Dear Supporters,

Immediate dam breaching is not going to happen without further activism.  PLEASE PLAN TO RSVP & ATTEND The “Remaining 74” Assembly this Friday November 16th 2-5pm in Olympia to stand up for struggling Southern Resident Orcas before it’s too late.  Carpool Sign Up 

Since the last update, two key factors have come into play;

1)  Your 628,987 (and currently >668,000) signatures advocating for immediate dam breaching were presented to Washington’s Orca Task Force (OTF) on October 17th by Monika Wieland Shields (see 18m:49s)   Thank you…YOU DID THIS!

2)  This years’ final Orca Task Force meeting was held on November 6th.  Unfortunately, recommendations to be delivered to Washington’s Governor Inslee on November 16th will not include bold action to remove the four Lower Snake River dams. 

Ken Balcomb, Founder / Principal Investigator for the Center for Whale Research and Orca Task Force Member explains what happened: “Frankly, I am embarrassed for the conveners and participants of OTF who had to endure blatant and ill-informed political manipulation of a process launched with the good intention of doing something bold to help recover the Southern Resident Killer Whales. The laundry list of recommendations and the “bold” last minute introduction and passage of wording proposing a meaningless moratorium of a benign activity while skirting THE major problem for these whales - salmon population crashes throughout their range - is appalling. Honesty was crushed by politics and vested interests, even within agencies whose responsibility it is to manage natural resources sustainably. The whales are on their own in their downward spiral toward extinction along with the natural wild runs of Chinook salmon that we used to call “King”. To find the root causes of this devious manipulation, one has to simply follow the money - first look at the BPA Columbia Basin Fish accords for clues, and then look at the industries that have prevented and are preventing natural salmon recovery.”  Recommendation #9 relates to Snake River dams in this Guide to the latest available OTF draft.

This short video illustrates a small fraction of over half a million impassioned voices that support dam breaching. 

Thank you for making a difference!