STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Greg McReynolds stood before the Sun Valley Forum and took his audience on a journey that began--not with dams or politics--but with volcanoes.

"The Idaho that you see is a marvel, but it wasn't always like this," said McReynolds, executive director of Idaho Rivers United.

Travel east from Sun Valley and you'll hit Craters of the Moon, he explained. It’s only about  20,000 years old, and it reveals the bones of Idaho — a massive field of basalt, the leavings of ancient volcanoes and a magma sea where molten rock scratched a barren scar across the West from the Sierras to the Rockies.

The Shoshone-Bannock still use traditional spears and other tools to fish near the present-day site of the Sawtooth Fish Hatchery.

Then came salmon.

The nitrogen and carbon that built the forests surrounding the Wood River Valley came from salmon, McReynolds told the audience. Salmon that swam from Idaho to the Pacific Ocean where they gained strength and weight, then came home.

Millions of salmon for millions of years--so vast in number that their nutrients reside in every tree, every blade of grass, every insect, every animal — and even in those who now call Idaho home.

McReynolds, who grew up in Pocatello and spent a decade with Trout Unlimited, painted a picture of a species that has survived drought and flood, four glacial cycles and a time when the ocean was 100 meters lower than current sea level.

These two attendees are celebrating Idaho salmon, which swim 900 miles, climbing 6,500 feet over eight dams and through eight reservoirs, to return to Idaho from the Pacific Ocean.

Just north of Sun Valley, over Galena Summit, lies the headwaters of the Salmon River — the top end of the last best salmon habitat left in the Lower 48.

Scientists estimate that upwards of 16 million salmon used to swim up the Columbia River, and more than half returned to natal waters in the Snake Basin. Now, only a handful make it home each year.

"If you were to be there in August or September, a single redd would stand out like a beacon in the river," McReynolds said. "You might see a massive female fanning the gravel into a nest for her eggs. You might stand in the willows and watch, lost in the thought of her incredible journey."

The story of why so few wild fish remain is simple, he said. Four dams along the Lower Snake River in eastern Washington create a 140-mile chain of slack water. They allow fish passage, but they are particularly deadly to young salmon migrating downstream. The dams provide barging and some electricity, but they are driving the most important salmon run in the contiguous United States to extinction.

In 1934, Idaho Fish and Game blew up the Sunbeam Dam east of Stanley to allow fish passage after the dam’s fish ladders fell into disrepair.

McReynolds took his audience back to March 1945. American troops were still fighting in Europe and the Pacific, but the war's end was in sight and Congress was starting to think about what came next.

Before the war, unemployment had topped 20 percent. The American war machine had built millions of tanks, guns, planes and ships but almost nothing for domestic use. With 7 million service members about to come home looking for work, Congress passed the Rivers and Harbors Act, authorizing construction of those four lower dams to create a chain of flat water extending 450 miles from the Columbia River to Lewiston, Id.

"The legislation aimed to create an inland port and generate electricity. But, in truth, the goal was not dams or electricity or ports," McReynolds said. "The goal was jobs and progress."

In 1945, less than half the homes west of the Mississippi had a telephone. In the Pacific Northwest, many rural areas were still using oil lamps. Many roads were still dirt.

Fish can be seen in the Upper Salmon River as it runs near Stanley, but the prized red kokanee salmon are few and far between.

The project, authorized in 1945 and completed in 1975, was built by men and women who were incredibly proud of their work, McReynolds said.

"They were not content to pass off oil lamps and dirt roads to their children and grandchildren," he said. "They electrified the Northwest. They did not accept the status quo and they changed the world in ways that were wonderful and terrible."

They brought jobs and power and an inland port. But wild salmon began a downward trajectory.

In the 50 years since completion of the Lower Snake dams, McReynolds said, Americans have continually lowered their expectations year by year, decade by decade, generation by generation until today, when catching a single wild steelhead or seeing a single wild Chinook spawning in the headwaters of the Salmon River bowls us over.

Wild salmon and steelhead have declined by 90 percent since the dams were completed. Snake River populations have continued to plummet despite $25 billion spent in mitigation by electric ratepayers.

"I'm going to say it again because it's a big number," McReynolds said. "Twenty-five billion dollars. And wild fish are still on a downward trajectory."

Extinction has already claimed several populations and is assuredly coming for the remaining wild Snake River stocks, he said.

Congressionally authorized treaties of 1855 that guaranteed salmon to tribes are being violated, McReynolds said. Communities like Riggins and Salmon, Idaho, that once had thriving economies based around robust salmon returns are now a mere shadow of their potential.

A report from Headwaters Economics released earlier in the week showed that the economies of Lewiston and Clarkston, the inland port cities at the heart of the hydro system, are lagging behind the rest of the region. The industries most closely associated with the dams — shipping and agriculture — are declining, while those not reliant on the status quo are growing.

Meanwhile, the electricity from the dams is decreasing in volume and reliability. Long-term drought and needed flows for salmon mitigation are driving down power output. Over the last few years, the dams have averaged less than 700 megawatts of electrical output — less than a medium-sized solar facility, barely enough to run a large data center.

"In 1945, the Army Corps and Bonneville Power said they could overcome the impacts on salmon with hatcheries," he said. "But in reality, the salmon were sacrificed for economic progress. And 90 years on, we can see that not only did we sacrifice salmon, but the economic boom didn't last either."

Idaho Rivers United and its partners are committed to not only removing the dams but replacing them with better, more modern solutions, he said.

"The Snake Basin isn't just a salmon sanctuary," he said. "It's a people sanctuary too."

McReynolds pointed to a proposal put forward by Republican Congressman Mike Simpson of Idaho, who envisioned a grand bargain: Dam removal paired with massive regional investment. Simpson proposed $150 million for waterfront redevelopment in Lewiston, $14 billion for power replacement, $2 billion for transmission upgrades, $1.2 billion for clean water and $4 billion for farmers' transportation.

"These are the kinds of investments that changed the world 90 years ago," McReynolds said.

Since the construction of the Lower Snake dams, McReynolds noted, we've put a man on the moon, mapped the human genome and witnessed the birth of the internet and artificial intelligence. The world is fundamentally changed.

"The Lower Four are an anchor holding us back," McReynolds said. "The future is abundant electricity. The future is new modes of transportation. It is creating the kind of jobs that can't be outsourced or done with AI. The future is once again investing in the infrastructure of tomorrow. And it is abundant salmon in Idaho."