The Osprey: Last Chance to Save Olympic Peninsula Wild Winter Steelhead?
One of the four “Hs”, dams, even those whose purpose is not for hydropower, have bedeviled wild fish advocates conservation efforts for decades. While dams have certainly benefitted human societies over the centuries, they have also had significant — and sometimes devastating — effects on wild fish ranging from water quality and habitat degradation to the outright extermination of entire salmon and steelhead runs by blocking their historical migration routes.
For many years the idea that dams might be removed to benefit fish was considered out of the questions, even when cost-benefit analysis argued for taking them out. That has changed considerably, and in recent years we have seen a number of dams removed or breached on the Olympic Peninsula and White Salmon River in Washington State, as well as dams on the Sandy, Hood and Rogue rivers in Oregon, on the Carmel River in California and more. In addition, many small dams and diversion have been removed or retrofitted with fish passage facilities. According to American Rivers, 69 dams were removed last year in 23 states, reconnecting 624 miles of upstream habitat.
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE
• SIMPSON SNAKE RIVER DAMS REMOVAL PLAN
• FRASER RIVER CRITICAL ESTUARY HABITAT
• HATCHERIES AND FIRE PROPOSED CHEHALIS RIVER FLOOD CONTROL DAM REMOVE THE ENLOE DAM
And there is continued momentum in Pacific salmon and steelhead country. After some administrative and bureaucratic complications, plans to remove the four lower dams on the Klamath River in California and Oregon — Iron Gate, COPCO 1 and 2, and J.C. Boyle — is moving ahead. And particularly interesting is Congressman Mike Simpson’s (R-ID) plan to remove the four lower dams on the Snake River — a longtime goal of wild fish advocates struggling to save Idaho Chinook and sockeye salmon and summer steelhead from extinction. Although it has some controversial provisions that has some wild fish advocates concerned, the proposal is significant in that for the first time the idea of removing those lower Snake River dams is being seriously considered.
There are also lesser-known dams that need more scrutiny, such as the outdated Enloe Dam located in the US, but blocks salmon and steelhead passage into British Columbia. This is one The Osprey will be looking into in more detail in a future issue.
And of course, the idea of building new dams has not gone away. Witness a proposed flood control dam on Washington State’s Chehalis River conservationists are in the process of fighting.
Nevertheless, over the decades the concept of taking out dams has gone from a crazy idea to a reality, and we can expect to see more removals of problem dams for the benefit of wild fish in the future.