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The Snake River Dams are a controversial topic because they prevent salmon from moving up and down the river, which affects indigenous tribes and orcas who rely on the salmon for food. While the dams provide hydroelectric power, there are concerns about the negative impact on the environment and tribal fishing rights. The Nez Perce tribe and Governor Jay Inslee support removing the dams, while representatives Kathy McMorris-Rogers and Dan Newhouse are in favor of preserving them. There are arguments for and against the dams, but the issue of pollution from the dams is a concern. Overall, there is a need to find a balance between energy production and preserving the ecosystem. Hi, my name is Sid, and today I'm here with Evan on the 7D's podcast. And today, we're going to be talking about the Snake River Dams. So Evan, would you like to introduce the person that we invited over today to tell us about the Snake River Dams? I would love to, Sid. Thanks for asking. For our podcast today, we have our interviewee, Dylan Perl. Hi, I'm Dylan Perl. So, Dylan Perl is a social expert who is going to tell us all about the social impact of the Snake River Dam. So Dylan, could you tell us what the controversy about the Snake River Dams are? Like, why are people trying to remove them? Like, what's the issue? So basically, people are trying to remove them because there is no way for the salmon to get up and down the stream with this dam, which affects the indigenous tribes that are eating the salmon and only eat the salmon. And this will also affect the orcas because they'll have less food, and the salmon won't be able to re-farm by going down into the river. Okay. That's really interesting, Dylan. Are there any reasons why we should keep the dams? In my opinion, no, but you should definitely take it down in a slower way so then it doesn't flood like a lot of area. Well, I mean, are there any like benefits of the dam? No. Evan, do you want to tell me about maybe the environmental positives of the dams? The hydro-electric power is important. Oh, that's true. So according to some research that we did before the show, the Snake River Dams actually produce a thousand megawatts of power in hydro-electric power, which is enough to power 800,000 Washington homes. What? That's crazy. That's pretty cool. That is pretty crazy. All right. So Dylan, I wanted to ask you a couple questions about the social parts of it. So what human communities are affected most by this issue, and who's on either side? May you please repeat that question? Who's on which side for like removing the dam or keeping the dam, and what human communities are most affected by this issue? Most humans as indigenous tribes are affected because they cannot have their tribal fishing because there's less salmon and less river flow for fish and stuff. Oh, that's really interesting. And then also there's people using it for recreational above the dam, which is, in my opinion, less important because there's many water areas around that you can also use for recreation. Oh, that's a really interesting take, actually. So Dylan, I have another question for you. So are there any plant animals or plant communities affected by this issue? There's a lot of communities and people. The salmon, the steelhead are very affected by the dam by, they're kind of like stuck and they can't go down, which I've explained before, and the orcas are also very much affected because they can't use the, eat the salmon because they're all dying in the dam and they're not able to get back out to the ocean areas, which affects the whole ecosystem. So I think you've mentioned now that the environmental issue disproportionately impacts the Nez Perce and other tribes with the right to tribal fishing. But how does this, and I actually did a lot of research on the environmental part of it, so how does this issue relate to environmental justice? Does it even? Are you talking to me? Yeah. Can you repeat that? How does the issue relate to environmental justice? And I'll pitch in to this question as well because I have some interesting takes on it as well. It's not being, environmental justice is not being achieved because the government has the power and which is controlling the dam and a lot of salmon and indigenous people are affected. And then also the Democrats do want to keep the dam, but the Republicans, I mean the Democrats want to remove the dams and the Republicans want to keep the dams, but they're not worried about the salmon. Okay, that's actually pretty interesting, but you know, from the environmental side of it, I would actually say that maybe it actually is being achieved because of all the hydroelectric power that we're creating. Because even though some people might be losing their fishing rights, like not being able to... Is it worth the hurting people for some electric power? Well, I mean 800,000 homes is a lot, you know, because like maybe they can't like be fishing, but like they still have the energy to like power their homes. Is it worth the tribes that are dying? Is it worth like, because people are going into fatigue from this. Oh dang, that's true. And then orcas are also dying because they have less food and stuff going on. A lot of indigenous people are very affected by this. So I think we should still take them out and find a new source of power because there is tons of power across America. I agree. Good answer, good answer. So Sid, I have a question for you. In your opinion, what is the status of the environmental cleanup? So the Snake River dams have not currently been removed. So like everything is the status quo. It's as per usual. Nothing has changed about them so far, but I mean, you know, Dillon's kind of changed my mind. Like I... We watched a video called Gather in history class and that kind of like changed my mind about like tribal fishing. Like, you know, you don't think it's that important and then you realize like how much it like changes communities. So yeah, that's a good question though. Yeah. So Sid, good answer. I have another question for you. In your opinion, who are the major players in this response? What are their roles? What do they need to do next? So as Dillon said, the Nez Perce tribe are in favor of removing and actually the Governor Jay Inslee is actually in favor of removing as well. Jay Inslee is actually supporting them. And... But there are two representatives in... There are two representatives of the state. There is a Kathy McMorris-Rogers and Dan Newhouse. And they recently passed an act to help preserve the Snake River dams. So they are also really big players because they're kind of spearheading the movement to like keep the dams because they're like useful for like recreation and also hydroelectric power. So I think it's really cool that movement. But also there's a huge tribal movement to get rid of them because of tribal fishing and to save salmon, which I think Dillon's already mentioned. But yeah, good question. So what do you think are other environmental considerations that we should consider? So I think Dillon, you can also pitch into this. There are two sides to this argument, which I think we mentioned. There's one, it's better to keep them because of the hydroelectric power they produce. And then Dillon, you said that there was... We should remove them to help preserve the salmon. Can you elaborate more on like why that's bad for tribal fishing? To have the dam? Yeah, having the dam is bad for tribal fishing. Can you tell us more about that? There's a lot. If you leave the dams for the recreational animals that leave, there's a lot of pollution. And there's people throw trash in the water for air freshness. And they also will float down and hurt the salmon. That's not good. And there's pluses on a lot of things. Actually, that's interesting. But I mean, couldn't I say that like, oh, if we get rid of the dams, all that pollution is going to come flooding down the river and all of the salmon are going to have to be in polluted waters. Is that not the case? Well, I guess that's true. But also, the dams also have been pushing the water down anyways. The polluted water, there's no... You can't un-pollute gas water. So the faster you take down the dam, the less polluted it will get over time. Interesting. So the dams are actually also polluting the water. Okay. That's a really interesting take. All right. Well, that has been this episode of the 7Ds podcast. I thank you guys for listening to us and waking up with us. And we will see you in the next episode. Thank you. Thank you.