Idaho’s U.S. Senator Frank Church Wrote BPA’s Rulebook. It Demands Reliable Power, Too.
An opinion editorial written by Will Hart, executive director of the Idaho Consumer-Owned Utilities Association, and Kurt Miller, executive director of the Northwest Public Power Association.
Frank Church’s conservation legacy deserves respect. But the federal law that Frank Church and his U.S. Senate colleagues passed — the Pacific Northwest Electric Power Planning and Conservation Act of 1980 — does not ask the region to choose salmon over reliable power. It requires an “adequate, efficient, economical, and reliable” power supply, alongside fish and wildlife protection under the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
Forty-five years later, the harder question is whether either half of that mandate can still be met. Salmon returns are struggling across Western North America, including in undammed rivers, due to predators, ocean conditions, habitat loss and warming waters. This is not only a Snake River problem — it is a coastal problem.
Even so, investments in hatcheries and passage have produced gains. Average salmon and steelhead returns over the past 15 years have more than quadrupled at Lower Granite Dam, compared with the dam’s first year of operation in 1975.
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