How to save our wild salmon? Hundreds of high-profile foodies from around the country are in Washington, DC, this week lobbying for legislation that would protect the fish and restore sustainable wild salmon fisheries. Trouble is, they're running into Doc Hastings, the crusty congressman from Washington's 4th District.
The fishermen and their allies want to breach four dams on the Snake River to let the wild salmon swim upstream unharmed by power turbines. Hastings--whose constituents include ag interests that depend on irrigation from those dams--argues that breaching the dams wouldn't work.
Can see the divide forming already. Fish on the left, crops on the right.
Hastings, who chaired the House Ethics Committee when Republicans were in the majority, has lots of practice hewing to the party line, which is pretty clear: the Bush administration is going to do as little as possible to support the endangered salmon runs. Can there be a compromise? Can't we update the old song from Oklahoma: "Oh, the farmer and the salmon should be friends!"
And while we're on the subject of wild salmon, Charles Ramseyer's restaurant by that name has opened in New York to some strong reviews.
