Report: Benefits of dams must be replaced before breaching

By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS
Associated Press

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — The benefits provided by four giant hydroelectric dams on the Snake River must be replaced before the dams can be breached to save endangered salmon runs. That’s according to a report issued Thursday by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Washington U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, both Democrats. The report said that is especially true regarding the reliable and carbon-free electricity the dams generate. The issue is not a matter of electricity versus salmon, which Inslee and Murray called an oversimplified binary choice they do not accept as inevitable. But they say the science is clear that breach of the four dams would provide the greatest benefit to the salmon.