Recent demonstrations have targeted the four lower Snake River dams as unimportant and obsolete. This argument casually discards the fact that the dams generate enough electricity to energize a city the size of Seattle. At a time when concerns about climate change dominate headlines, our dams are emission and fuel free. Electric energy generated by the federal dams greatly reduces our dependence on imported oil and natural gas. Dams truly are our region’s home grown renewable energy resource.

There are those who believe that conservation and wind turbines could replace the energy generated bythese dams. While wind is a growing and valuable regional industry, our region’s wind farms depend upon the certainty of hydropower to “firm’ the load – which means provide energy when the wind isn't blowing. In other words, without hydro's reliability, our region's wind industry would be a whisper instead of a gust. meansprovide energywhenthe wind isn’tblowing. Inother words,without hydro’s reliability, our region’s wind industrywould be a whisper instead ofa gust. What would be the alternative to hydro to back up wind?Coalor naturalgas thermal generationplants would have to be built, adding emissions to our air and furthering concerns about globalwarming.

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