Angelita Sanchez, a member of the Sweet Home City Council and director of the rural activist group Timber Unity, said doing so would raise electricity prices and fail her lower-income community.
Like other speakers, Sanchez cast doubt on efforts to reintroduce salmon. She cited an Oregon State University report this year concluding that billions of dollars spent to recover native salmon populations in the Columbia River Basin have largely failed.
“The dams and hatcheries are not the sole problem these salmon are facing,” she said.
Sanchez demanded the Corps pause ongoing drawdowns of the Green Peter and Lookout Point reservoirs to historic lows, which have flooded the Santiam and Willamette rivers with mud and threatened the drinking water of Sweet Home and other municipalities. The drawdowns are supposed to help juvenile fish pass through the dams. Read More
