River of Life, Channel of Death: Fish and Dams on the Lower Side

Book by Keith Petersen

Americans far from Puget Sound know a bit about the spotted owl. But that battle pales beside the debate over what sacrifices citizens should make--and are willing to make--to protect the Pacific Northwest's salmon runs. Petersen, a Washington State University Press editor, probes the complex realities of geology and biology, engineering and economics, focusing on the Snake River, the largest Columbia River tributary. Along the Snake in southeast Washington, the Army Corps of Engineers built four dams, mainly to improve navigation and generate power; those dams seem to have been the last straw for the Columbia River basin's salmon runs. Despite a huge investment in technological "fixes," the salmon population still drops. Only wrenching changes in the region's way of life (higher power costs, disruption of navigation, and reduced irrigation) seem to offer hope of reversing this loss. Petersen deftly traces the region's history, from the Missoula floods 12 millenia ago and Native American migrations to explorers' visits and the decades-long effort to make this wild river system serve the needs of farmers, shippers, and manufacturers. In the Pacific Northwest, resolving the bitter conflict between the region's most potent symbols--fish and dams--will call for a brand of wisdom as powerful as the symbols themselves. Mary Carroll