Sustainable Idaho is a collaboration between the Portneuf Resource Council and the ISU Sustainability Club.
Today's episode is the first episode in a two part series about the Nez Perce Tribe's project to replace the generating capacity of the Lower Snake River Dams with solar power. The four Lower Snake River Dams are located in Washington and the Nez Perce Tribe is located in Idaho.
In my interview with the Executive Director of the Nez Perce Tribe, Shannon Wheeler, and the Interim Executive Director, Jesse Layton, we discuss how the dams are affecting the salmon, the Nez Perce tribe, and the ecosystems impacted by the dams. We then introduce the Nez Perce's project to replace the generating capacity of the lower Snake River dams with solar power called Project 5311 and how it will benefit the surrounding ecosystems.
How are the four hydropower dams on the Snake River affecting salmon?
The salmon runs have been going downhill since the inception of the Columbia River System of Operations. That includes the four lower Snake River dams and several of these salmon runs. And certain tributaries are at this quasi extinction threshold where they're below 50 or fewer native spawners for four consecutive years in those tributaries.
So they're facing extinction. All the work that's been done in salmon recovery, habitat restoration, all the different things that can be done on the ground have been done, and even barging and shipping fish by barge at high spill, and the salmon runs still haven't recovered in a way that they should be recovering with these efforts.
And so the science points towards the four lower snake river dams as a main cause of the ability for these salmon to recover.
It is really unfortunate to see how the dams are impacting the salmon in such a negative way, and even driving them towards extinction.
How are the dams affecting the Nez Perce tribe?
From a Nez Perce perspective, you know, we have to look at historically who we are, and historically what was our role and obligation to salmon, and salmon to us, and to the land in general. So when we think about The relationship, we think about the obligation that we have because Salmon was the first to give himself to us in our creation stories.
And so these creation stories are 16, 500 years plus old. And you know, they've been traditions that have been carried on. And a lot of these things has been the obligation that we have to Salmon, that Salmon once Salmon was to give himself to us. Salmon would lose his voice and we'd have to become the voice for the salmon.
And so this obligation is really, uh, something that has carried on for thousands of years, but to the point now to where, you know, our, our voice is actually not for prayer for them to return, but prayer for them and efforts for them for survival. And so the connection that we have is spiritual, cultural.
sustenance, uh, even economic connections to the salmon, but more so we think about the landscape itself because they're a part of the landscape or part of the landscape. We don't see ourselves any different from that in the nutrients that they provide for us. They also provide for the land itself.
With the salmon playing such a huge role in many different aspects of the Nez Perce culture, it is unfortunate that their numbers are decreasing and hopefully we can increase their population.
How do salmon impact ecosystems as a whole?
Well, we know that those nutrients go across From ridgetop to ridgetop. And so we know that these nutrients travel from here to the ocean and then gather more nutrients and come back. And then they're distributed across the landscape in that manner. And this great change to the earth that happened and has created the Columbia basin or what we call the great salmon basin has developed and evolved into.
That's interesting to think about how they're so interconnected to the ecosystem and benefit it in such a large way.
How will the removal of the hydro dams impact the landscape and wildlife of the surrounding area?
I think there's great opportunity for what was and what will be in this transformation of breaching of the four lower Snake River dams and allowing a system to run freely that is resilient, and we continue to hold it back, but we see the Elwha River, we see the climate, those rivers that have been restored, and how their banks are coming back, and fish are returning and spawning into these waters, and the waters are cooler now, and you know, in the face of climate change, things are only getting more difficult for water systems that have changed.
With hydro systems on them, creating these lakes versus free flowing water. And so the temperatures of water and algae and different things that accumulate sediment that are accumulating behind these dams and associated to the heat, you know, methyl mercury mercury that's in a water that metalizes and then gets in the tissue of a resident species.
And I think there's just a lot of different things that are adding up. And so understanding that moving water is something that. ecosystem. And if we look from an ecosystem based f need to understand that t depends on free flowing w in this day and age, the water will be as cool as
like the removal of the d improve the ecosystem and In the face of climate change.
Would you tell us more about project five three 11 and what impact it is going to have on the four hydro dams on the snake river?
Project 5311 kind of, uh, stemmed just from our battle with trying to generate excitement or interest in outside entities for removal of the dams. Cause it's something we've been battling for.
Decades, because we know what it's doing to our salmon run, but I want to say it was 2016, a BPA who operates the dams put out a report that said in order to offset the energy that was created by those four lower state dams was 5, 311 megawatts of solar power, and we were already working on solar projects, and we felt like.
In continuing our fight against the dams, we just felt like we needed to be a part of that solution rather than just asking for removal of these dams for our salmon run. So we decided to implement our own mission to create 5, 311 megawatts of power ourselves. So that's what we named Project 5311. And since then, we've Coming up with the overall concept of creating that amount of energy.
We've scaled it down to steps in order to get there. Step number one for us is energize our own reservation. So it'd become energy independent on our reservation. Cause we consume a lot of energy ourselves. And in order for us to get to 5311, we know it's a huge task, something that we probably can't accomplish just ourselves.
We wanted to take the necessary steps in order to get there, so that we have the support of it. So that we sort of had, our own skin in the game when it comes to generating our electricity. So that's how 5311 started. And every day, it seems like we're looking at other types of energy production to add to that.
So it's not just solar, it'll be an array of several different things.
As well as solar panels, the Nespers tribe is also looking at small module reactors, pump storage systems, battery storage, and many other kinds of ways to generate energy.
When we look at the Lower Snake River dams and what their nameplate capacity is, so their power generators that are a little over 3, 000 megawatts of potential generation, but they can never achieve that because they don't have enough water for one, and they can't run all those generators at the same time.
So when we look at that and we study the water flows and the amount of water that goes through the turbines that generate an average of. Just over 800 megawatts of power on average per year. Then we're looking at a number that's a lot less than 5, 311 megawatts. And so, uh, when we see these different numbers out there and we see the potential of batteries and solar and wind and other forms of energy that are coming up, and so when we, when we look at these new energies and possibilities of technology changing the face of.
What energy looks like today from a hydro perspective, then we see that there's great opportunity to replace the energy produced by the four lower Snake River dams.
It sounds like a very interesting project, and it will definitely help the removal of the dams with the use of solar panels. And possibly other energy producing systems.
Thank you Shannon Wheeler and Jesse Layton for discussing what the dams are doing to the ecosystem and the Nespers Trot. As well as introducing Project 5311. We hope you enjoyed today's episode and come back next week to hear more about Project 5311.
Funding for our Sustainable Idaho Student Hosts is provided in part by this radio station, the ISU Office for Research, and the Center for Ecological Research and Education through the ISU Career Path Internship Program.
Direction, funding, and additional support is provided by the Portneuf Resource Council.
