David Neiwert
“The fight to decide what kind of humans we are going to be, what kind of world are we going to make? Are we gonna be empathetic, decent, kind generous people, or are we going to be cruel and greedy and mean? Or do we want to believe that we can continue to control the world as its lord and master? Or do we maybe need to understand that we are just part of the world and need to find a better way of fitting into it?”

“Killer whales are the consummate northwest environmental story.” 

“…how you deal with the alt-right… you can’t pretend them away.  You can’t ignore them away.” 

“To me the fight against Trump and against hate groups and against the far radical right is very much the same fight that I’m engaged with when it comes to saving the whales – which is the fight to decide what kind of humans we’re going to be. What kind of world are we going to make? Are we going to be empathetic, decent, kind generous human beings or are we going to be cruel and greedy and mean?”

“You can’t go out and change anybody’s hearts and minds to get them to become a more decent person by spewing hate and wishing death on others.” 

“They will go extinct if we don’t take those dams down.”

“They’re just the coolest animals on the planet”

“Public pressure really is  foundational for effect change, but at the same time I don’t think that, ya know can’t we multitask”

“The fight to decide what kind of humans we are going to be, what kind of world are we going to make? Are we gonna be empathetic, decent, kind generous people, or are we going to be cruel and greedy and mean? Or do we want to believe that we can continue to control the world as its lord and master? Or do we maybe need to understand that we are just part of the world and need to find a better way of fitting into it?”

Kelly Iriye
“Since the creation of the orca task force everyone says a lot of congratulations but nobody has decided to actually do anything.”

“If we had more food for the orcas then they’d be able to stay fat and happy and the toxicity wouldn’t enter their blood stream and they’d be fine.”

“[discussing Snake River dam] They are grossly overcharging for what the open market is because they have so much surplus power”

“We watched it get as high as -26 dollars which means we were paying California 26 dollars to take our power” 

“Even still we are watching the numbers not recover (in relation to salmon)”

“Because we’ve made reservoirs we’ve created an environment that favours the lake fish, and not the river fish and the salmon are river fish and their predators are lake fish”

“The guy that actually got to say this is what we’re gonna do, didn’t read the report and just said this is what we’re gonna do” 

“Since the creation of the orca task force everyone says a lot of congratulations but nobody has decided to actually do anything.”

“If they do anything besides dam breaching its gonna be too little, and at this point if they only do dam breaching it won’t be enough but if they don’t do dam breaching its not gonna work”

“But if there’s nothing to forage for they can have a full 24 hrs and still come up with nothing.”

Kelly Iriye, project coordinator for Damsense (@DAMSNSE) on how breaching the Snake River dams could help save the endangered southern resident orcas and why the arguments against damsense are nonsense. #FreeTheSnake

Skaana connects you to news and experts and their discussions about orcas, oceans and the environment.

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Kelly Iriye, Project Coordinator, Damsense

For more on this story

Kelly’s advice: YELL! Write a hand-written letter to elected officials, the BPA, the Army Corps of Engineers. Call them and give them your 2-cents. But always press the issue that breaching can begin in 2018 and there is no reason it shouldn’t! On our website, the Get Involved page:  we’ve links to all the documents you’d need to build your case and get the mailing address and phone numbers to the various stakeholders.

Snake River – Lower Granite Dam

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