed College
Roger Noll, Stanford University
Dale O’Bannon, Lewis & Clark College
Arthur O’Sullivan, Oregon State University
Steve Polasky, Oregon State University
Thomas Potiowsky, Portland State University
Tom Power, University of Montana
R. Bruce Rettig, Oregon State University
Alan Richards, University of California Santa Cruz
Robert J. Rooney, California State University Long Beach
Tony Rufolo, Portland State University
Linda Shaffer, California State University Fresno
Barry N. Siegel, University of Oregon
Emilson Silva, University of Oregon
Ross Singleton, University of Puget Sound
Chuck Skoro, Boise State University
David Starrett, Stanford University
Kate Stirling, University of Puget Sound
Joe Story, Pacific University
Rod Swanson, University of California Riverside
Paul Thorsnes, Grand Valley State University, Michigan
Victor Tremblay, Oregon State University
Charles Vars, Oregon State University
John F. Walker, Portland State University
Norm Whittlesey, Washington State University
Yung Yang, California State University
Ross Youmans, Oregon State University
Zenon X. Zygmont, Western Oregon University
Note: Affiliations are for informational purposes and do not imply consent by organizations.
cc:David Anderson, Minister, Fisheries and Oceans, Canada
Will Stelle, National Marine Fisheries Service

December 3, 2003

A Letter from Economists to President Bush and the Governors of ElevenWestern States Regarding the Economic Importance of the West’s Natural
Environment.

To:
President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
The Honorable Dave Freudenthal, Governor of Wyoming
State Capitol Building
Cheyenne, WY 82002-0010
The Honorable Kenny Guinn, Governor of Nevada
State Capitol
101 North Carson Street
Carson City, NV 89701
The Honorable Dirk Kempthorne, Governor of Idaho
700 West Jefferson, 2nd Floor
P.O. Box 83720
Boise, Idaho 83720-0034
The Honorable Ted Kulongoski, Governor of Oregon
160 State Capitol
900 Court Street
Salem, Oregon 97301-4047
The Honorable Gary Locke, Governor of Washington
PO Box 40002
Olympia, WA 98504-0002
The Honorable Judy Martz, Governor of Montana
P.O. Box 0801
204 State Capitol
Helena, MT 59620-0801
The Honorable Janet Napolitano, Governor of Arizona
1700 West Washington
Phoenix, AZ 85007
The Honorable Bill Owens, Governor of Colorado
136 State Capitol
Denver, CO 80203-1792
The Honorable Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico
Office of the Governor
Room 400, State Capitol Building
Santa Fe, NM 87501
The Honorable Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
The Honorable Olene Walker, Governor of Utah
210 State Capitol
Salt Lake City, UT 84114

Dear Mr. President;
Dear Governor Freudenthal;
Dear Governor Guinn;
Dear Governor Kempthorne;
Dear Governor Kulongoski;
Dear Governor Locke;
Dear Governor Martz;
Dear Governor Napolitano;
Dear Governor Owens;
Dear Governor Richardson;
Dear Governor Schwarzenegger;
Dear Governor Walker:

We are economists, and we are writing to express our concern about federal and state
actions that harm the West’s natural environment and, as a result, the economic outlook forthis region’s workers, families, firms, and communities.
The West’s natural environment is, arguably, its greatest, long-run economic strength. The
natural landscapes of the western states, with wide open spaces, outdoor recreational
opportunities, and productive natural-resource systems underlie a quality of life that
contributes to robust economic growth by attracting productive families, firms, andinvestments. The West’s natural environment, however, faces serious challenges thatthreaten to undermine its contribution to the economy. These include air and waterpollution, urban sprawl, the extension of roads and other development into roadless public
lands, and fragmentation of habitat for native fish and wildlife.
The economic importance of the West’s natural environment is widely recognized. Last
year, for example, the Western Governors’ Association, recognizing that “There is a lot atstake,” reaffirmed its adoption of the Enlibra Principles for guiding policy and decisionmaking regarding natural resources and the environment.1
The seventh of these principles is, “Recognition of Benefits and Costs – Make Sure All
Decisions Affecting Infrastructure, Development and Environment are Fully Informed.”2
We endorse this principle, and we commend each of you for your commitments to apply it to
the actions of your administration. Despite your commitments, however, many state andfederal actions are causing additional environmental degradation, increasing the risks offuture degradation, or slowing efforts to reverse past degradation. These actions harm theeconomy—across the West and in each of the states. They diminish the economic well-beingof many residents, divert natural resources from their highest and best use, reduce the1 Western Governors’ Association, “Principles for Environmental Management in the West.”
http://www.westgov.org./wga/policy/02/enlibra_07.pdf. p. 2.
2 Ibid. p. 6.

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environmental amenities that are essential ingredients of the West’s quality of life, andpass to future generations the costs of cleaning up this generation’s environmental messes.
We ask each of you to renew and strengthen your efforts to secure for the West both ahealthy environment and a prosperous economy. Toward this end, we ask you to initiate areview of your administration’s actions affecting the environment and the economy. This
review should:•

Identify actions having a significant impact on the environment and fully describe thebenefits and costs of each.

•

Reinforce those actions that strengthen the economy by protecting or restoring
environmental quality.

•

Arrest those actions that damage the economy by degrading the environment.

In the remainder of this letter we describe the linkage between environmental quality andeconomic prosperity, identify some of the environmental policies and activities harmful towestern economies, and express eight principles for capitalizing on the environmenteconomy linkage.

Environmental Quality Is a Major Source of the West’s Long-Run, Economic
Strength
In the distant past, the West’s natural resources were widely abundant and important to
the economy primarily when they were converted into something else. We converted forests,
mineral deposits, and streams into lumber, metals, and hydroelectricity; valleys, wetlands,
and hillsides into agricultural and urban landscapes; and land, water and air into waste
repositories.
Today, conditions have changed.
Some important elements of the environment are scarcer. The population anddistribution of many native species have diminished markedly. Similarly, the suppliesof roadless lands, free-flowing rivers, and unexploited marine areas have diminishedand, although there have been some notable improvements recently, much of the West’s
air and water remains degraded.
The structure of the western economy has changed. Though still important,extractive industries (logging, mining, and commercial fishing) and agriculture now
play a smaller economic role because their ability to generate new jobs and higher
incomes has declined. Across most of the West, a community’s ability to retain andattract workers and firms now drives its prosperity. But if a community’s naturalenvironment is degraded, it has greater difficulty retaining and attracting workers andfirms.
The economic costs of environmental degradation are rising. As the West’s
population increases, so too do the damages (current and future) from exposure tohazardous pollution and the degradation of environmental amenities. As their habitats2

shrink, many native species face an increased risk of extinction. Reversing this trend
becomes more expensive over time. As ecosystems are degraded, they provide fewer
economically valuable services, such as cleansing the water in streams, andcommunities therefore must provide replacement services with water-treatment plants
and other costly investments.
The economic benefits of protecting and restoring environmental quality arelarge and increasing. As the West’s population increases, the West enjoys greater
economic benefits by avoiding exposure to hazardous pollution, maintaining scenic
natural vistas, extending the availability of recreational opportunities in clean
environments and on public lands, and sustaining the existence of undeveloped lands
and healthy ecosystems.
Misleading price signals slow economic growth. Inefficient pricing of many natural
resources encourages waste and diminishes economic productivity by allocating
resources to low-value uses, while higher-value uses languish. Subsidies to irrigation,
logging, public-land ranching, and mining prop up activities that would not take place
under efficient, market conditions. Underpricing of urban roads, municipal-industrial
water, and pollution emissions sends false signals regarding the true cost of urban
sprawl, and the true value of free-flowing streams, and clean air and water.
Climate change poses significant economic risks. Global warming threatens to alter
winter snow fall in the West’s mountains, increasing the risk that runoff in important
rivers will fall short of summer demands for water; raise sea levels, increase the risk ofcoastal flooding, change the distribution of habitats, and increase the risk of extinction
for some threatened and endangered species.
As these and related changes evolve, the economic health of western communities
increasingly will depend on the health of the environment. Long-run prosperity will derivefrom efficient, effective efforts to conserve increasingly scarce environmental resources,
protect high-quality natural environments, reverse past environmental degradation, andmanage congestion in both urban areas and on public lands with high recreational use.
Resource-management policies and economic-development activities that significantly
compromise the environment will likely do more economic harm than good.

Many Current Policies and Activities Degrade or Threaten the West’s
Environment and Jeopardize the West’s Prosperity
Numerous governmental policies and activities affecting the West’s natural resources,
which purportedly help the West’s economies, are doing just the opposite. Here are a few
examples:Inadequate investment in parks. The federal government has failed to maintain theinfrastructure and environmental quality of national parks. State and local governments
have done the same with their own parks. These failures have weakened the West’s
economies by reducing the attractiveness of nearby communities to workers and firms andby eroding the foundation for the outdoor recreation and tourism industries.

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Reduced protection for roadless public lands. By opening roadless lands to vehiculartraffic, mining, logging, grazing, and other development, usually at a net cost to the US
taxpayer, the federal government has expanded the supply of that which is alreadyplentiful and common at the expense of that which is increasingly scarce and unique. Suchactions fail to account for the benefits non-motorized visitors receive from these lands andfor the loss of the considerable economic benefits—recreation, high-quality water, wildlife
habitat, spiritual values, and more—that public lands provide when they are undeveloped.
The loss of these benefits undermines one of the cornerstones of economic strength forcommunities throughout the West.
Slow action to conserve threatened and endangered species. Congress has failed toprovide adequate funding, and federal agencies have dragged their feet when called upon toconserve threatened and endangered species. These actions jeopardize the economic outlook
for western communities by increasing the risks to species with high economic value,
protecting inefficient and often subsidized activities harmful to both the species and theeconomy, and raising the ultimate costs of conserving the species.
Slow clean-up of polluted sites. Federal agencies have not requested and Congress has
not provided adequate funding to clean-up Superfund sites promptly. Some state and local
governments have slowed the clean-up process. Delayed clean-up of these sites harms the
economy by extending westerners’ exposure to hazardous materials, diminishing the valueof nearby properties, impeding economic-development activities near polluted sites, andgiving polluters additional incentives to pollute in the future.
Ineffective response to risks of global warming. Current research results are
sufficiently robust to conclude that global warming poses significant economic risks to theWest, including increases in coastal flooding, more frequent severe storms, and reductions
in snowpack resulting in lower summer flows of important rivers and streams. These risks
are perpetuated and strengthened by the failure of Congress and the White House to takedecisive action to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and other global greenhouse gases.
Inefficient management of public forests. Federal and state forest managers
emphasize the production of logs, forage, minerals, and other commodities without fully
accounting for adverse impacts on services, such as recreation, provision of clean water instreams, sequestration of carbon, and the existence of roadless lands. These actions reduce
the overall value of goods and services derived from public forests.
Lack of appropriate incentives for resource conservation. With subsidies andinefficient pricing, federal, state, and local policies encourage waste and discourageconservation by hiding from consumers the full costs of resource-intensive activities, suchas exploration for oil and gas, irrigation, public-land grazing, and congestion on urban
roadways and at public-land recreation sites.
Unreasonable exemptions from environmental review. Federal resource managers
have granted exemptions for military operations, logging, exploration for oil and gas,
operation of motor vehicles on roadless public lands, the use of some pesticides, theemission of air pollution, and other activities. Also, de facto exemptions occur when federal
and state agencies fail to enforce environmental laws. The economy is harmed when
activities are allowed to proceed even though their economic costs outweigh their benefits.

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Unnecessarily divisive approaches to economic/environmental issues. The
costs—to individual workers, families, firms, communities, and the economy as a whole—of
the changing relationship between the economy and the environment are worsened byfederal, state, and local actions that promote misunderstanding and divisiveness rather
than cooperative problem-solving. Especially divisive and costly are proposals and decisions
that presume the economic benefits of an increase in an extractive, agricultural, or
development activity necessarily exceed the costs, even when the evidence indicatesotherwise. Recent examples include proposals or decisions to:•

Encourage road development, vehicular traffic, and other development on lands withroadless or wilderness qualities, including national parks, national forests, andlands administered by the Bureau of Land Management.

•

Promote energy consumption rather than conservation.

•

Relax restrictions on emissions of water and air pollution.

•

Forgo U.S. leadership of efforts to shape a prompt, efficient and global response to
climate-change risks.

•

Relax restrictions on the use of or exposure to potentially harmful substances.

We Encourage You to Adopt Initiatives that Promote Both a Healthy Environment
and a Healthy Economy
We ask each of you to initiate a review of the economic effects of actions taken by youradministration that have a significant impact on the environment. The primary objective of
this review should be to identify and correct those actions that are harming the economy bydegrading the environment. It also should highlight the merits of those actions beneficial toboth the environment and the economy. We urge you to act promptly.
We also urge you to implement appropriate policies and procedures to increase thelikelihood that future governmental actions will capitalize on and reinforce the evolving
relationship between the West’s environment and its economy. These initiatives shouldincorporate these eight principles:
Principle #1: Environmental protection has economic benefits as well as economic costs. It
has positive as well as negative impacts on jobs and incomes.
Principle #2: Some economic interests in natural resources are mostly local but,increasingly, the interests are broader in geographic scope: regional, national,
and even global.
Principle #3: To discourage waste, prices for the use of environmental resources shouldreflect the full costs and benefits to the economy, exclusive of subsidies.
Principle #4: Given their stewardship responsibilities regarding the environment, it isappropriate for governments to encourage or undertake activities that protect
the environment and to discourage or prohibit those that do not. It is also
appropriate for government to own and use land and water resources to5

protect the environment and to support others who desire to own and use
resources for the same purpose.
Principle #5: Governments should continually seek to improve the efficiency of theirenvironmental- and resource-management programs without compromising
their responsibilities. These programs may include a mixture of regulations,
incentives, and public ownership of resources. They should aim to bring about
as high a level of environmental quality as possible for a given expenditure.
Principle #6: To understand the full, potential economic consequences of a pending
resource-management decision, one should consider the potential reversal
costs if the decision should yield undesirable outcomes.
Principle #7: The benefits and costs of environmental protection and degradation fall
unevenly on different groups. Anticipating and mitigating these effects can
reduce the controversies over the West’s environment and economy. Having
the winners compensate the losers, for example, could serve this principle.
Principle #8: Owners of natural resources have both rights and responsibilities. Bothprivate- and public-property owners have rights to use their properties inways that do not unreasonably harm others or restrict their rights. Clarifying
and respecting the rights of all parties—including future
generations—affected by the uses of environmental resources remains anecessary condition for effective environmental management.

Conclusion
We are not saying that resource-intensive industries (agriculture, timber, commercial
fishing, and mining) do not play an important role in the West’s economies. They areimportant today, and we expect they will remain important in the future.
We are not saying that the shift away from industries and activities harmful to theenvironment will not hurt some workers, families, and communities. It has in the past andit will in the future.
We are not saying that protecting and improving the environment can be accomplishedwithout costs, nor are we saying that governmental entities should disregard such costs. To
the contrary, we are calling for consideration of the full range of costs and benefits ofpolicies, decisions, and activities that affect the western environment and, hence, its
economy.
We are not saying that no progress is being made in capitalizing on the link between
environmental health and economic prosperity. Many private-sector firms and publicagencies have taken actions to reduce their negative impact on the environment and foundthat they saved money.

6

Rather, we are saying that nearly all communities in the West will find they cannot havea healthy economy without a healthy environment. Moreover, there exist many
opportunities in the West to improve both the environment and the economy, for example,
the elimination of inefficient subsidies would make more money available for other public
services or to reduce debt. The longer these opportunities languish, the fewer will be theWest’s jobs, the lower its incomes, and the poorer its communities. Conversely, the sooner
we seize these opportunities, the sooner the West will enjoy more jobs, higher incomes, andgreater prosperity.
We are saying that the economic pressures to arrest and reverse environmental
degradation will increase. Those who promise that workers, firms, and communities tied toenvironmentally harmful activities can avoid these pressures if only the environmental
laws, such as the Endangered Species Act, were set aside raise false hopes. The pressures
are independent of specific laws. Even if such laws are repealed, the costs ofenvironmentally harmful activities will continue to rise and jeopardize the economic
outlook for affected communities. Public officials can best promote long-run economic
prosperity in the West by encouraging efficient transitions away from harmful activities
toward those beneficial to both the environment and the economy.
We are requesting that you recognize the important role the environment plays inwestern economies and take the steps we’ve identified to strengthen these economies byprotecting and enhancing the quality of the region’s natural environment.
Sincerely and respectfully,
The following individuals have endorsed the contents of this letter. Institutional references
are provided for identification only.

State
ArizonaName, institutional affiliation
Bonnie G. Colby, The University of Arizona
Dennis Cory, University of Arizona
Ron Trosper, Northern Arizona University

California

Dennis J. Aigner, University of California, Santa Barbara
Kenneth J. Arrow, Stanford University
Ted Bergstrom, University of California, Santa Barbara
Christopher Costello, University of California, Santa Barbara
Robert Deacon, University of California, Santa Barbara
Stephen J. DeCanio, University of California, Santa Barbara
Anthony Fisher, University of California, Berkeley
Lawrence Goulder, Stanford University
Steve Hackett, Humboldt State University
Michael Hanemann, University of California, Berkeley

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Amy Horne, Sierra Business Council
Daniel Ihara, Center for Environmental Economic Development
Charles Kolstad, University of California, Santa Barbara
Stephan Kroll, California State University, SacramentoPeter Kuhn, University of California, Santa Barbara
Carol McAusland, University of California, Santa Barbara
John M. Marshall, University of California, Santa Barbara
Wade E. Martin, California State University, Long Beach
Roger Noll, Stanford University
Richard B. Norgaard, University of California, Berkeley
Kenneth Small, University of California at Irvine
David Starrett, Stanford University

Colorado

Lee J. Alston, University of Colorado
Janis M. Carey, Colorado School of Mines
Katherine Carson, Affiliation: United States Air Force Academy
Brad Crowder, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Graham A. Davis, Colorado School of Mines
Nicholas Flores, University of Colorado
Philip E. Graves, University of Colorado
Marie Leigh Livingston, University of Northern Colorado
John Loomis, Colorado State University
Pete Morton, The Wilderness Society
Jennie Spelman Rice, Consulting Economist
Linda Stanley, Colorado State University

Idaho

Joel Hamilton, University of Idaho
Peter M. Lichtenstein, Boise State University
Christine Loucks, Boise State University
Gundars Rudzitis, University of Idaho
Tesa Stegner, Idaho State University
Robert Tokle, Idaho State University

Montana

Richard Barrett, University of Montana
Douglas Dalenberg, University of Montana
Tom Power, University of Montana
Ray Rasker, Sonoran Institute and Montana State University

8

NevadaMary Riddel, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Kimberley Rollins, University of Nevada, Reno
Douglass Shaw, University of Nevada, Reno

New Mexico

Robert Berrens, University of New Mexico
Alok K. Bohara, University of New Mexico
Chris Nunn Garcia, New Mexico Highlands University
Kristine M. Grimsrud, University of New Mexico
Tom McGuckin, New Mexico State University

OregonRandall Bluffstone, Portland State University
Trudy Ann Cameron, University of Oregon
Tom Carroll, Central Oregon Community College
Kimberly A. Clausing, Reed College
Ronald B. Davies, University of Oregon
David Ervin, Portland State University
Eban Goodstein, Lewis & Clark University
Joe Kerkvliet, Oregon State University
K. John McConnell, Oregon Health & Science University
Don Negri, Willamette University
Noelwah Netusil, Reed College
Ernie Niemi, ECONorthwest
Arthur O'Sullivan, Lewis & Clark College
Andrew J. Plantinga, Oregon State University
Carl M. Stevens, Reed College
Ed Whitelaw, University of Oregon

Utah

Arthur Caplan, Utah State University
Therese Grijalva, Weber State University
Robert J. Lilieholm, Utah State University

Washington

Gardner Brown, University of Washington
Ken Casavant, Washington State University
Dan Hagen, Western Washington University
Steve Henson, Western Washington University
Hart Hodges, Western Washington University
Ray Huffaker, Washington State University

9

Karin Sable, University of Puget Sound
Kate Stirling, University of Puget Sound
Norm Whittlesey, Washington State University

Wyoming

David Aadland, University of Wyoming
Ed Barbier, University of Wyoming
Tom Crocker, University of Wyoming
Robert W. Godby, University of Wyoming
Jason Shogren, University of Wyoming
John Tschirhart, University of Wyoming

Other states

Daniel Bromley, University of Wisconsin
Dallas Burtraw, Resources for the Future
Ujjayant Chakravorty, Emory University
Paul N. Courant, University of Michigan
Ronald Cummings, Georgia State University (Univ. New Mexico, emeritus)
Robert Haveman, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Thomas S. Jayne, Michigan State University
Matthew Martin, Economy.com
Kenneth E. (Ted) McConnell, University of Maryland
Michael R. Moore, University of Michigan
Rodney B.W. Smith, University of Minnesota
Robert Solow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
John Sorrentino, Temple University Ambler
Ivar Strand, University of Maryland
Dave Tschirley, Michigan State University

For information about this paper, please send inquiries to:
Ed Whitelawth
c/o 99 W. 10 Avenue, #400
Eugene, Oregon 97401
phone: 541-687-0051
email: whitelaw@eugene.econw.com

Please cite this paper to Ed Whitelaw, editor.

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