06/02/05 Snake River hearing set for Monday

A US House subcommittee will conduct a field hearing next Monday in Clarkston, Washington with a theme of keeping the Columbia/Snake a working river. Congressman Butch Otter will attend that hearing which will focus on the economic, cultural and natural activities that make the river system what it is. Otter says the Snake River needs to be dredged to maintain navigation channels. OTTER "If we can get a draft to 15 feet on that river, which is where we should be and frankly it's the same people that are saying well Potlatch is shutting down and they have other methods to get their stuff to market and we really don't need the river for Potlatch, so we don't need the river. Those are the same people that are fighting our dredging." Otter says opponents of Snake River dredging have a bigger goal in mind. OTTER "Once they say we no longer need it for transportation then we can just go ahead and tear out the dams. That's at least in my estimation that's where the bulk of that rhetoric is coming from, those people really whose ultimate goal is to remove the dams on the lower Snake." The hearing on Monday begins at 930 am in Clarkston, just across the Snake River from Lewiston. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott