WA, OR, MT, and ID Governors Form New Regional Process to Break Cycle of Failed Salmon Recovery Efforts

It’s been a long time coming, but something had to give.

Columbia and Snake River stocks of salmon and steelhead are circling the drain of extinction. The Columbia-Snake River Operators – the federal agencies who manage the river system infrastructure – have perpetuated a decades-long cycle of failed fish recovery plans found illegal time and again for their shortcomings. The latest plan, which was almost universally condemned for excluding Idaho communities and admittance that it would not actually recover our fish, is the latest round of more-of-the-same.

While the agencies began their final year of the latest legal procession, Washington Governor Inslee and Governor Little created their own collaborative processes to find solutions to help fish, while Oregon Governor Brown expressed that a regional effort be formed to find resolution. Montana is tied into the equation because their water is on the line.

Now, finally, it seems the Governors from the four states that make up the watershed of the Snake and Columbia Rivers are fed up, recognizing the solutions to the problems cannot be solved by recommendations of individual states alone or by the political and legal limitations of the federal agencies in charge of recovery now.

IWF, Idaho anglers, and so many more applaud this commitment by Governor Little. This is an opportunity to make real, regional, and systemic changes that leave no one behind: river communities, sportsmen, tribes, farmers, commodity transporters, and power consumers. In fact, it might be the last opportunity for our fish.

That’s why we cannot let this process become yet another iteration of a bureaucratic quagmires. We cannot any longer afford to speak without action. IWF has been fighting for the formation of just such a process. Idaho communities have urged for this too. It is going to take hard work, but it is worth it. Let’s bring ‘em back.

 View the Governors’ proclamation by clicking here.