Ag and Rural Caucus for July
Policy Briefing
6:30 pm Thursday 17 July
Lynda Mapes, Seattle Times: Environment, Natural History, Native American Tribes
Columbia at a Crossroads: a look at the great river of the west
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85907982157?pwd=MU4vV3E3VGZ5VU02dnhvZjg2b3hK.Zz09
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I apologize. I have not introduced Lynda Mapes. You can, of course, google her but that seems a little mechanical.
I have noted that Lynda specializes in coverage of the environment, natural history and Native American tribes. She writes for the Seattle Times but publishes elsewhere too.
Lynda made herself unpopular with eastern Washington several years ago when she wrote about Tahlequah, the dead Orca calf that her mother carried around Salish Sea for a thousand miles. Lynda put a compelling face on the Orcas in Puget Sound and linked their survival to the restoration of salmon runs. This meant salmon habit restoration and culvert removal in western Washington but what we in eastern Washington heard was how the Lower Snake River dams were responsible for Tahlequah and the survival of the empathetic Orcas…actually, maybe you should google Lynda.
Don
14 July 2025
Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement…what was it? Note the past tense “was” but more below.
“Ex ante mitigation” has long been Ag and Rural Caucus’s position on the Lower Snake River dams. Our position has been that whether you support breaching the dams or oppose breaching, our region needs a Plan B. There are political risks and the litigation risks to the operation of the dams. Congress can turn on a dime, courts can require change. These risks mean that we need to map the current functions of the dams (“services”) and advocate now for the investments needed to replace these functions. The mapping is not hard: energy, barging, and irrigation. Maybe throw recreation into the mix. The “ex ante” part means that the solutions need to be funded and in place before dirt moves.
Ex ante mitigation got a voice in the summer of 2022 when Senator Murray and Governor Inslee wrote “we are adamant that in any circumstance where the Lower Snake River Dams would be breached, the replacement and mitigation of their benefits must be pursued before decommissioning and breaching.”
The Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement followed in the fall of 2023 and was published in December, 2023. The Agreement was between the Federal Government and tribal sovereigns plus the states of Oregon and Washington. “Tribal sovereigns” is important here. The agreement put on hold tribal litigation to enforce the 1855 Stevens treaties that guaranteed the tribes rights to fish at all accustomed and usual places: “exclusive right of taking fish in the streams running through and bordering said reservation is hereby secured to said Indians, and at all other usual and accustomed stations in common with citizens of the United States…”
Eastern Washington irrigators and wheat growers complain that they were not included in the negotiations among the sovereigns. They were not parties to the litigation and had not been injured. The tribes were both.
The Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement was a first step in funding ex ante mitigation. Mr. Trump has reversed that first step: “The negative impacts from these reckless acts, if completed, would be devastating for the region, and there would be no viable approach to replace the low-cost, baseload energy supplied; the critical shipping channels lost; the vital water supply for local farmers reduced; or the recreational opportunities that would no longer be possible as a result of these acts.”
His preface, though, tells the back story: “It is essential to protect Americans’ ability to take full advantage of our vast natural resources to ensure human flourishing across our country. “
Lynda Mapes, is this the hint of culture that we have been looking for? Natural resources are for human use…“take full advantage”? Maybe so, but it does leave unanswered whether there are people who are more human than others.
Don
12 July 2025
Our neighbors from Spokane to Pasco to Quincy are passionate about the Snake River Dams. Almost all are passionate that the dams stay in place as they have for nearly seventy years.
I share this passion about Grand Coulee and the Columbia Basin Project. Even when Grand Coulee (and Chief Joseph) closes off salmon migration, I have seen the enormous change the Project has brought to central Washington. I remember Dad driving us across the Basin and seeing the dusty parcels of alfalfa next to the mobile home with a couple of hand lines trying to make a difference in the sand. These memories now live only in my mind and on the pages of Basin histories. My memories of scarcity are replaced by shiny Grant County tourism brochures boasting of prosperity.
So, what about the Lower Snake River dams? Who has comparable memories of economic transformation coming from these dams? Not many, I suspect. Yet eastern Washington has the same sense of investment in these dams as I have in Grand Coulee. The LSR dams do provide a modest amount of electrical power to BPA, a little irrigation in Franklin county, and enough subsidized barge traffic to qualify Lewiston as a seaport.
The economic benefits of the LSR dams can be replaced by solar panels, some investment to keep water flowing to Ice Harbor orchards, and restoration of the rail network in southern Whitman County.
This is where our neighbors’ personal investment in the LSR dams is out of proportion to their economic exposure. This is the province of passion. Using “culture” to stand in for passion may make the puzzle more tractable.
I confess that I lack the tools to deconstruct culture. This is where we need Lynda Mapes and her perspective to help us understand ourselves and our neighbors. Lynda has the tools to understand culture. Even so, this is a lot to ask of her. That is why your voice counts. Join the conversation.
Don
9 July 2025
Lynda Mapes is going to give us a tour of the Columbia/Snake River. She sees the Columbia River at a crossroads. To be at a crossroad, of course, means that you select a path forward. This notion of choice may mean that you allow the past simply to push you forward in one direction, or it may mean that you imagine a quite different path. Either way, it helps to know the path we have taken to arrive at this crossroads.
Lynda will give us a read on how we Europeans have influenced the metaphoric – and actual - flow of the Columbia over the last two hundred years or so. Some of this will be familiar and even reassuring. Other aspects may not be so comfortable.
This part is the path to the present. The path forward…what are our choices?
Don
7 July 2025
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