To Summit All Up

During a campaign swing through Washington state on Friday, Al Gore pledged that he would convene a salmon summit if elected president, bringing together all interested parties to help hammer out a solution to the crisis of declining salmon runs in the Northwest. But even as he tried to play up his green credentials, Gore refused to take a position on a proposal to breach four dams on the lower Snake River in southeastern Washington to help restore salmon runs. Gore did announce his support for an effort to use both federal money and private donations to purchase and preserve 75,000 acres of private forestland in the central Cascade Mountains of Washington state.