On Tuesday, Just the News posted an article about the most recent efforts by the State of California to save the salmon.
The article reports:
“In my opinion, any salmon we’re producing this year are likely dead, and if they get to the main stem, they won’t be able to migrate out. I’m more concerned at this point with how do we rebuild the populations in those rivers,” Siskiyou County Supervisor Ray Haupt said.
Environmental groups are celebrating extensive efforts to remove dams across the United States, some of which produce carbon-free electricity. According to American Rivers, an anti-dam advocacy group, 65 dams were removed in 2022, and another 80 were removed in 2023.
Groups like American Rivers argue the dams are killing salmon and steelhead trout populations, encroaching on indigenous cultures, and harming water quality for people and wildlife.
The largest dam removal project in the history of the U.S. began on Northern California’s Klamath River last summer, with the removal of Copco No. 2, the first of four hydroelectric dams to be removed, also called “breaching” or “drawdowns.”
In January, the state began draining reservoirs behind the three remaining dams. The draining is not going well, especially for the fish the projects are supposed to be protecting.
Large amounts of salmon have been stranded on mud that is also trapping deer, Oregon Public Broadcasting reports. Officials are warning people not to try to walk through it, as it can be very dangerous. According to California Globe, a two mile sediment plume extends into the Pacific Ocean.
“We’ve been told we’re the experiment,” Siskiyou County Supervisor Ray Haupt told Just The News. “Eyes wide open. It’s coming to a neighborhood near you.”
The article also notes:
Another major dam-removal effort on the Snake River in Idaho took a major step forward recently with the signing of an agreement between the four Columbia River Basin tribes, the governors of Oregon and Washington, and the Biden administration.
While Congress would have to authorize the dams’ removal, Biden administration officials say that removing the dams would help boost “clean energy” and restore wild salmon populations, and the energy produced by those dams will be made up by “the build-out of at least one to three gigawatts of Tribally-sponsored renewable energy production.”
Why are some states removing dams that create clean energy, particularly when they are killing the wildlife they claim to be preserving in the process? I am willing to bet that at some point in the future these states will decide that they need these dams for energy and rebuild them at an exorbitant cost. Hopefully they will at least build them with fish ladders.