Page 20 RAIN March/April 1985 Lower Granite Dam on Snake River in Washington (Photo by Carlotta Collette) Bioregional Balancing Act by Carlotta Collette When the Columbia River first crashed down from the northern Continental Divide, it carved out a basin that stretched over 250,000 square miles, and drained water from more than a thousand-mile strip of mountain range. Its watershed spread into seven states and part of Canada. Throughout this region, the Columbia, the Snake River that joins it in Washington state, and their combined tributaries were the nexus of a vast ecosystem. An estimated 50,000 Indian people lived comfortably within that ecosystem. When white societies sent explorers, fur traders, missionaries, and eventually settlers to occupy and exploit the territory of the Columbia, that balance was disrupted. In the 1930s the first major hydroelectric dams were constructed. Today there are more than 200 dams in the region, bringing inexpensive electric power to the people of the Northwest, and unprecedented destruction to the river's ecosystem. The last 50 years have marked the failures of numerous efforts to reestablish a regionwide balancing of the power of the river and the powers of the people who now manage it. This particular aspect of the history of the Northwest was introduced in a two-part series in RAIN called "Northwest Power Play" (RAIN VIl:4 and RAIN VII:5). At that time, the spring of 1981, we were watching the newly appointed Northwest Power Planning Council establish itself as a credible voice on electric energy policy in the region. Congress had just passed the Northwest Electric Power Planning and Conservation Act transferring substantial powers to acquire new generating resources to the Bonneville Power Administration (the Northwest's counterpart to the Tennessee Valley Authority and authors of the now infamous WPPSS nuclear power plant fiasco). The council was set up to counterbalance Bonneville as the arbiter on electric power issues. Kevin Bell, in his coverage of the proceedings for RAIN, noted that the new arrangement "could be the worst thing that ever happened to the Pacific Northwest." A Precarious Balance Maybe the region got lucky. The governors of Idaho, Oregon, Montana and Washington appointed a council that was committed to the Congressional mandate of achieving "conservation and efficiency in the use of electric power . . . and protecting, mitigating, and enhancing fish and wildlife resources.'' The ambitious
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