Corvallis auteur extraordinaire and friend Paul VanDevelder wrote this Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times a few days ago.
VanDevelder discusses the contentious issue of salmon fishery restoration in the Columbia-Snake Basin and Federal District Court Judge James Redden's eight-word utterance that makes many grown men and women in the Pacific Northwest cry - tears of joy for some, tears of anguish for others: removal of the four Lower Snake River dams (the four red dots on the Snake River just upstream of its confluence with the Columbia River).
Judge Redden has put this option on the table if all the parties involved don't devise a plan to keep salmon viable.
Here is an earlier article on Redden and the salmon issue from the High Country News.
VanDevelder makes some excellent points, and concludes thusly:
The Columbia-Snake corridor is the salmon's only option for survival, and Redden is probably their last hope. He is the one person in this entire drama who is legally obligated to use science and the law to protect the fish from extinction and from the whims of politicians. If the law and science are unable to trump politics to save this fishery -- a fishery that was the most productive in the world just two generations ago -- how will we ever meet the towering challenges posed by global climate change?
For the sake of the fish and the 500 other species that depend on this wild and "vital resource" for their survival, many of us hope the judge has the resolve to stay the course and to see the job through.
And the quote below indicates that not everyone buys into Redden's approach. As I said earlier, we do live in interesting times.
"Federal law doesn't allow dam removal, and no Democrat-politician-turned-activist-judge can rewrite the law." -- Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA), quoted in the article
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