The movement to legally enshrine the rights of species and ecosystems has been gaining steam worldwide
This article by Helen Hill was published in Street Roots News on March 6th, 2020.
In a letter to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee dated Feb. 11, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown offered her full support for removal of the four hydroelectric dams on the lower Snake River, the main tributary of the vast Columbia River. The dams generate electricity, provide some irrigation and flood control, and allow commercial barges to travel up and down a stretch of flat river for 140 miles between Pasco, Wash., and Lewiston, Idaho.
But the dams are also responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of ocean migrating salmon and steelhead, which has resulted in the slow starvation of the resident orca whale population, which depends on the salmon for survival. The surviving resident whale population was estimated in 2019 at around 75, down from 98 in 1995.
“The science is clear that removing the earthen portions of the four lower Snake River dams is the most certain and robust solution to Snake River salmon and steelhead recovery,” Brown wrote. “The imperilment of Southern Resident Killer Whales is a tragedy shared by all of us in the Pacific Northwest,” she added.
Brown was immediately slammed by Washington state’s Republican U.S. Reps. Dan Newhouse, Cathy Rodgers and Jaime Beutler who said in a joint statement, ”Governor Brown’s position is not only misguided, it is shocking and extreme.”
(To read the rest of this article at its original source please click HERE.)