But it was good for me. The fight over timber was about competing notions of value. Once, forests were perceived as valuable only when their timber could be cut and stacked. The same thing is happening with endangered fish and rivers, according to advocates of breaching. The corps is wrapping up a two-year study of the feasibility of breaching, and it will weigh the competing values as part of its work.
Some values are easy to determine.
But that method met political resistance and was scrapped. So corps economists and their consultants are making an estimate based on previous studies in the region. The corps plans to release a full report on the economic effects of breaching in October. Impacts on regional employment and the national economy are still to be determined. But some findings have been published and already are under attack by opponents of breaching.