Submissions in the research category are open to research topics in any field: STEM, Social Sciences, Business, Humanities, etc. Submissions should use the documentation style appropriate to the discipline and should not exceed 20 pages. Keira Gere wrote the 2nd place submission in the Research category for the 2026 President’s Writing Awards.
About Keira
Keira (she/they) is an advocacy writer graduating this semester with her BA in Public & Professional Writing. They’re a consultant of 2+ years at the Boise State Writing Center and will continue their work there after graduation—come visit! Outside her academic and professional life, she can either be found somewhere in the wilderness, wandering local thrift stores, or cozying up to her cats with a gaming console in hand.
Winning Manuscript – Demolishing Dams and Defending Indigenous Lifeways
The Snake River Basin in Idaho is at a critical juncture in the battle for ecological recovery. The Snake River Basin has been a source of life for Indigenous communities like the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes in Idaho for time immemorial. The salmon in the Snake River take care of them, so they take care of the salmon. But it has been made increasingly difficult to continue on this way.
The Snake River is the largest branch of the Columbia River and originates in Northwestern Wyoming. The river flows through Wyoming, arcs across southern Idaho, and turns north along the Idaho-Oregon border before flowing west into Washington and the Columbia River. More than two million salmon and steelhead once returned to spawn in the Snake River and its tributaries each year. But according to Idaho Rivers United, ever since the construction of four hydropower dams, now only 50 to 60 percent of juvenile salmon survive after passing through the brutal systems of dams and reservoirs. Each one of the four dams on the Snake River poses a threat to salmon, making survival less and less likely as they navigate their way downstream. Salmon populations are rapidly declining because of these dams.
For individuals like Sammy Matsaw, cultural identities and connection with ancestral roots are at risk. In an interview with Greenfield in her article, “‘We Are the Same as the Salmon’: A Story of Suffering and Perseverance,” Matsaw speaks on the significance of Snake River salmon to members of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes like himself: “Salmon are our knowledge system, and they’re still teaching us today. But they are going extinct. It’s just heartbreaking….it’s not just an animal, it’s not just a fish. There’s a whole people and culture that can be lost.” For Indigenous communities, motivations for dam removal run deeper than salmon recovery. It’s about centering a living system of cultural identity, sovereignty, and
lifeways for Indigenous communities. We must not only be invested in the preservation of ecological life, but also the ecological and cultural identities of Indigenous communities who have knowledge and lived experiences to guide restoration of the Snake River Basin.
The era of hydropower, lasting from the 1920s to the 1980s, led to the construction of over 50,000 dams across the United States. Construction of the Columbia River Dams began in 1934, which led to a 50% decline in salmon populations (Idaho Rivers United). Despite the growing concern among biologists whether salmon populations could continue to thrive after the construction of more dams, four dams were constructed along the Snake River in the 60s and 70s. There now exists a total of four dams known as the Lower Snake River dams: Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose, and Lower Granite. Despite the initial drive to construct dams in the era of hydropower, they don’t produce a lot of energy. Lower Snake River Dams generate only a fraction of the power produced throughout the entire Columbia Basin region—around 4% (Idaho Rivers United). The dams’ ability to produce energy is reliant upon the flow of the river. Its flow is highest in the spring, when energy needs are the lowest, and during winter and summer when energy needs are highest, the river is at its lowest flow points. The Snake River dams once provided valuable services, but the benefits no longer outweigh the negative impacts.
The salmon’s life cycle is reliant on the free flow of rivers, and dams disrupt this natural cycle. Dams block access to spawning grounds, alter water temperatures, slow water currents, degrade water quality, and traumatize juvenile salmon. Passing through dams’ massive turbines and navigating slackwater reservoirs puts an immense amount of stress on juveniles. 10% of juveniles are lost at each dam, while many who make it past these hurdles experience delayed mortality and the sustained trauma kills them soon after their passage through the dams (Idaho Rivers United). In Kimbrough’s article, “Largest dam removal ever, driven by Tribes, kicks off
Klamath River recovery,” Ron Reed—a traditional Karuk fisherman in Oregon—recalls a stark decline in fish populations during his lifetime: “As I grew up, the fish catching down here became almost nonexistent. At some points I was catching maybe 100 fish in a year.” With the Karuk Tribe having more than 3,000 members at the time, Reed says it wasn’t nearly enough to sustain themselves: “The dams were like a blockage in the river’s arteries. They stopped the flow of life, not just for the fish, but for our people too” (Kimbrough).
Tribes have been watching the decline of salmon populations for over a century. The Northwest Power and Conservation Council reports that at least 106 runs across the Pacific Northwest have already gone extinct. Idaho’s Department of Fish and Game actively killed off fish to replace with sport fish anglers preferred, and salmon population decline accelerated after the construction of the four hydroelectric dams on the Snake River. “Every part of us has been erased from the landscape here, locally, just outside our window, on our reservation, just down the road, right outside our door,” Matsaw says. “We’re marginalized. We are a reflection of those fish; we, too, are going extinct” (Greenfield).
Advocates in states bordering Idaho have been resisting this threat of extinction. As of October 2024, the four lower hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River have been fully removed. This marks the largest dam removal in history. The Klamath River stretches 263 miles from Oregon to California and was once the third-largest salmon-producing river in the U.S., sustaining Tribes and the commercial fishing industry alike. Klamath’s hydroelectric dams were once seen as a promise of cheap electricity aiding the growth of the region. But these dams have come at a tremendous cost to the river’s ecosystems and communities dependent on it—particularly the Karuk, Yurok, Shasta, Klamath, and Modoc Tribes in the area. Since the
construction of six dams on the Klamath in the 1900s, Tribes lost access to their ancestral lands, their cultural sites flooded, and salmon populations plummeted.
After breaching the Klamath River dams, positive changes have already been observed: the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife reports that water temperatures are returning to normal and there is natural movement of sediment downstream—improvements necessary to sustain life in the river ecosystem. Fish biologists identified the first fall-run salmon in the Klamath Basin since 1912 the very same month of the final dam removal (Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife). These improvements are manifestation of how dam removal has been crucial to the restoration of the Klamath River’s ecosystem.
Four decades and roughly $18 billion have been dedicated to restoring salmon populations in the Snake River Basin, but they continue to decline. Salmon populations must have a ‘smolt-to-adult’ ratio (SAR) of 2-6% to recover; Idaho’s SAR is now merely 1%, placing them on the path to extinction (Idaho Rivers United). Idaho’s salmon will continue to die alongside the lifeways of Indigenous communities if action isn’t taken. Removing the four Lower Snake River dams can put a stop to this rapid loss and pave the way for restoration. On the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes’ website, Claudeo Broncho, Fish and Wildlife Policy Representative & Tribal Elder, says, “With the dams in place we have experienced impacts to our culture, spirituality, and our way of life. Removing the Lower Four Snake River dams will help restore our fisheries, protect our culture and create a better future for our Tribal membership.” The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes have been working for decades to restore the Snake River and its salmon runs. However, their concerns and efforts have continually been ignored in decision-making processes. Our current system’s refusal to center—let alone involve—the voices of the Shoshone-Bannock has resulted in the rapid decline of the liveways of
Indigenous communities connected to the salmon with whom they share their Snake River homelands. Removing the Lower Snake River dams will require confronting deeply entrenched systems of pain and neglect of Indigenous cultural identity, sovereignty, and lifeways.
The Lower Snake River dams no longer justify their economic, ecological, and social cost. The erasure of entire cultures is at risk, alongside the salmon populations supporting these communities’ lifeways. We must act with urgency and involve Tribes like the Shoshone-Bannock, centering their insights and lived experiences in restoration efforts. Idaho Rivers United advocates for duties to be turned over to the states and Tribes of the Columbia Basin, creating the Northwest State and Tribal Fish and Wildlife Council. The council would work closely with Federal Fish and Wildlife agencies and the Northwest Congressional delegation. A system of joint state and tribal management would then guide dam removal on the Snake River, ensuring culturally significant resources are protected under proceeding restoration efforts. In centering the voices of Tribes like the Shoshone-Bannock in our efforts, the path forward can be one of restoration for the Snake River Basin, salmon, and the cultural identities and lifeways of Indigenous communities.
Works Cited
“Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative.” Idaho Rivers United, https://www.idahorivers.org/cbi. Accessed May 2025.
“Extinction.” Northwest Power and Conservation Council, https://www.nwcouncil.org/reports/columbia-river-history/extinction/. Accessed May 2025.
“First salmon since 1912 spotted in Oregon’s Klamath Basin months after dam removal.” Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, 17 Oct. 2024, https://www.dfw.state.or.us/news/2024/10_Oct/101724.asp.
Greenfield, Nicole. “We Are the Same as the Salmon”: A Story of Suffering and Perseverance. NRDC, 17 Dec. 2020, www.nrdc.org/stories/we-are-same-salmon-story-suffering-and-perseverance.
Kimbrough, Liz. “Largest dam removal ever, driven by Tribes, kicks off Klamath River recovery.” Mongabay, 17 Oct. 2024, https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/largest-dam-removal-ever-driven-by-tribes-kicks-off-klamath-river-recovery/.
“The Lower Snake River Dams.” Idaho Rivers United, https://www.idahorivers.org/lsrd. Accessed May 2025.
“Save Idaho Salmon.” Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, https://www.sbtribes.com/saveidahosalmon. Accessed May 2025.