if you think about the way a river works
in a landscape it essentially functions
as the circulatory system it drains the
waste products off of the land and that
sediment is the stuff that basically
structures habitats in rivers and then
once it gets to the coast it builds
beaches it creates the offshore
environments that flow of material is
incredibly important technologically and
building dams disrupts that but there’s
another aspect rivers in terms of flow
back upstream that most people don’t
tend to think about and in the northwest
that’s greatly mediated by salmon
because when salmon leave their native
streams are little fish when they come
back a couple years later they’re huge
they put on like 90 percent 95 percent
of their body mass in the marine
environment and what that essentially
means is that a large fish run the kind
of fish runs we had historically in the
northwest
you can view as a nitrogen pump that’s
basically scavenging food out of the
oceans and bringing it back on land
feeds the bugs the trees and the forests
they feed the Eagles they feed the Bears
essentially fertilizing their own world
anything that blocks a river like a dam
does limit their access to part of the
world that they need to complete their
lifecycle
the four dams in the Snake River in the
upper reaches of the columbia basin or a
clear overshoot and they are in my
judgment largely responsible for the
destruction salmon runs but the weaves
to see all the way up into the Rocky
Mountains Idaho the Snake River Basin
holds today the largest intact remaining
set of pristine salmon habitat left in
the lower 48 we’re talking over five
thousand miles of stream habitat in
central Idaho alone if we took out the
four lower Snake River dams salmon and
steelhead would have access back into
all those areas there should not be four
dams on the lower Snake River choking
out the most important wildest salmon
refuge left 5,500 miles of high
elevation streams more resistance to
global warming than any other water shed
if the salmon runs were restored that
would be the jumping-off point to this
unbelievable wilderness Nexus that is
really one of the most beautiful places
in the world
temps change the habitat when you
disturb the habitat it can be
detrimental to the native fishes and
beneficial to non-native fishes the
river is no longer a river it’s a lake
and the lakes are full of predators that
liked nothing better than to eat a nice
young salmon smoked
the Pacific Northwest right now
according to The Oregonian newspaper
spends a billion dollars a year on
salmon recovery and they’re not getting
very much for it
there are study after study now that are
showing that hatcheries present on a
river reduce the survival of the wild
fish the primary purpose for these dams
always was transportation it was to make
Lewiston Idaho a seaport the only reason
it’s just slightly cheaper to send
weight down the river rather than
putting it on the railroad which runs
right along in the record is because of
the subsidies given the fiscal condition
in this country the budget issues now’s
the time simply to remove that subsidy
but and you’ll find the wheat growers
doing very well
a dam is a means to an end and we’ve got
it the other way around now we look at
them as in states they built they’re
there they’re going to stay there
forever
and their intent was to increase the
economic output of a region in the
country and so when they stop doing that
they’re no longer viable a lot of the
work that we’ve done on the economics
and cost shows that if you keep the dams
the national economy is losing at least
150 million dollars a year these four
dams are really expensive to operate in
a minute they diverge from that end
state that you’re after the other look
down is just it’s big we need another
tool here is it wind energy is it solar
panel it’s look at this as a means not
an end
the beautiful thing about salmon is that
if you look at their history they’re
incredibly resilient if you give them
half a chance they can come back
when you remove the dam and the river
becomes a river again the complexity
begins to reappear there’s a ripple
effect of restoration that moves all the
way through the river basin on Western
remove the lower Snake River dams is one
of the big jewels embedded in the holy
grail of salmon recovery this would be
the biggest watershed restoration in
North America not on earth if we did
this
it’s the largest possible salmon
recovery venture of which humanity is
capable would be simply the removal of
those four dams
you
in a landscape it essentially functions
as the circulatory system it drains the
waste products off of the land and that
sediment is the stuff that basically
structures habitats in rivers and then
once it gets to the coast it builds
beaches it creates the offshore
environments that flow of material is
incredibly important technologically and
building dams disrupts that but there’s
another aspect rivers in terms of flow
back upstream that most people don’t
tend to think about and in the northwest
that’s greatly mediated by salmon
because when salmon leave their native
streams are little fish when they come
back a couple years later they’re huge
they put on like 90 percent 95 percent
of their body mass in the marine
environment and what that essentially
means is that a large fish run the kind
of fish runs we had historically in the
northwest
you can view as a nitrogen pump that’s
basically scavenging food out of the
oceans and bringing it back on land
feeds the bugs the trees and the forests
they feed the Eagles they feed the Bears
essentially fertilizing their own world
anything that blocks a river like a dam
does limit their access to part of the
world that they need to complete their
lifecycle
the four dams in the Snake River in the
upper reaches of the columbia basin or a
clear overshoot and they are in my
judgment largely responsible for the
destruction salmon runs but the weaves
to see all the way up into the Rocky
Mountains Idaho the Snake River Basin
holds today the largest intact remaining
set of pristine salmon habitat left in
the lower 48 we’re talking over five
thousand miles of stream habitat in
central Idaho alone if we took out the
four lower Snake River dams salmon and
steelhead would have access back into
all those areas there should not be four
dams on the lower Snake River choking
out the most important wildest salmon
refuge left 5,500 miles of high
elevation streams more resistance to
global warming than any other water shed
if the salmon runs were restored that
would be the jumping-off point to this
unbelievable wilderness Nexus that is
really one of the most beautiful places
in the world
temps change the habitat when you
disturb the habitat it can be
detrimental to the native fishes and
beneficial to non-native fishes the
river is no longer a river it’s a lake
and the lakes are full of predators that
liked nothing better than to eat a nice
young salmon smoked
the Pacific Northwest right now
according to The Oregonian newspaper
spends a billion dollars a year on
salmon recovery and they’re not getting
very much for it
there are study after study now that are
showing that hatcheries present on a
river reduce the survival of the wild
fish the primary purpose for these dams
always was transportation it was to make
Lewiston Idaho a seaport the only reason
it’s just slightly cheaper to send
weight down the river rather than
putting it on the railroad which runs
right along in the record is because of
the subsidies given the fiscal condition
in this country the budget issues now’s
the time simply to remove that subsidy
but and you’ll find the wheat growers
doing very well
a dam is a means to an end and we’ve got
it the other way around now we look at
them as in states they built they’re
there they’re going to stay there
forever
and their intent was to increase the
economic output of a region in the
country and so when they stop doing that
they’re no longer viable a lot of the
work that we’ve done on the economics
and cost shows that if you keep the dams
the national economy is losing at least
150 million dollars a year these four
dams are really expensive to operate in
a minute they diverge from that end
state that you’re after the other look
down is just it’s big we need another
tool here is it wind energy is it solar
panel it’s look at this as a means not
an end
the beautiful thing about salmon is that
if you look at their history they’re
incredibly resilient if you give them
half a chance they can come back
when you remove the dam and the river
becomes a river again the complexity
begins to reappear there’s a ripple
effect of restoration that moves all the
way through the river basin on Western
remove the lower Snake River dams is one
of the big jewels embedded in the holy
grail of salmon recovery this would be
the biggest watershed restoration in
North America not on earth if we did
this
it’s the largest possible salmon
recovery venture of which humanity is
capable would be simply the removal of
those four dams
you
Please follow and like us: