WA Legislator Wants to Give Seattle What It Asks For

 

If you follow the Northwest news at all, you will be familiar with the story of the environmentalists behind the drive to remove dams on the Snake River to improve the habitat for endangered salmon. Nevermind that removal of those dams would also result in the loss of many megawatts of clean, carbon-free energy production for eastern Washington, and add thousands of trucks and rail cars to carry all the cargo that was previously carried on the river. Local agricultural and utility interests in eastern Washington have spoken with alarm about this proposal. Some economists have also come out against it, demonstrating that dam removal would have negative consequences for the entire region, even absent the enormous costs for removing the dams.

Now, a State Senator has proposed a bill in the legislature in Olympia, to essentially give the citizens of Seattle (who are so numerous and so Leftist that they essentially run the State) the kind of project that they are asking the citizens of the other half of the state to accept. Senate Bill 6380 would launch a study of breaching the Ballard Locks and removing the Seattle City Light Dams, to restore Seattle waterways to their pristine condition. It would also restore Lake Washington to its original condition, and remove Ravenna Creek from its sewer pipe back to the surface.

This is the Gorge Dam, one of those Seattle City Light-run dams that brings electricity to the Social Justice Warriors of Seattle.

The story above describes how the proposal would let the Skagit River run free as it did in the early 20th century. This story just made me smile, and I am interested in hearing how the Seattle contingent in the State Legislature responds to it. Tit-for-tat; you want to take eastern Washington back to the 19th century, maybe you should contemplate western Washington being returned to the 19th century.

Oh, and the Senator who proposed this bill is a Republican from Ferndale, a town in western Washington just south of the Canadian border. Thanks, Senator Ericksen!

Crossposted at RushBabe49.com.

Published in Environment
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There are 31 comments.

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  1. JoelB Member
    JoelB
    @JoelB

    Good and hard!

    • #1
  2. Al Sparks Coolidge
    Al Sparks
    @AlSparks

    Washington State is basically powered by hydro-electric.

    What gets me about environmentalists trying to move against these various dams, is most, if not all, of them are also climate change activists.

    So what are you going to replace this power with?  Lots more carbon?

    • #2
  3. Ray Kujawa Coolidge
    Ray Kujawa
    @RayKujawa

    Let the rivers run free. They were born free. Hydroelectric power is not classified as renewable energy by the environmentalists. The expanded shoreline revealed by lowering the level of Lake Washington will create opportunities for resettlement by members of the homeless underclass. Property values in Medina, Evergreen Point and Hunt’s Point will be adjusted by market forces more in the direction of normalcy.

    • #3
  4. JoelB Member
    JoelB
    @JoelB

    Ray Kujawa (View Comment):

    Let the rivers run free. They were born free. Hydroelectric power is not classified as renewable energy by the environmentalists. The expanded shoreline revealed by lowering the level of Lake Washington will create opportunities for resettlement by members of the homeless underclass. Property values in Medina, Evergreen Point and Hunt’s Point will be adjusted by market forces more in the direction of normalcy.

    But wait, all that water running freely to the ocean will raise the sea level – Oh the humanity!

    • #4
  5. Al Sparks Coolidge
    Al Sparks
    @AlSparks

    Ray Kujawa (View Comment):

    Let the rivers run free. They were born free. Hydroelectric power is not classified as renewable energy by the environmentalists. The expanded shoreline revealed by lowering the level of Lake Washington will create opportunities for resettlement by members of the homeless underclass. Property values in Medina, Evergreen Point and Hunt’s Point will be adjusted by market forces more in the direction of normalcy.

    Though electric bills will go up.  Will the formerly homeless be able to pay them?

    • #5
  6. MichaelKennedy Inactive
    MichaelKennedy
    @MichaelKennedy

    When I was in the eastern part of Washington about 1959, there was a semi-serious effort for eastern WA to secede and become the state of Lincoln. Washington in those days was interesting. It was mostly a blue state with blue laws such as all bars had to close at midnight Saturday, no woman could be in a bar. There were low walls between bars and seating areas where women could be.  No one could stand at a bar.  All had to be seated.  There had been a serious movement to make the sate a dry state, which was averted by a liquor industry  sponsored initiative that made all liquor sales in state stores with the profits going to the UW medical school.

    That was when Boeing was the biggest employer and still made planes that didn’t crash.

    • #6
  7. Slow on the uptake Coolidge
    Slow on the uptake
    @Chuckles

    Al Sparks (View Comment):

    Washington State is basically powered by hydro-electric.

    What gets me about environmentalists trying to move against these various dams, is most, if not all, of them are also climate change activists.

    So what are you going to replace this power with? Lots more carbon?

    State contender for Darwin Award.

    • #7
  8. MichaelKennedy Inactive
    MichaelKennedy
    @MichaelKennedy

    Slow on the uptake (View Comment):
    So what are you going to replace this power with? Lots more carbon?

    They have no idea.  For years the Sierra Club agenda was to blow up the dam at the Hetch Hetchy reservoir.  That reservoir supplies San Francisco’s drinking water.  VD Hansen has a story on his great talk on California history about mentioning this to a Stanford professor.  He had no idea where SFO’s water comes from. It might as well be “The Tap.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgmR_5Hi2fw

    That is a terrific talk.

    • #8
  9. RushBabe49 Thatcher
    RushBabe49
    @RushBabe49

    I do hope everyone realizes that the good Senator’s bill is not serious, even if we would like it to be. Leftists have no sense of humor, but we do. 

    • #9
  10. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    RushBabe49 (View Comment):

    I do hope everyone realizes that the good Senator’s bill is not serious, even if we would like it to be. Leftists have no sense of humor, but we do.

    At one time nobody thought Trump was a serious candidate. For all I know, he didn’t take his own candidacy seriously until he did.

    • #10
  11. JimGoneWild Coolidge
    JimGoneWild
    @JimGoneWild

    Blow the dam and divert the water right through Seattle. That will clean up the mess.

    • #11
  12. JimGoneWild Coolidge
    JimGoneWild
    @JimGoneWild

    I think Mr. Mongo, @bossmongo, knows explosives.

    • #12
  13. E. Kent Golding Moderator
    E. Kent Golding
    @EKentGolding

    All power generation has some unwanted consequences.  Coal, Solar, Wind, Fission,  Hydroelectric.   When fusion is developed,  there will be an unwanted consequence–curious what it will be.      If you remove the dams, the ecology will change, but not back to what it was before the dams.    Those ecosystems are gone.     

    • #13
  14. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    It’s tempting to say, “Give ’em what they want” just to prove their idiocy.  However, the Eco-warriors will never learn the lesson, and hundreds of thousands of real people will get hurt in the attempt.

    • #14
  15. Spin Inactive
    Spin
    @Spin

    RushBabe49: Thanks, Senator Ericksen!

    I know that guy.  

    • #15
  16. Spin Inactive
    Spin
    @Spin

    “I’m sure we could design an impartial study to reach the conclusions we want,” Ericksen said. “Lake Washington property owners might be inconvenienced when the water starts rising. Others might not like it when electricity bills skyrocket. But as they say in Seattle, no sacrifice is too great for somebody else to make.

    • #16
  17. Spin Inactive
    Spin
    @Spin

    Stad (View Comment):

    It’s tempting to say, “Give ’em what they want” just to prove their idiocy. However, the Eco-warriors will never learn the lesson, and hundreds of thousands of real people will get hurt in the attempt.

    I get what you are saying, but all joking aside, the pacific northwest cannot afford to allow any of this to happen.  It isn’t just the Snake river, they’ve been trying to breach the dams on the Columbia for decades.  The electrical generation is critical, but it is secondary on the Columbia.  The critical role of those dams is bringing water to the center of the state for agriculture.  That all dies and goes away if you breach the dams.  

    • #17
  18. MichaelKennedy Inactive
    MichaelKennedy
    @MichaelKennedy

    Spin (View Comment):
    The electrical generation is critical, but it is secondary on the Columbia. The critical role of those dams is bringing water to the center of the state for agriculture. That all dies and goes away if you breach the dams.

    Sort of like California.  Much of it has gone.

    • #18
  19. Spin Inactive
    Spin
    @Spin

    Here is a photo of Doug Erickson shaking hands with DJT, when then candidate Trump came to our little town of Lydnen, WA.  On that ocassion, I should have known.  The left were out in force to block Trump’s visit.  Even chaining themselves to bridges.  There are two main highways that come in to Lynden from Bellingham to the south.  They blocked the roads, brought signs, etc.  Trump fooled them all by going around and coming in from the east.  

    • #19
  20. RushBabe49 Thatcher
    RushBabe49
    @RushBabe49

    Spin (View Comment):

    RushBabe49: Thanks, Senator Ericksen!

    I know that guy.

    I wondered where you were!  I figured this article was for you!  I just laughed out loud, and hoped that the people at whom it was aimed actually took it seriously.

    • #20
  21. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Point out that the price of electricity will skyrocket, that electricity consumption is the number one cost driver of marijuana cultivation, and therefore the cost of marijuana will skyrocket too. 

    • #21
  22. MichaelKennedy Inactive
    MichaelKennedy
    @MichaelKennedy

    Spin (View Comment):

    Here is a photo of Doug Erickson shaking hands with DJT, when then candidate Trump came to our little town of Lydnen, WA. On that ocassion, I should have known. The left were out in force to block Trump’s visit. Even chaining themselves to bridges. There are two main highways that come in to Lynden from Bellingham to the south. They blocked the roads, brought signs, etc. Trump fooled them all by going around and coming in from the east.

    I just had a brief exchange on Althouse where two of her commenters are absolutely going insane about Trump and his alleged “crimes.”  Why does he drive these people so crazy ?  It is just amazing.  Big players, like Biden and Pelosi who have had things pretty much their own way with major graft, are understandable.  There is big money involved.  How much of the aid to Ukraine, for example, has made a round trip to the DC swamp?  How much has China paid to keep politicians of both parties sweet as they destroy our industrial infra structure ?  I trust Mitch McConnell slightly more than I trust Schumer but not much.

    My question is why the little people, the ones who post on facebook, and who chain themselves to bridges, or make wild accusations in Kavanaugh hearings, do this ?  Politics is not your whole life unless you are a professional protestor like the ones in the parades in DC.  Even those people have an income from their antics.  Why the crazies on Facebook?

    • #22
  23. The Scarecrow Thatcher
    The Scarecrow
    @TheScarecrow

    JimGoneWild (View Comment):

    Blow the dam and divert the water right through Seattle. That will clean up the mess.

    Maybe they could do something like this in San Francisco too? It worked for Hercules.

    • #23
  24. CarolJoy, Above Top Secret Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret
    @CarolJoy

    Here in Calif, the same sorts of ridiculous proposals surface from time to time. Often they involve the Hetch hetchy reservoir, which supplies much of the water used for drinking, bathing, and every day uses to most of the San Francisco bay area. (As well as many other places in California.)

    I’d be inclined to support such measures, providing that every person who votes for such things also agrees to go back to whatever country of the world their forefathers came from, as well as agreeing to live the life of subsistence hunter gatherers, like those who lived in places where rivers flowed free and wild before civilized society entered the picture.

    If you wanna to talk  the talk, you should be willing to walk the talk.

     

    • #24
  25. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    This points up a big difference between the old-fashioned Leftists and our current “Progressives”.  The Left in the 1920s-1940 virtually worshipped dams, both in New Deal America and in the Soviet Union. Today’s Progs want to tear them down.

    Woody Guthrie

    • #25
  26. CarolJoy, Above Top Secret Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret
    @CarolJoy

    Spin (View Comment):

    Here is a photo of Doug Erickson shaking hands with DJT, when then candidate Trump came to our little town of Lydnen, WA. On that ocassion, I should have known. The left were out in force to block Trump’s visit. Even chaining themselves to bridges. There are two main highways that come in to Lynden from Bellingham to the south. They blocked the roads, brought signs, etc. Trump fooled them all by going around and coming in from the east.

    I respect the rights of people to protest whatever they wish to in our free society.

    However there should be no tolerance for people blocking roads. No matter what community you live in, if a major thoroughfare is blocked off, and there is a sudden need for  emergency help for stroke victims and/or kids injured, then help for those patients facing such traumas might be delayed.

    Even large scale metropolis areas like San Francisco often have only a handful of neurology and brain specialists who have the adequate sleep required to show up for unexpected emergencies. For such a person to have to sit in traffic knowing a vulnerable patient might die as a result certainly must be  among the worst things trauma specialists face as their fellow citizens exercise their “First Amendment rights.”

    • #26
  27. Terry Mott Member
    Terry Mott
    @TerryMott

    Stad (View Comment):

    It’s tempting to say, “Give ’em what they want” just to prove their idiocy. However, the Eco-warriors will never learn the lesson, and hundreds of thousands of real people will get hurt in the attempt.

    I suspect that the vast majority of those hundreds of thousands of real people reliably vote for leftist lunacy.  My sympathy is reserved for the small minority of sensible people who are stuck there through no fault of their own.  The rest can luxuriate in the hair shirt of their own making as far as I’m concerned.

    • #27
  28. Phil Turmel Inactive
    Phil Turmel
    @PhilTurmel

    Instalanche!

    Welcome, Istapundit readers!  Ricochet is a place for civil conversation across the whole spectrum of right-wing thought.  If you like what you read here, consider becoming a member.

    • #28
  29. tigerlily Member
    tigerlily
    @tigerlily

    Phil Turmel (View Comment):

    Instalanche!

    Welcome, Istapundit readers! Ricochet is a place for civil conversation across the whole spectrum of right-wing thought. If you like what you read here, consider becoming a member.

    Here’s the link.

    • #29
  30. Spin Inactive
    Spin
    @Spin

    MichaelKennedy (View Comment):
    Why the crazies on Facebook?

    Because they don’t have to be responsible for anything they put on Facebook.  

    • #30
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