As environmentalists push for more dam breaks, fallout from largest US dam removal continues

Activists against the dam are gaining significant popularity. According to the group of activists American rivers, In 2023, 80 dams were removedwhich was up with 65 last year.

Among the dams removed this year were four dams along the Klamath River, a 257-mile river in southern Oregon and northern California that underwent the largest dam removal project in U.S. history. Removal created a sediment plume which extended two miles into the Pacific Ocean, reportedly killing large numbers of fish in the river and affecting other wildlife in the area.

This was announced by Siskiyou County Executive Ray Haupt Just News that such influences continue to persist. Initial reports of the fish are “pretty low numbers,” but this year’s population numbers won’t be known for another month.

The Snake River

The Biden-Harris administration last year entered into an agreement with the plaintiffs who are suing for the removal of four dams on the Zmiinii River. Critics say there were negotiations is carried out without the full participation of the public stakeholders, and he seeks to provide a political pathway to break the dams.

In September This is reported by the Ministry of Energy it launched a study to investigate how to “replace the power and services provided by the four Lower Snake River dams if Congress authorizes removal.”

There are more than 400 dams in the Columbia River Basin, and more than half of them generate hydroelectric power. With all the hydroelectric power in the Pacific Northwest, Washington State has the lowest electricity rates in the district. Four dams on the Snake River provide 3,000 megawatts of baseline carbon-free electricity, but the Biden-Harris administration deal explores how to replace all of that intermittent and expensive wind and sun.

Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives, the statement says to the study that the association “will be very aggressive in protecting the dams.”

Salmon

One of the main incentives for crime advocates is to protect salmon. Todd Myers, vice president for research at the Washington Policy Center, writes thatdespite the forecasts of ecologists, the salmon of the Zmiina River will disappear by 2017population is recovering. In 2022, salmon returns, when fish return from the ocean to their ancestral streams to spawn, increased by 36% compared to the 10-year average. This is twice as much as in 2021.

One reason for the improvement is that dams incorporate technologies that including fish ladderswhich allow salmon to pass the dam. The stairs became elegant. While the weir spans the entire channel, the ladder has ways of attracting fish to it with sounds. The ladder also breaks up the overall height into sections that the fish can climb.

Despite technological advances in dam construction and the value of hydroelectric power, many environmentalists want to see more dam breaks. Haupt, of California’s Siskiyou County, said dam removal work on the Klamath River is complete and contractors will stop work by the end of the year.

“The river is still pretty murky,” Haupt said. He also said that several reports of the fish are showing low numbers, but it will be another month before they know more about what is happening to them.

“The big question — and I don’t know the answer to it — is whether or not fish migration is delayed, or whether we’re at the end of the period when they usually come in and we’re just not seeing very many fish,” Haupt said.

Sockeye salmon are usually the first fish to catch, he said, and numbers are low for this time of year compared to historical numbers. Coho usually of the second wave.

“They should be there, but we didn’t see them,” Haupt said.

Other influences

In addition to the possible impact on fish populations, the removal of dams should not have helped, contractor work has also torn up county roads, many residents’ wells in the area are not working, and there is evidence of land subsidence as a result of sediment drying around Copco Lake.

One rest area along Interstate 5 had to close. Water for the facility is drawn directly from the Klamath River and cannot provide potable water for motorists.

Haupt said it’s likely the river will return to normal at some point with changes such as draining Kopko Lake. However, he said protecting salmon populations by removing the dam is short-sighted and doesn’t take into account water use issues, the state of the ocean, predation issues and overfishing by foreign entities, all of which affect salmon populations.

“They think removing the dams on the West Coast will solve the salmon problem, but it’s a comprehensive problem that needs to be looked at comprehensively. But it was just something that was easy to do,” Haupt said.