Rob Masonis Dam Quotations

Somewhere in the system you need to make significant changes. If the dams are not removed, we may well be forced to acquire 1 million acre-feet of water from Southern Idaho irrigators, taking up to 643,000 acres of land out of production, eliminating more than 6,500 jobs and eliminating as much as $430 million in income.

It makes no sense to put dam removal on the back burner and to place all eggs in the 'other measures' basket, when there are no affective alternatives to dam removal that the NMFS has put on the table. A big illusion among the public is that those alternatives (to dam removal) have been identified by the NMFS. Somewhere between May 18 and the draft biological opinion that is now public, a decision was made to abandon the course that was consistent with the best science. The NMFS doesn't have that freedom.

This is a wake up call to the region that there is no easy way out. Alternatives to dam removal may be both more economically painful than dam removal and less effective.