The Bonneville Power Administration and the Bush administration have released their new salmon protection plan for the Snake and Columbia Rivers, and salmon conservationists are hoping that a federal judge gives the plan the hook.

Why? Well, BPA and NOAA have released adequate plans to help boost salmon spawning and survival in tributaries of the two main rivers, but fail to address the four major dams that represent the major challenge to salmon survival in the region. According to the NOAA Fisheries Service, those dam's turbines and spillways - and their associated reservoirs, in which salmon become disoriented and are easily preyed upon - have the greatest impact on salmon populations. By refusing to consider the decommissioning of these dams, fisheries scientists and fishermen contend that the government really proposes to do nothing at all.

The plans come in the form of "biological opinions", which will be considered by U.S. District Judge James Redden. He, then, will ascertain whether they adequately address the problem. In this case, the law(man) may be on the side of the salmon; he has repeatedly rejected biological opinions before, and he has threatened to turn the decision-making over to an independent panel of experts if this one doesn't cut the mustard. Let's hope he does.

Many of these dams, originally build by the Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation in the dam-building go-go years between the 1930s and 1980s, are not economically sensible. The Corps and Bureau became notorious for their legacy of over-promising and under-delivering, and for valuing engineering can-do and dubious promises of cheap power and flood protection over economic viability and ecological responsibility. It's too late to un-spend the squandered tax money, but maybe it's time to reconsider that ecological protection bit. Or are we really prepared to cause the collapse of an important fishery, and the decline into threatened status of an important marine predator, for the sake of a few egos and cheap power?