Tribal officials advocating for the removal of four Pacific Northwest dams to boost beleagured salmon and steelhead populations say the effort could remain on track, even with Republicans opposing the effort prepare to take control of the White House and Congress.
Shannon Wheeler, chair of the Nez Perce tribe in north-central Idaho, said optimistic that efforts to remove the four Lower Snake River dams will continue, however slowly.
“It always has been difficult. It isn’t going to change,” Wheeler said Wednesday at an online forum sponsored by the tribe’s Salmon Orca Project.
Tribal advocates scored a victory in late 2023, when the Biden administration announced a $1 billion settlement agreement in a long-running federal lawsuit over hydropower operations on the Snake and Columbia rivers.
