00:00:10 Speaker 1: From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is Col's Week in Review with Ryan cow Klan. Here's Cal. What is happening all you? 00:00:22 Speaker 2: Uh? 00:00:23 Speaker 1: You know Cal the Wild Cow's we can review fans As promised, I have my friend Eric Crawford of Trout Unlimited on the on the horn with us to go through this incredibly huge, diverse topic of what right now is a question a proposal of how and why removal of the four Snake lower Snake River dams, uh would make sense and and wh and and kind of like the to how we could get those things out of there and account for the things that we talked about on the last podcast, which would be we want to have healthy outgoing salmon and steelhead and healthy incoming salmon and steelhead, so returning fisheries to a healthier state. We want to figure out the big question mark of those are hydro electric dams. They're creating power. How do we replace that power? Shipping component which there's a port I think our furthest Inland port four hundred and sixty five miles from the ocean, so you can take an ocean going ship all the way to Lewiston, Idaho, four hundred and sixty five miles river miles inland through this system of locks that would also go away at the four dams. So how do you replace the shipping benefits capabilities that are currently in place. And then one of the things that came out of this trip to Lewiston with with Eric Crawford that I, you know, just didn't quite have any real understanding of, is this United States government obligation to the Nez Perce people too with old to uphold their end of a treaty, a federal agreement document between the sovereign nation of the Nez person and the United States Government that says there's going to be salmon in the river for the people. And one of the amazing fascinating thing that I learned speaking with Chairman Wheeler of the Nezbrus tribe is that document the intent of that document is to be upheld as if it were the time of the signing of that treaty, which to me, I would interpret that to mean that it's not just salmon in the river, it's wild salmon in the river. So we're not talking hatchery. Fish is like an add on thing, a placeholder maybe, but when you're talking about that treaty, you're talking about wildfish. So, Eric, what do you do for Trout Unlimited? 00:03:54 Speaker 2: Yeah? 00:03:54 Speaker 3: Thanks, Ryan, I am the Snake River campaign director for Trout Unlimited, so oversea our broader campaign within the region to remove the four Lower Snake River dams and then ultimately recover wild salmon a steelhead to the Snake River basin while restoring a free flowing river in the Lower Snake Corridor. 00:04:15 Speaker 1: And so that the way you look at it is it is your job to promote the removal of those dams. 00:04:25 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:04:26 Speaker 3: Yeah, that definitely is accurate, with a little bit of a caveat that we Travel Limited really support a comprehensive solution. So addressing all those issues that you just brought up, transportation, energy, irrigation, recreation, none the least upholding, you know, holding the federal government responsible for their obligations for treaty rights for the tribes throughout the Columbia basin physically, you know, as we learned last week, how important those fish are to the Nez Perce tribe. And so all of that wrapped into one in various aspects, whether it's outreach and engagement with local interests representing the agricultural sector, the irrigation sector. Not only our membership within to you are grassroots grasstops, but then also all the way from local electeds up to congressionals. So a very broad swath of duties that I helped direct and oversee and participate in in my role as director of the campaign. 00:05:35 Speaker 1: And yeah, I got a little foggy brain here today, folks. But if you're fuming already listening to this, I did forget the irrigation component, which is a huge, huge point of concern for a lot of folks in the lower of the Lower Snake River dams. And I say lower of the Lower because that's really where the significant irrigation withdrawal comes out of. 00:06:05 Speaker 3: Correct, Yeah, that's that's correct, Ryan. It's down to the Ice Harborpool. There's about sixty thousand irrigated acres of agriculture down there that there needs to be a solution of how do you get that water onto those crops in a different system than what it is today, you know, a reservoir system to a free flowing river system down there, So a whole caveat of services that need to be replaced. And I mean, in reality, the good news is is that there is a very considered effort by the federal government now through what is called the Six Sovereigns Agreement and specifically US government commitments to replace the majority of those services. So we're seeing that happening currently and so hopefully we'll continue to see progress in that aspect. And really this is the first time and really the history of the Lower Snake River Dam, so about almost fifty years you know, plus or minus a couple since the completion of Lower Granite Dam, which is the upper dam in the hydro system, that that conversation has really changed about not just breach and not just about fish, replacement of services and really tying it all together to put our best foot forward in the region. 00:07:31 Speaker 1: And how has your best foot forward been received so far? 00:07:36 Speaker 3: Well, I mean, there definitely are there definitely are folks that, at least in my conversations, that you know, want to stick their head in the sand and just hope that it goes away. You know, this discussion about breach just goes away, and that we can just maintain the status quo it as it is. There are others that are interesting and engaging, cautiously but really those conversations have changed tenfold since. You know, there was a progression of effort here within the region, within the country to breach these four Lower Snake River dams, starting all the way back in twenty nineteen when Represented Mike Simpson. 00:08:23 Speaker 2: Of Idaho had made, you know. 00:08:27 Speaker 3: A little bit of a promise committed to restoring wild sam and steelhead in the basin. That was during a conference in Boise, Idaho, and that really got the conversation going that ogs now we really do have the attention of Congress or at least one Congressman. And then over the next couple of years you really saw the conversation start to mature, and then ultimately Representative Simpson released a proposal, the Northwest Han Transition Proposal, which was the thirty three billion dollar proposal to move the region away from the hydrosystem, reaching the four Lower Snake River dams, providing the mechanism or the idea of funding those replacement services, but also economic inputs from towns throughout the base and Lewiston here at the confluence of the Snake and clear Water all the way down to the Tri Cities and the Pacific Northwest lab investments and new energy development. It really was a bold proposal that came out and it kind of fell flat on its face. It was kind of surprising that other senators and or representatives in the Northwest didn't really lob onto. What we saw is that Senator Patty Murray of Washington, Governor Jay Insley also took a lead in a leadership role in this discussion and re evaluated kind of what Representative Simpson had brought out and ultimately put forth their own recommendations, one acknowledging that the only real way to recover sam the cel it in the basin is going to be breached those dams, but we need to replace those services. Fast forward today, as I noted, what's referred to as the six sovereigns Agreements, which is the State of Oregon, State of Washington, the Yakama Nation, then first Tribe, the Confederate Tribes of the I Matila, and the Confederate Advans of the Warm Springs all reached an agreement with the federal government to stay the litigation and the Lower Snake and worked up a whole bunch of agreements and commitments again to move this conversation forward that was supported by the current administration, the Biden administration, and so that's really where we are today. And we've seen this really move along in a positive fashion and replacing services. With that being said, we are still in a situation that you know, time is of the essence these fish, salmon, schnook salmon both spring summer falls, steelhead, and sake. I just don't have the time. The clock is ticking. 00:11:16 Speaker 2: You know. 00:11:16 Speaker 3: All those species are listed under the endangered Species list, starting all the way back in ninety one with saki and completing in ninety seven with the listing of steelhead in the basin, and they remain there today with real noticeable change or any kind of ability to get them off the list. Right And as you mentioned in the intro, you know, this is really about recovering wild salmon, a steelhead. Those are the species that are listed. You know, we can talk about actual production and why it's there and why it ends up being you know, a placeholder for those wild stocks, but at the end of the day, we're really trying to over those wild stocks, you know, into a into an incredible basin of habitat with huge loss of wilderness, including the Frank Church and the Selwey bitter Root, intact habitat. Everything is there waiting for them to come back. It's just that right now, with the hydro system as it is, despite all the mitigation efforts and band aids that have been placed on the hydro system, we just can't get them, get them recovered. 00:12:31 Speaker 1: And so I just want to ask you again, like when you say that habitat is in place, that upstream spawning habitat is what you're referring to, as well as like the ability for the fish to travel because it is a free flowing river above if you take like Dworshack out of it and some old mining impoundment things like thinking of like the Yankee Fork type of yeah situation, fishcam freely travel up and downstream once they get above Lower Granite. 00:13:09 Speaker 3: Yeah that's that's yeah, that's correct. And yeah, so lower granted it's about seventeen miles approximately downriver from the Idaho border, I know, Washington border. Once they get over Lower Granite and those fish have already passed, we're just going to talk about adults. For instance, those fish are going to pass the four Lower Columbia dams and then get over the four Lower Snake river dams and then once they're into that at Idaho habitat, and for that matter, portions of southeast Washington and northeast Oregon also have large expanses of available habitat, but Idaho in particular, really right now it's the gold standard and habitat for cold water fisheries on the west coast distribution of Pacific salmon. About forty eight percent of all available cold water habitat in the range of Pacific salmon in the lower forty eight exists in the Snake River basin. And even the state of Idaho acknowledges that, you know, despite some of these impoundments like door Shaft, about sixty two percent of that habitat and Idaho is still intact and accessible for these fish. 00:14:22 Speaker 1: And that's not really by coincidence. I mean, there's a crazy history of all sorts of different mining operations in these tributaries, which which are would would be the spawning habitat, logging, grazing in some of the like these high alpine meadows that you in personal experience, you're walking along and you go, holy shit, look at the size of that fish. 00:14:53 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:14:54 Speaker 1: Yeah, And so like there's been a lot of create changes to grazing patterns along some of those high alpine meadows, or a switch from one set of livestock to another, some rehabilitation stream bank, really rehabilitation and heavily logged and mined areas, changes in those mining and logging practices and cash. I think it was like during the Obama administration where that area was circled on the map as a cold water reserve in North America. 00:15:40 Speaker 3: Right, yeah, I think that that that's accurate, and it's you know, the highest coldest cold water habitat in the lower forty A, you know, and that's why we trod and limit are so adamant about, Hey, this is the last best place to really restore and recover wild something on its in the Snake River. And despite all those you know, extractive and land use practices that has a historically happened on the landscape, it shows that these fish are incredibly resilient and at times can be tolerant to those type of impacts. The one thing that they're not tolerant and resilient to is the hydro system. But you know, if we can get there, get them back, you know, trout unlimited, we we have a very large water and habitat restoration program across you know, the United States, but even specifically here in Idaho with a lot of effort going on in the upper Salmon drainage is specifically restoring the Yankee Fork, a lot of work with our partners on the Lem High which is a tributary there to the Salmon River rate at Salmon, Idaho, all kind of creating this perfect environment in addition to everything else that's still wild and exile and intact for when we get these dams out, and it ends up being a totality of the life, life's history of a of a salmon. Right, not only are we you know, trying to restore a migration corridor, but at the same time we're providing you know, the habitat for quality, red red building and rearing of juveniles all the way up through the entire left history. And so that's what's really important to recognize is that, you know, this really is the sweets for restoration of the species. 00:17:36 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a pretty unique situation where there's a literal line on the map where you're like, okay, above here, we're as good as things get. 00:17:47 Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, And I mean it's no different than you know, a human driving out of the city. Right, It's just like you're in Boise, Idaho. Both of you and I have spent a considerable amount of time there, and you think about the city when you're there, but jeez, you drive what an hour north or northeast and you're in some of the wildest country in the lower forty eight. And that's kind of the analogy with these fish. It's just like, hey, we can drive out of they can swim out of the industrialized Columbia and Lower Snake and get into you know, the best of the best of habitat. 00:18:28 Speaker 1: You got to talk about kind of the beliefs out there that are part of the narrative to be like highly skeptical of the efficacy of removing dams, right, And you know, just today, you know, there was a fellow rode in talking about Core of Engineers information saying that even with the removal of the Lower four Snake River dams, we could only see an increase of about fourteen percent of current runs. And current runs are you know, way below historical historical numbers, which were you know, very very high. So if that's true or untrue, we should definitely cover but Also, I think it gets into the bigger question of just like if, k if we go through all this work and these things are producing clean, affordable energy, how do we know it's going to be worth it? 00:19:37 Speaker 2: Yeah? 00:19:38 Speaker 1: And how do we quantify worth it? 00:19:41 Speaker 2: Well? 00:19:42 Speaker 1: Yeah? 00:19:42 Speaker 3: And I mean when you when you try to quantify something like this, you have to look at no different than what you know, probably the core of engineers is doing right now. You have to look at all aspects of what these fish presa provide to the region. This isn't just about providing fish for fisheries in Idaho. You know, the entire Columbia system would benefit by renewed, renewed fisheries, and so you look at the cultural, social, economic, and ultimately biological values associated with these with these renewed runs. And so you know, many times we place value in the form of monetary value, but sometimes things cannot be measured. I would never be able to articulate the social cultural value with a dollar figure of what these fish provide to say, the nez perstribe and its members in the Upper Basin, or the Yakamas or the warm Springs or the Yumatillas. I can look simply at some things I have a friend in Chalice, Idaho and Central Idaho that historically Chala saw pretty good runs of chinook and then also steelhead, and their runs have really been cut short lately, even on hatchery returns, which all these fisheries are based on. Right now, he owns a sporting good shop has for twenty years there the bent rod and he greg now really doesn't carry that much fishing gear relating to salmon and steelhead. It's all more of outdoor recreation broadly, you know, hiking and camping and stuff. And so you look at like little things like that and how that the trickle economics of what those mean to river communities like Challice and some of the other ones and riggins, and you can put a dollar figure on that. There's been a number of economic studies in relationship to sam and steelhead fisheries, specifically shin At fisheries in Idaho, and it's pretty staggering of what the economic inputs are just in Idaho. The value of the electricity, I mean, the reality is the grid is going to need more energy regardless. Those lower Snake River dams produce on average about nine hundred and sixty megawatts of energy is what they contribute. The real value is on demand, so when it's super hot or super cold, you know they can produce energy. But at the same time, we're faced with the dilemma that we need more energy in the Northwest, and so why not invest in another source outside of the hydra system that we can utilize and you know, put ourselves better off into the future while still recovering these fish. And so it's really hard to place those values on there. 00:22:44 Speaker 2: The other part of that. 00:22:45 Speaker 3: You know, is well are they going to restore the fish? I think, you know, everybody needs to be aware that the core of engineers has a vested interest. 00:22:55 Speaker 2: In these dams. 00:22:56 Speaker 3: It is very readily apparent know that they don't want to, i think, admit that they're salmon killers or take credit for the impacts of the intra system to the cultural resources of the tribes throughout the region and these salmon populations. I was at Lower Granted last week with a tour with the nez Perse and it oftentimes is disturbing how much misinformation or stretching of the truth and facts actually is represented by core engineers. Folks multiple other ways to get that information. Again, the core has a vested interest in keeping those dams. You can look at the Fish Passes Center, which is a conglomeration of various entities and agencies both state and federal, that put out what's called the Comparative Survival Study. It's an almost thirty year data set of SAM and Steelhead survival through the hydro system and evaluating all the different band aids have been put forth as mitigation efforts, and everything comes. 00:24:09 Speaker 2: Back to the reality. 00:24:11 Speaker 3: The hydro system and the dams in the hydro system are the largest mortality factor of SAM and as Yila and the Snake River basin. And I think, you know, it's you got to keep it in the context. You know, we were just talking about door Shack and some of the impacts throughout the basin, you know, and right now the bar is not to recover to historical numbers. 00:24:36 Speaker 2: The bar in. 00:24:37 Speaker 3: Reality is actually pretty low. You know. Noah, North America are a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration could ben the KLUBBIA Basin Partnership Task Force through the late teens of. 00:24:56 Speaker 2: Twenty. 00:24:57 Speaker 3: I guess twenty twenty one is when they they finished up with their final report. And for example, if we look at spring summer Chanook and the Snake Over Basin. You know, right now, we're averaging for wild returns anywhere from about seven thousand to ninety five hundred in the entire basin historically, with the available habitat that is there now, it was estimated that a million spring and summer chinook returned. But what the Columbia Basin Collaborative, our partnership came up with is low, medium and high end goals. And even the high end goal, which is one hundred and fifty nine thousand native origin or wild spring summer chinook, is only sixteen percent of that historical value. So we're not like reaching for the stars. It is based on the assumption that that is what you would need to have healthy and abundant fishery or populations that can support both tribal and recreational fisheries. So you've really got to keep it in context, right, Yeah. 00:26:08 Speaker 1: Which is hard, right because it's like, you know, like that email I brought up, it's very much like, well, only fourteen percent, and then on the other side of the table, it's like, holy shit, fourteen percent would be huge. 00:26:25 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, exactly. 00:26:29 Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's reality, it's a massive project. There's a ton of unknowns, lots of things have to happen, and there's four more dams below this area. Yeah right, just for the returns that I'm talking about. 00:26:48 Speaker 3: Yeah on the Columbia. Yeah that that aren't even part of this equation. They're they're not even they're not part of the discussion whatsoever. They actually contribute an immense amount of power to the overall Northwest grid and are really important. The lower Snake dams not as much, and there's a general. 00:27:09 Speaker 2: Consensus that that power can replace. 00:27:13 Speaker 3: You know, and I and I think you know people, people have to go into this wide eyes, wide open. I mean, I am not naive to this situation. I live here on the Polue where all this grain is produced, you know, that is transported through the hydrosystem. 00:27:30 Speaker 2: Although I'm not a customer. 00:27:32 Speaker 3: Of BPA, I am not naive to the impacts that these into a change in electricity production would have. And so I yeah, I am not you know, somebody that is foreign to all these conversations. It's something that I take very seriously as a community member. Why I represent try to unlimited but then also looking to recover these fish and the benefits that come with them. I think that people really have to take a bigger deep dive, you know, which is really difficult at times to get the most after it and correct information. Last year, I guess it was, or it was last year or twenty twenty two, Noah came out with a paper, position paper that acknowledges the only way that we're going to recover these fish. His breach of the four lower Snake River dams. That is kind of that is based on the wide amount of scientific data that is out there. It really puts to bed, you know, the scientific argument that hey, you know, hey, we need. 00:28:43 Speaker 2: To study more. 00:28:44 Speaker 3: And I hear that all the time, Well we need to study this, we need to study that. Hey look at look at the sea lions down below Bonaville, look at you know, Caspian turns or the other avian predators down on the Lower Columbia's always look at something else, you know, don't look here at the real problem. Look at something else. 00:29:02 Speaker 2: And try to fix that first. 00:29:04 Speaker 3: And we've been doing it for almost fifty years and it hasn't been successful. 00:29:08 Speaker 1: And and those those predator species are growing also, they're they're benefiting from I mean we saw it firsthand, right, It's like you create this big turbid pool that a bunch of disoriented fish gets shot out of a cannon basically, and the birds and the walleye and the small mouth pass or you know, lined up, ready, ready for the food food train. 00:29:42 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:29:42 Speaker 3: The only reason that those those predators are successful is because the system is highly modified, you know, to their favor and to a disadvantage of salmon and steelhead. 00:29:53 Speaker 1: So I mean, I still can't get over the fact that, like we're sitting there in the viewing window at Littwer granted, and you know there's a thirty and shinook going upstream with two walleye. 00:30:07 Speaker 3: Yeah, and as I told you, like that is really a that is a really recent phenomena five years ago. 00:30:13 Speaker 2: You do go down there. 00:30:14 Speaker 3: And you'd be hard pressed to see a walleye. And so now, I mean as we saw, I mean there wasn't just two, you know, there were several. As we sat there and watched that we're trying to make their way up, you know. And so I mean, yeah, I mean it's it's a heavily modified system. 00:30:34 Speaker 1: People are just so goofy too, Like I can't wrap my head around the pike minto situation. I mean, I don't think we're going to destroy pike mino, which is a native fish and I swear to God makes great savice. But we're actively with a reward system suppressing pike mino. Well you know, there's no limits on small my pass or Walleye, but we're not incentivizing anybody to go in there and and take those fish. It's just, you know, it's just odd to me. We also got Channel cap in there, right. 00:31:13 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Channel Cat yeah in the mix. So uh yeah, and as our was it Jim? Was that that our pike minow? 00:31:23 Speaker 1: Yeah? 00:31:23 Speaker 2: From Jim from Florida. 00:31:26 Speaker 3: You know, as he said, you know he uh you know, even he saw a scene a different and uh in catch rates of pike minnow a guy that in retirement travels from Florida and he say comes up in May? 00:31:40 Speaker 2: Is that what he said? May? And through September? 00:31:42 Speaker 3: Yeah right, and uh, camp's balilo and grantede just to take advantage of the pike Minnow reward program. Uh in his retirement years to stay active. And you know what you tell us May? Yeah, yeah, got about a thou I was in pike Mino last year, I think he's what he told us, and that translates to about ten thousand dollars in a re award system, and then this year, you know, he has three hundred. I think pike Mino is what he told us, And I mean and he you know, kind of blames it on you know, Walleye that you know, there aren't those younger year classes and so you know, not only are walle impacting salmonds, but they're also impacting other native species. So you know, none of the least you know, pike Mino that have that reward program. 00:32:31 Speaker 2: But you know, I. 00:32:32 Speaker 3: Often see lamprey in the in the stomach contents earlier in the season when am seats are out migrating, and yeah, it's it's kind of pretty crazy situation. 00:32:45 Speaker 1: Yeah, and boy, the lamprey deals something we got to get more into because that's just like such a unique deal. Everybody thinks of, you know, invasive lamprey in the Great Lakes, but this is a native native fish, right and it's coming all the way, yeah, coming all you know, it's spawning in the mountains, going all the way out to the ocean and returning and it's it's just wild to see. And that was because of the fat oil content that was a huge, huge resource for native peoples in that river system. 00:33:31 Speaker 3: Yeah, and still you know, it's significant, no longer a significant portion of their diet, but culturally still significant, you know, particularly the nets erst as as we learned. 00:33:44 Speaker 1: Yeah, and their stories about lamp prey are that because it is so fatty and so oily, it was the preferred prey for predator species, and they would focus on the lamprey going out and would ignore the salmon smolt going out, which was a really interesting you know observation oral history tidbit that we picked up. I thought that was really cool because really that's the role, a huge part of the role other than providing interest and recreation and revenue of the current hatchery program, right is people predate on hatchery fish let the wildfish go. 00:34:35 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:34:36 Speaker 3: So yeah, all fisheries within the snaker of the basin, with a little bit of an exception, are based off of mitigated hatchery returns. 00:34:47 Speaker 2: Yes. 00:34:47 Speaker 3: Incidentally, wildfish may be encountered and caught but cannot be retained. All of this is based on hatchery returns and so people often get those numbers conflated. You know, we have some representatives to the west of me that like to promote you know, historical runs, and some of that is misinformation from the US Army Corps engineers and how they represent fish returns and they conflate both hatchery and wild stocks together and like to occasionally talk about how we're seeing historical runs and returns. Well, you know, you ask any any angler in the system and they'll tell you right away that you know, a one for spring spring chinook, a one one daily limit on spring chinook is not a historical return really provides are they any opportunity for anybody. But with the exception, you know, we were able to go fall Chaduk fishing, and because of life life history and survival of faul Chinook and the limited amount of habitat now that they actually have available to them, you can actually harvest and add intact, intact fish in your three fish daily limit as we saw when we were out. And so that is kind of the exception. No fisheries on snake over Saki, all steelhead fisheries are based on how to returns, and so again it really you know, you can get super focused and just really think about your tiny little window of opportunity if your steelhead angler and not really pay attention at these you know, well, what are the wild stocks doing? You know, what are lamprey doing? You know who else benefits from these fish? And it really is an incredible opportunity and story that these fish provide to the region. 00:36:44 Speaker 1: Heck yeah, yeah, you know, I'd off the air listeners. We were talking about an uncle of mine. He's dying of cancer. And I had just come back from this trip with with Eric and we managed to catch had a huge chinook. I took a couple of flays over here and and he was able he's you know, lifelong outdoors mun and was able to show him the picture and he goes, holy shit. And I was able to get a few bites some of that big chinook salmon down the other night. So that was that was pretty cool. So that yeah, that that fish is still still providing. 00:37:33 Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. 00:37:33 Speaker 3: And I said something similar when that fish finally got close to the boat with as large as it. 00:37:40 Speaker 1: Was, Yeah yeah, yeah, and four hundred and sixty five miles from the ocean, it's just like such an amazing, amazing animal. 00:37:50 Speaker 3: Right, yeah, yeah, And that's the you know, that's really the crazy thing about it. Yeah, we encountered it and you're able to catch it at you know, approximately four sixty five of river miles from the Pacific. But you know, it already made one trip out as a small spent you know, anywhere three to five years, which judged by that the size of that fish it was on that you know, cuss of being a five five ocean fish and five year old fish, and so it you think about how much time it's spent in the out in the ocean and back probably. 00:38:23 Speaker 1: Up in southeast Alaska. 00:38:25 Speaker 2: And yeah, and yeah, dodged. 00:38:28 Speaker 1: Quite a few flashers and herring being drifted out there, as well as some nets and yep, and then all the orcas and pinna pads and ah managed to go through. 00:38:45 Speaker 3: Eight dams, managed to yeah, wits, managed to go. 00:38:51 Speaker 1: Through all the way out all the way back in so. 00:38:55 Speaker 3: Yep, and then slipped up with old Ryan Callahan. 00:38:59 Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah. Yeah, it's wild, it really is. There's a good conversation going around right now. It seems like people are by and large a little more willing to kind of be at the table, but kind of where where are we at is this a like if we had a call to action today, what would it be. 00:39:28 Speaker 3: Yeah, the call to action is really to engage with congressional your congressional representation, both Housing and Senate. And the reason being is that these fish are these dams are congressionally authorized. We're congressionally authorized in the nineteen forty Safe Rivers and Harbors Act and need to be congressionally authorized for removal. All this effort really right now that we see with the administration and the US government agreement with the six sovereigns is in preparation to really get that authorization. But congressmen and women need to know that people support recovery of salmon and steelhead in the basin. Again, this isn't just about you know, Idaho fish. These fish provide an opportunity throughout the entire Columbia below the snake and out into the ocean fisheries. They're not just an Idaho resource. They're you know, really an American resource that shouldn't be taken for granted. As you noted that that false chinook you know, probably was in in southeast Alaska at one point in time, but at the same time those fall chinook, they stay fairly close to the coast, and some go south, you know, all the way to northern California, and others go north. Each of these species have different ocean life fisheries that take them all the way up into the Gulf of Alaska all the way back and providing opportunity everywhere. And that really has been going on, you know, really since the advent of civilization. I you know, we had an interaction with an individual at Lower Grantede, you know, that claimed that this land these fish belonged to somebody else, you know, and didn't really understand why the nett Pers wanted are all back. And I reminded him, as I've been taught by Charmy Wheeler the next Perst tribe, that there is documented history of the nest person being here for sixteen thousand years, so you know, they really were the first ones here. And so you know, and that's really this real long story of the opportunities that these fish provided for the various cultures. 00:41:55 Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and I'm not jumping over that's an amazing fact. You know. The I always want to say Bonner's ferry, but it was Glenn's ferry, right. 00:42:05 Speaker 3: Is Yeah, Yeah, Now you say that I'm not sure there is documentation within the snake right here that is sixteen thousand years. 00:42:14 Speaker 1: Yeah, sixty five hundred, I believe, which is unreal. Right, Like as far as like first peoples on the continent, right we always talk like Beringia the land bridge and those numbers don't drive. 00:42:30 Speaker 2: Well, no they don't, not with that historical record. 00:42:33 Speaker 1: Yeah, Chairman Wheeler did point out that He's like, that's just where they stopped digging right right there. There could be a lot more to the story, and I'm sure there is. But you know that like food security, food sovereignty, that one fish, three of us eight on really just one flay. I cooked two flays, but we ate one file a piece of a file. At the other night, Tyler Emmett and read more, they both got a couple of flays a piece. Jason producer Jason Rari got a couple of flays. I have more in the freezer right now. Like one fish provides a lot, and I didn't you know, I didn't make stock out of the bones or anything like that. We scraped all the burger off, but there still was more to be done with with that fish if you wanted to do it. So, I mean, it's it's a lot of return for one of those fish, and I think about that a lot. You know, it's especially when they're in numbers. You know, we always used to joke in the guiding days when we'd have people be like, yeah, I just want to learn to fly cast well enough to catch fish in Alaska, and we'd be like, well, you're there, because the thing, the dirty secret about Alaska is there's so many fish you don't need to be great at fishing. Yeah, yeah, And so providing that like food opportunity in these rivers that are accessible, there's so much public land right down to the river's edge, the river is public. You're providing people with some real independence, way life type independence if we can get these returns back high enough, right. 00:44:31 Speaker 3: Yeah, and even right now, Ryan, Really it's people kind of misunderstand this whole what we're fishing on. You know, I tried to articulate it earlier, but you know, these are mitigated hattery returns, mitigated for the impacts of the lower snake to produce opportunity. That's what hatchery fisher here for is opportunity. And even in low run years, you know, these are so heavily regulated and managed that when there are opportunities for seasons, I highly encourage people to get out there and fish for these hatchery stock. 00:45:11 Speaker 2: One. 00:45:12 Speaker 3: They provide incredible table fair, you know, and as we talked, I mean you could live off sam in the entire year, competitive on you know, these runs and the cycle of runs, and they are incredible table fair. And so this isn't about like, oh, let's just let all those close down the fisheries and that'll help them recover. Well that's not the case, not the case at all. Those fish are there mandatory mitigation from Congress of all people to the Northwest Power apt to provide opportunity and take advantage of that opportunity when it's available. 00:45:52 Speaker 1: It's so crazy too, because it's so highly hands on manipulated, Like the effort involved beyond the fish doing what fish do is pretty insane. Like the fish ladder system, the willingness to truck fish pipefish into a truck truck fish above below dams. It is a hands on. They're damn near close enough to have like a barcode on each fish that you could scam. 00:46:32 Speaker 3: Well, I mean they almost literally have a barcode on each fish in the form of either code or buyer tag from hatchery fish, and another portion of wild and hatchery fish have passive integrated tags. And that's why we you know, your point, so heavily managed. It is insane to know how well managers fisheries managers throughout the basin this basin particular, can predict run numbers, can update run numbers through the course of the system. Never mind, here in Idaho they do genetic stock indexing on all wildsown onits so spring, summer, schnook, and the steelhead stocks that they can trace these individuals back to a specific drainage because of historical genetic data that they have. The same thing occurs tracing back individuals to hatchery parentage through fin clips and genetics. And that's the thing, I mean, this is what we've come to to manage this population is technology, genetics and band aids. And we know enough about the system, We know enough about the mortality factors to know what direction we need to go, and that really. 00:47:58 Speaker 2: Is the removal of those fish. 00:47:59 Speaker 3: But in the meantime, you know, yep, take advantage of the opportunities as they exist. I mean, you know, the last Sunday, we were you know, out there with shoot one hundred plus other other friends, right, and you really saw what what these fish mean to some of these communities. 00:48:20 Speaker 1: Oh for sure. And you know that's where we talk about there's going to be a massive cost associated with everything if we're transitioning away from hydro power to replace it with small scale nuclear reactors, wind solar. Big cost on a lot of levels involved with that. Beefing up rail or trucking to compensate for the shipping of goods on barges. A lot of costs associated with that. The irrigation, what that's going to look like. Are there going to be new wells pumps, you know, aqua bypass projects. Lots of cost associated with that. But one of the things that is like amazing to me and truly intriguing about the story is the tribe then Espers. They get a lot of money to run these hatcheries, and they're the first ones in line saying like, yeah, it'd be great to shut these things down. 00:49:38 Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, I mean they're they're dedicated to the recovery, right, And just to backup about the cost, you know, I think the listeners would be naive to think that this cost there is zero cost right now as a system is operated. The systems, you know, incredibly expensive to run, you know, incredible upfront investments in building these dams and continue operation and maintenance of these dams. It's estimated that twenty four billion dollars has been put forth in various mitigation efforts because of these dams. A full third of rate payers bills go towards mitigation efforts, and so really at the end of the day, it comes back to reimagining how we spend this money. Can we transition what these expenses are today to something different in the future, And I think the answer is yes, yes we can while still benefiting from recovered population of sam in the seal head. 00:50:47 Speaker 1: Pretty cool. I think, you know, one of the largest hurdles here is just the not knowing what it really looked like, right Like, there's a lot of little speak with a bunch of people that we did in all the communities and conversations that I've had outside of that, you know, you get all these like oh yeah, but what if and it's not like a real firm this is what I'm hanging my hat on type of statement. I think it's just really a little placeholder to just kind of be like, well, how many fish are we talking about? Because you know, if it was like if there was a way to just like properly equate it and be like, okay, historical looked like this in this system, that fishing hole that you go to all the time would look like this from time to time, right, or that trip up to Alaska or that scene out of the National Parks documentary or whatever, like, this is what it would look like at certain times of the year. People would you know, if you could guarantee that, like, people would be like, oh, now, I get it type of thing. But you know, we're just so far removed from that in that system. 00:52:03 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:52:03 Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, as we you know, previously talked, I mean, there's no guarantees of mother nature. It doesn't it doesn't matter what species you're talking about. There's just no guarantees. Yeah, in this equation. The one guarantee that is out there is that if you do remove those dams, replacing all the services associated with it, you have removed that mortality factor that is guaranteed. Right how mother nature reacts, We have you know, somewhat of a historical reference now with the removal the Elwah Dam over on the Olympic Peninsula, the current removal of the Klimate dams in northern California and southern Oregon, that'll show us and are continually showing us that, boy, you get out of the way of these salmon the steelhead and they will rebound. The river will will cleanse itself and recover itself in due time, the ecosystem will heal itself and be as robust as it was once was before man got in the way. And so we do have those track records in those examples, even here on the West coast, that that will prove that, you know, there is a lot of opportunity here in the Snake. 00:53:24 Speaker 1: And so one more time for us, Eric, if folks want to learn more, do some of their own research. Read up on you know, kind of the high level things that we hit on today, like where's the best place to go? 00:53:39 Speaker 3: Yeah, so we try to limit it. Of course, have a sneaker of a campaign landing page. It's to you dot org for slash Lower Snake. I'd encourage you also to look at the Columbia Basin Partnership Paskforce final Phase two report that really lines out a lot of this conversation lines out the quantitative goals for various fish stocks throughout the Columbia Basin. You know, do your own research, you know, don't just take take. 00:54:12 Speaker 2: My word for it. I encourage everybody to come to their. 00:54:15 Speaker 3: Own conclusion, you know, with with or write about right amount of data and information from both sides of it. Again, I live here, uh, you know, I am ground zero for this conversation. And and don't take it lightly, you know. Yeah, I'm an avid angler. I work for Drod un Limited. We're all about recovering wild wild sam in the Steelhead. And but at the same time, I walk into this conversation, in every conversation with my eyes wide open and know and listen to what somebody sitting across the table is telling me and how it may impact their livelihood, may impact their family member or friend. They know, at the end of the day, Ryan, this is you know, know, we're all in this together. It's not it's not us as them's it's we, you know. And that's kind of what I remind myself we in the region. I have to come to this together and be respectful in those conversations and and really move forward with the remedy. The remedy is not behind us. We cannot continue to rely on mitigation efforts and band aids for the impact of the system. We've got to look to the future for better Northwest. 00:55:32 Speaker 1: Heck. Yeah, well, thanks a much for coming on. I know you'll you'll keep us up updated as new things pop up. Still still a pretty long runway. 00:55:45 Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, very long, very low. 00:55:48 Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's a great conversation and hopefully folks know a little bit more about some of the folks that are at the table and the interests involved. At top of that, will have a col in the Field episode coming out on YouTube where you get to see some of this firsthand and we've got some great access. And again big big thanks to uh everybody there in the in the Lower Snake System and the Nest Brust Tribe and Trout Unlimited for letting us run around check stuff out. 00:56:26 Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for coming in, uh you know, uh experiencing it anytime. 00:56:32 Speaker 1: Uh, that's all we got for you, guys. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to write in to ask Cal that's a s k C a L. That's Askcal at themeeater dot com and let me know what's going on in your neck of the woods, and definitely let me know what questions you have on this subject. We're going to get into it as needed and again and again, I promise, because it's a fascinating one. If you have specific questions for Eric Craft, let me know. We can always get him back on or we can compile those and and answer him on the on the podcast to thanks again, We'll talk to you next week. 00:57:11 Speaker 3: M hmmmmmm mm hm 00:57:18 Speaker 2: Hm