Some Montana electric ratepayers must help finance the recovery effort, as the costs are added to BPA's rate base. In recent years, Montana's Lake Koocanusa and Hungry Horse Reservoir have been forced to flush water downstream in the spring and summer to help salmon fry migrate through the lower Columbia River system. The late August releases dewater the reservoirs and leave biologically rich shorelines high and dry, Bosse said. We think there is a larger demonstrated benefit overall for salmon and steelhead from dam removal than from sending these little blasts of water downstream. Of course, dam breaching has not been well received in Lewiston, which became an inland port because of the lower Snake River dams.
Barges carry grain and wood products from Lewiston to Portland on the Snake's slackwater.
If the dams are breached, the port will move to Pasco. Farling, though, suggests that federal dollars could help Lewiston recover from its lost port. But nothing, he said, will bring back salmon and steelhead runs that go extinct. We can rebuild economies. We can even rebuild dams.