He omitted the main factor in the owners deciding to remove the dams…upgrades to bring them to code and full functionality would cost more than the dams could ever return in power generation. When the state agreed to take over the (I think around $200 million) cost of removal, they jumped at the idea. I disagree with this subsidy of a private company. They made the profits from the dams, they should bear the cost of their removal and remediation, not taxpayers.
Hold on - you brought up the "bring them up the code" issue. Those codes were implemented spesificlly for these dams and were coercive in nature. PacificCorps was basically blackmailed into decommissioning these dams, just like with Condit Dam on the White Salmon.
@@ArmchairEngineer Your evidence? Not only does that sound completely insane, I have never heard a scintilla of evidence supporting that and have seen tons disputing it. Working fish ladder regulations were not implemented just for these dams, they are national law. To build fish ladders up to code (and other smaller necessary improvements)would cost far more than they could ever recover with generation even assuming no more upkeep costs ever.
That is simply not true. There is no "national fish ladder" law. All fish passage has been managed on a case-by-case basis with many dams - big and small - choosing to ignore it altogether. Several states are attempting to pass these sorts of codes, but are running into difficulty implementing them on federally-controlled waters or streams that border other states. Can you show me a link to this "national fish ladder regulation" you refer to?
@@ArmchairEngineer it is called “The National Fish Passage Program” California also requires them on any dam that blocks fish passage to spawning grounds and has since the 1800’s.
@@theoriginalnewtboy I think that's just a 'program' i.e. a agency funded effort to support and improve fish passages on dams and I don't think USFWS was the main concern. It's not a regulation. The primary regulations relating to fish passages on dams are implemented under licensing/permitting of these facilities. These regulatory powers originate from the Federal Power Act (FPA). FERC (a federal agency) issues the primary license/permit. FERC must seek approval from NOAA (a separate federal agency tasked with managing anadromous fishes, among many other responsibilities) before FERC can issue or renew a permit. Furthermore, NOAA have powers directly under the FPA and indirectly through the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for some of these fishes because they are 'listed' as either 'endangered' or 'threatened' with extinction under the ESA. So both of you are wrong - there are regulations, not 'code' (which is a term typically used to refer to local government planning law, not federal regulations). But those regulations are not specific to these dams - all dams are regulated under the same laws and standards. However, every dam will have a similar but different solution and the costs for implementing will depend on the circumstances of the dam. So maybe there are some dams that are cost effective to implement the rules and other dams that are not. In practice, a relatively small number of regulatory staff will have most of the power to shape the precise requirements of a permit, but they need to be 'reasonable' i.e. meet with both precedent and the regulations and any guidance associated with those regulations, otherwise they won't stand up to legal challenge (and regulatory staff are not in the business of writing permits that can't be defended if challenged in court - not least because they'd quickly loose their jobs, but also because in general they are far more reasonable than people give them credit for when they are on the receiving end of a regulatory consultation!).
Most of the anadromous fish that spawn in the Klamath system, spawn in the tributaries to the Klamath. The major tribs are the Shasta, the Scott, the Salmon river and the Trinity river. Most of the mainstem Klamath is used by salmon and steelhead to migrate to the tribs (by adult upstream migrants) and back to the Pacific Ocean by juvenile out migrant salmon. The main reason the dams were removed was because of what they were doing to water quality. The Klamath basin has naturally high concentrations of phosphorus. That makes it ideal for growing some crops, but is not so good for the fish. Much of the irrigation water that runs off the fields picks up nitrogen and other fertilizers, and a lot of cow feces. All of this combined makes the Klamath River coming out of Klamath lake extremely high in nutrients. The salmonids that live in the Klamath are right on the edge of being able to survive in this warm, low Disolved Oxygen super nutrient rich water. When the dams were built between 1918 & 1962, people didn't know, or seemingly care that much about salmon and steelhead, so they designed and built shallow reservoirs that drew water off the top (surface of the reservoirs) for the intakes of the penstock that drives the turbines. Of course that meant that as the Klamath flowed into each of the dammed up reservoirs, it would slow down and heat up. It did this at JC Boyle, then Copco, and again at Irongate reservoir. So you can imagine what the water was like after it had all the fertilizer added and then sat in three shallow reservoirs. 🤮 When adult salmon enter the river in late summer and fall, the river is warm and full of nutrients. The adult salmon have to navigate low flows, and sometimes hold and wait for irrigation along the tributaries to stop so there is enough water to swim upstream and spawn. Sometimes the river is so bad that it has huge disease and parasite outbreaks. This is what has killed the most fish. Keno Dam is still in place only 9 miles above (upstream) of the former JC Boyle dam. Even though it has adequate fish ladders that work relatively well, it backs up a huge chunk of the river all the way to Klamath Falls. The problem there is that even if adult salmon were to get above all that slack, swampy water to spawn, it's doubtful the out migrating juveniles could make it back down through the 20 miles of muck Keno Dam creates. Removing the four dams near the border will benefit the river tremendously. We will see significant increases in salmon numbers over the next 20 years, and hopefully the farmers and ranchers in the Klamath basin will start doing a better, more efficient job at irrigation and keeping fertilizers out of the Klamath. The Klamath was the third biggest salmon producer on the west coast before those dams were built, and has the potential to be one of the best again.
Good analysis! Yes, there is plenty of upside for the ecology of the Klamath River. Let's hope that management of the basin is strong and that the outcomes are worth the price.
I mostly agree. I just don’t understand who started this third biggest chinook producer on the West Coast meme. It has to be someone who doesn’t get around much. I’d encourage you to travel north, and visit the Fraser and the Skeena. The Klamath was the fifth biggest chinook producer.
Have the fish ever considered…*not* swimming up rivers into tributaries to lay eggs that then hatch whereupon the hatchlings have to swim downstream again? 🤷♂️
"We will see significant increases in salmon over the next 20 years" I want desire and long for you to be correct, but if the Rogue River recovery is any indication of your claim, then your statement is fantastically false. The Rogue is 16years post damn removal and there has been ZERO salmon recovery. ZERO!!!
A good friend of ours who worked in the EPA was instrumental in the dam removal and restoration projects. Sadly, she passed away recently and didn’t get to see the fruits of her hard work.
Hasn't all the electricity from these dams already been replaced? Didn't the Klamath dams provide ~2% of the energy used in the surrounding communities?
Yes and no. PacificCorps doesn't need to replace the power entirely: they can choose to sell less power because of the interconnected grid. Also, wind and solar are not equivalent power sources, so it is hard to map out exactly where the replacement power will come from.
Not when they were built. Don’t hate the people who built these dams they had good intentions I not sure I can say that about the people who took them out.
@@JimFarmer-l3n Take your own advice. You really have no idea what anyone's intention was back then. None of them are with us now. For all we know it was for profit and greed. How did pacific Corp get the job to run the dams? Slick maneuvering? Probably? Few regs way back then. If you had money you push could most anything through. I love this project. I feel that it is worth the money spent. Restoration projects are important.
@@ArmchairEngineer They got photos and a video of one of the salmon they confirmed they spotted running up here in Oregon. So it is factual. And apparently the Keno dam has decent fish ladders, whereas the other dams blow it did not.
Reports are true even from locals. Salmon seen as far north as Spencer Creek above former JC Boyle Dam. Keno Dam does have a fish ladder but the ladder wasn’t designed for salmon. Oregon “ODFW” is looking at rebuilding Keno Dam Ladder in years ahead. The Klamath Dam Removals is already spurring Columbia and Snake River Tribes to remove Lower Snake River Dams and Hells Canyon Complex Dams because of cold water trapped behind dams from other cold water tributaries.
The river isn’t naturally low on oxygen because of Klamath lake. Klamath lake is naturally eutrophic but none of the other reservoirs were natural at all and blooms large amounts of microcystis. Additionally your analysis neglects to consider that the other dams restricted the access of tributaries that are spring fed and represent a constant flux of cool temperature stable water. These tributaries start right above iron gate. Your analysis also doesn’t consider the dams creating habitat that allowed C. Shasta to explode below iron gate. Your snake river analysis is so simplistic it’s hard to begin. Yes some fish can pass but passage is difficult, often through warm water, and often fatal. Breaching the snake dams as a method of fish population restoration has been studied and supported by NMFS back to the 90s until present. The evidence is supported by life cycle survival models conducted under various river scenarios. The evidence of delayed hydrostatic mortality on salmon is empirical in fish biologist communities. There is an argument to be made that the snake dams benefits are far greater than the elwha and Klamath and that is true. To say it wouldn’t benefit the fisheries is disingenuous and not science based.
So, in other words, the Klamath reservoirs took a naturally eutrophic river and made it worse. The issues you cite on the Lower Snake are full of politically driven conclusions. There is no evidence that only "some fish can pass." The dams are more or less transparent to fish passage, both upstream and downstream. What isn't transparent are the reservoirs themselves, which you correctly claim are often too warm. The data that is conveniently left out is how warm the Snake River water is BEFORE it reaches the LSRDs. The entire state of Idaho is warming the Snake through its ag practices and the Hells Canyon Complex of dams, but everyone wants to blame the dams in Washington. The NOAA report is a clear case of weaponizing federal agencies. The USACE is forbidden from publishing the data that supports the dams' effectiveness, yet NOAA is allowed to make wildly political claims with sweeping consequences from a forgone conclusion. This inconsistency needs to be called out for the corrupt use of government funding that it is.
I grew up in Southern Oregon. Yes, Upper Klamath Lake has natural algae blooms and warms river. With removal of dams there are spring fed creeks that are now cooling Klamath River (Jenny Creek, Fall Creek, Beaver Creek, Shovel Creek, Spencer Creek). Reports on ground at former Iron Gate Dam now Iron Gate Canyon confirm Klamath River has cooler water temps. Salmon are returning above dam sites as well in dozens and perhaps in low hundreds from local reports. Tribes on Columbia and Snake Rivers are already gearing up to advocate and push for Snake River Dam removals. Tribes are em-powered over Klamath Dam Removals. Mark my words a huge fight is coming over Lower Snake River Dams and possibly removal of Hells Canyon Dams because of cooler water and spring fed tributaries.
@@ArmchairEngineer I work for the government and I highly highly doubt any agency is not allowed to publish data. BOR publishes data that has suspect modelling that magically always have results that suggest "fish need less water". I don't accept your characterization that NMFS data is political. I could just say ACE data is political then. There is a clear profit motive to sell water to ag. I've interacted with these water agencies and I would describe their fish work as dubious at best and downright nefarious at worst. If you want to crack down on government corruption, tell BOR to stop constantly paying private contractors to create poorly made models that always push blame away from water consumption.
There is footage of salmon in Spencer creek where former John c Boyle reservoir. The salmon have no problem getting up into Oregon into former spawning habitat.
Also water that is rushing and turning over generates a lot of Oxogen. It’s still water that doesn’t generate a lot of oxogen also moving water releases heat more efficiently which in turn cools the water.
Informative thank you. Have been following the Project from New Zealand. Can salmon access the Klamath lake naturally or via a fish ladder. Hard to find any info on the Klamath Lake outflow....
Reports are coming in from CDFW and ODFW that salmon are making it past all dams and spawning in many of tributaries. Im skeptical of what government is saying so can any locals verify if salmon have made it past the dams?
Best briefing on this topic I’ve seen. Appreciate the logical explanation as well as the included sources. Looking forward to seeing this environment recover. It’ll be interesting to see what further mitigation will be required. PS - looking on the other news reports on this topic, they are woefully inadequate. PS2 - wonder what the final cost will be compared to the estimated cost of removal? PS3 - appreciate the inconsistency you pointed out regarding the Lower Snake River dam comparison
Thanks for watching! I agree, there appears to be a lack of follow through on the pollution mitigation as a result of the deconstruction. fortunately, most of the pollution in the water should clear in a year's time.
Great work showing both sides of the argument with nuance, thank you. While I am alright with the dams coming out, the environmental benefits are equally nuanced and I think many envrionmental groups are overselling it as well. If you break it down by species - it's less impressive. Spring run chinook and summer steelhead are essentially getting access to no new suitable tributaries (because the new tribs are low gradient, not fed by snow melt) and are doing terrible even when their tributaries have little main-channel Klamath influence, so the fish in the existing tribs will do marginally better, at best. Coho are getting access to new tributaries, so their numbers should see a solid bump. Fall chinook and steelhead will see a bump, but are not threatened. So really only one of three threatened species are benefiting.
It's a tricky cost/benefit situation, for sure. I have no doubt that the salmon runs WILL improve once the water quality clears up. But anyone who thinks dam removal is a silver bullet to species recovery is kidding themselves. There are many more factors not being considered, and the loss of clean energy will be felt across the region. I'm hoping for the best!
@thems_the_brakes Threatened or not, the entire ecosystem will befit from the dams being removed. Fish runs will increase. The banks of the old lakebed are already greening up and are producing wildflowers. Next year will have even more flowers more vegetation. The wildlife will increase as food sources increase. The tributaries will definitely benefit as well. Improved passage for fish gets them from the ocean to their spawning beds much faster. Largely increasing their mortality rate. This fall for most Northwest rivers has had a very strong chinook run. I hope they are in the lower Klamath right now. It has been a good water year. Most of the rivers are still high enough that the fall chinook are shooting right through. Not having to sit in the river waiting for a storm to raise the water high enough to enter the feeder streams. The fishes I saw on Tuesday this week were nice and bright. Did not see one spawner that had turned dark.
The Native recorded history proves originally, before the dams, the Salmon were thick and abundant up here into Oregon in the Klamath basin. The dams went in, and runs died out in kind with haste. The only reason why the last 60-100 years of history the main Salmon runs and spawning habitats exist in the Siskyous/Coast Range is because of these dams. Just because that became the norm does not mean that is how it would be and is in it's natural, unimpeded state. Something you omitted was the fact that the power company who built and owned these dams pointed out how they produced minimal power at max anyway, so the loss would have a negligible impact. That's on top of the fact they were far too expensive to justify repairs or rebuilds. The immediate results of seeing the very first salmon run into Oregon is clear proof in itself that Salmon, even without having had lived or been born anywhere close to these locations north of the dams for hundreds of generations, still know, remember and naturally desire returning to their ancestral spawning grounds. It proves why the belief that almost all salmon only want to run and spawn into the coast range is pure fiction. The moment the way was opened, they returned. And to assert that in order to be truly supportive of the environment, one must support and push for preservation and even adding more hydroelectric dams is entirely wrong, and rather insulting. Our electricity is not worth damaging and potentially killing off our own native fish like salmon. Any self-respecting environmentalist wouldn't hesitate to stand against dam removals and building more, as we know full and well the trade offs are not acceptable, and it does far worse damage long term to have them than it does to prevent them.
Whew, that's a massive jump! The four dams on the Klamath more or less ONLY generated power. They didn't store much irrigation water, did very little flood control, and weren't much of a factor for recreation. The Shasta / Trinity / Whiskeytown combo is part of a MASSIVE system of water storage for the express purpose of irrigating farmland. Literally millions of acres of agriculture would be affected if those dams ceased to exist. And then on top of that, you would lose a decent amount of clean, reliable hydropower. The state water project is on a whole different level than the Middle Klamath Dams.
@@ArmchairEngineer You broke that down so well about the Klamath I thought I'd jump over to what I'm always complaining about . The Salmon River in upstate NY has Chinook, steelhead, and Coho that always seemed healthy and abundant. The amount of excuses from these Gov agencies are always changing Since moving to Shasta . I did believe they had things more dialed in out here . And honestly I though the farther up the Klamath maybe near a removed dam would be a good place to prospect for a new gold claim . After the water current eats through all that overburden I can just scoop them gold nuggets off the bedrock 😆 🤣. Once you explained where the Klamath starts I realized why "Happycamp" is where it is and upstream is not better for gold . I'm just always trying to think outside the box . I appreciate your response 👍.
It would be interesting to hear your perspective on the water temperature issue that is one of the major reasons why the Lower Snake River dams are being pushed for removal. You mentioned the negative impact that it has on the Klamath River salmon runs, but did not mention the same thing happening on the Columbia where the salmon run is a shell of its former self largely because of the temperature impact of these dams. Sockeye do best when the river is 60 degrees or below, but these dams helped raise the temperature of the Columbia so it regularly reaches about 70 degrees.
There are some major problems with that argument. Yes, temperatures are rising, and this is a bad thing. But warmer water (and the associated fish die-offs) are happening on both dammed and undammed streams - climate change is causing havoc everywhere! You say that the Columbia salmon runs are "a shell of their former self largely because of the temperature impact of these dams." This is clearly not true, and the 1938 fish run data proves that. On the Lower Snake, there is some dubious framing of the data occurring on the water temp issue. Most of the presentations totally ignore the fact that the middle Snake is also dammed, raising the temperature before the water ever gets to the LSRDs. This is partially counteracted by the cold water coming out of Dworshak Dam (a fact often ignored by activists). The fact of the matter is that if you removed the LSRDs, the conditions in the river would improve by small degrees, but not drastically. Meanwhile, the dams that actually DO block salmon and DO raise the temperatures are being ignored by the breaching movement. Why is that?
@@ArmchairEngineer You recognized an error in what I wrote and I apologize for not being more specific. During the cooler months of the year, the increased river temperatures are not as detrimental to salmon populations that need water to stay cold because the water is already so cold to begin with. However, the "shell of its former self comment" was in reference to the summer counts of salmon on the Columbia and Snake where the increased water temperature pushes beyond the limit for most salmon. Starting in the late 60s and 70s (corresponding with Lower Snake River Dam construction) this limit began to be crossed in the summer and summer salmon counts took a nosedive. This is a significant annual period of salmon populations being halved or even quartered compared to counts a recent as the 50s and early 60s. As for why the Lower Snake River Dams are the targeted offenders, the scope of the watershed that is being impacted by these dams (Snake, Salmon, & Clearwater watershed) is far larger than watershed having its water warmed by just the Middle Snake River Dams (the Snake and much smaller tributaries of the Snake). As a result of this much larger influence, the Lower Snake River dams are negatively impacting not only the additional watersheds, but their scale means that they are having a significant negative impact across the entire Columbia salmon runs whereas the Middle Snake dams don't have the scale of an impacted watershed to be nearly as detrimental.
@@brandonk7361 Activists frequently leave out the fact that the Corps of Engineers operates Dworshak Dam upstream on the Clearwater to draft water from it's very deep, cold reservoir to cool the Snake River significantly during the summer months. So much so that adult passage is not 'blocked' by temperatures as can be noticed quite easily if that temperature augmentation is shut down for any unplanned reason. The undammed Salmon River gets so hot that it would really stagnate adult migration if it weren't for the operation of the dams for temperature. The temperature argument is, respectfully, an unconvincing one when looking at all the facts.
@@aquaristapprentice3810 The Corps of Engineers is required to make an effort to avoid being sued, but that doesn’t change the fact that right now as I write this the water temperature on the lower Snake River is 72 degrees which is far above the 60 degree temperature needed for healthy sockeye. It’s great that the Corps of Engineers is doing something, but what they are able to do with the current infrastructure in place is a losing battle. Edit: typo
I question the claim that the numbers took a dive in the 60s and 70s. Also, do you know what else was happening in the basin during that same time period? The construction of the Hells Canyon Complex! The salmon situation is complex and far larger than it is being made out to be. It does everyone a disservice to tell the public that removing these dams will be a silver bullet to species recovery. It's simply not true.
Are there any old photos of the upper klamath tribes from upper klamath lake drying salmon? I know they dried the sucker by the thousands just curios if salmon ever ran that far up past the lake ?
I am aware of photos of Chinook salmon on the river as far up as the JC Boyle damsite. As for historic migration up to Klamath Lake, I do not know the answer for sure. My guess is that the salmon originally migrated far above Klamath Lake before the European settlement of the west. But I don't know for sure.
People who love the west want free flowing rivers. People who reside in the west do so in a lot of areas that could not be lived in with free flowing rivers.
Yes, many people do live in historic floodplains that have been protected from flooding by the channelization (concrete), and flow control. That doesn't mean they needed to do it. It just means they wanted to develop the low-lying land for profit. And here we are stuck with Dead Rivers. It doesn't mean that we need to live in these flood plans to live in California. It's a false equivalency.
They develop the flood plains and channelize the rivers with concrete to protect people from flooding that shouldn't be living there in the flood plain in the first place. All of the Great Rivers and Southern California have been channelized with concrete to allow people to live in places that maybe we shouldn't be living in.
As a karuk Indian who spoke with elders who were alive in the late 1800’s saying how salmon runs were so large you could walk across them to 10,000 over the 100 years is insane
I don't know much about the Snake River dams but I am very familiar with the Klamath dam removals, and this is a very even-handed handling of that controversial story. I was worried that you would be like all the conservative idiots, or like all the liberal idiots, with your summary; but you handled it perfectly. I suspect that your take on Snake River is also sensible.
The projects on the Columbia would have made more sense if they built the dams on the 2/3 of the river that historically have fish barriers in the form of huge waterfalls that have prevented salmon from migration for thousands of years. Imagine if our flooding control, hydropower, recreation and more all came from dams that didn't affect salmon from swimming up the headwaters of the Columbia or to Shoshone Falls. The Columbia Basin could have been irrigated through gravity fed canals form the rivers flowing from the Rocky Mountain foothills because they are higher in elevation than the basin. This would have been able to eliminate the need for Grand Coulee Dam to be placed in the Grand Coulee. After it was built it cut off salmon from one half of the river. The canal would have been cheaper too. Anyway GCD is here to stay and what we should do is upgrade Chief Joseph Dam and Grand Coulee Dam to be able to power a few more Seattle sized cities and get rid of these other dams. Makes sense to have one part of the Columbia Basin - the Snake river be free because the Upper Columbia cannot in our time because it's too important for our region.
It is about water quality mostly. As mentioned in the video and comments below- the river has been dying from toxic warm over-nutrient conditions that even people were getting sick. Any scratch on your body would get infected after touching the water. This has been a long process- 25 years- and finally the river and the ancestral lands will have a chance to seek balance.
We could build fish ladders. We also already spend millions and millions of dollars raising and transporting fish all over this state. We could have just spent a little bit more and either laddered or ubered these fish past the dam. Great video. Would love to see someone do a video about the dilapidated sewage systems in the SF Bay Area and the effects the leaking sewage has on the fish / marine life. I know we dump so much of our limited fresh water to flush the bay every year. Would really help with water storage during droughts if the SF Bay Area would fix these sewage issues instead of wasting fresh water to flush it.
Before a dam went in there was uncontrolled over fishing. The first dam on the SR was built in 1890 and picked up steam in 54-75! We have altered this river system so much over time it’s hard to know where to start, but we have to start somewhere! You can talk all you want about fish counts being higher now than before, those are hatchery fish which we have spent billions of dollars to get those numbers!! Before the fish cost nothing! Sockeye number are always low in most places or going extinct. So if you are able to inflate one run or one type of salmon by hatcheries it is not the same. My uncle was born in Washington in 1934. He would always talk about how many native fish he caught when he was growing up or the rare big one. For me I remember the fishing from the 70’s to 90’s. By the late 90’s you could go a whole season without catching a native fish. I left the Navy and Washington in 98. My family still lives up but I don’t even bother to go fishing when I go to visit. I was stationed at Bangor and remember the overheated debates in that area over the Elwha River dams. So many crazy arguments about what would happen if they removed the dams. They are going to kill the river if they remove the dams and cause so much destruction to the strait. None of that happened! People up there are still asking where are all the fish!
It's interesting that the current salmon runs (both wild and hatchery) seem to rise and fall proportionally in both dammed AND undammed streams. Why is that? Is it possible that these creatures that spend 90% of their lifespan in the ocean are seeing their mortality affected more by the sea than by the rivers?
@@ArmchairEngineerAbout half the summer run steelhead on the peninsula now come from one river, the Elwha. Chinook runs continue to trend up. Char, or bull trout, numbers are up, and the fish are noticeably bigger. Now to species that won’t access the upper Elwha due to falls and rapid impassable to them. The dam removal did open up a couple side tribs. Coho are up enough they had the first small tribal harvest fall 2023. Of course sea-run cutthroat number are up, as they are accessing the same tribs the coho are. Chum and pinks. Mostly dependent on the main stem. Lots of new gravels to cover the cobble. That’s the good. Lots of new sands, and silts, though much of the silts went directly to the Straits. That’s the bad. Just now in the last few years starting to really trend up. Pinks, in the years between authorization of dam removal, and Sen. Slade Gordon killing funding bill, almost went extinct. Straying from other river systems, normally a 1% thing that maintains some genetic flow, has been important in re-establishing a population. It’s just in the last three pink two year generations that they have really started to trend up. At sea it’s not some imagined Chinese fleet that they have to contend with. It’s the ease and low expense with which they can be artificially propagated. There is increasing concern that the huge numbers being released by Japan and South Korea are leading to fish starving in the North Pacific. I don’t know if anyone knows what the Kim monarchy does in this regard. They certainly could do the same as the South if they chose to. Chum numbers, with their three to five year generations are just now also trending up. This should help all, especially the pinks, chum and lower river spawning chinook. Chum hens are quite effective at cleaning silts and sand from about a cubic yard of street bed each as they build their redds. However they need fairly clean gravels so redds don’t over silt in during the winter, while eggs and young are in the gravel. Now that populations are trending up the gravel in the lower river should be cleaned up. Positive feedback loop. It’s hard for people to think of fish generations, not years, in thinking about the trends in the Elwha.
@@ArmchairEngineer no that would make since once the salmon leave the river that they would have the same mortality in hatchery and wild. The fishermen and the predators don’t care if the are wild or hatchery fish. If ocean conditions are bad in those years. That’s why you need a salmon with the most DNA diversity so that some can survive.
I'm in Eureka, and at first, I thought what a big thing this was. When I found out these dams were way far away near the Oregon border, I felt lied to. I don't think these will have as big of an impact as people think unless the Klamath lake was undammed as well so there is a whole free river. And with the farming there, that's not going to happen. Not to mention all of the farm run-off. I do feel for anyone who bought lake front property up there and will have to see a dirty and heavy metal filled river for a few years or so while it cleans itself. I'm of the all or nothing approach. Because if we don't go back to complete nature, then what's the point of reducing quality of life?
@Lazris59 Unfortunately your all or nothing approach will have little success when you are dealing with humans. There are multiple reason to remove the dams along with many benefits. They had done nothing about the water quality in both Copco and iron gate. That did not work and the water got worse every year. Removing the dams will have some short term negative impacts. I have recently been to Iron gate. It is already beginning to improve. The rain from this winters storms will do more work flushing out the decomposed algae from the lake beds. The possibility of the lakes having another toxic algae bloom is gone.
I lived in Yreka for many years (not to be confused with Eureka), and if the fish can't get TO the Klamath river, IT DOESN'T MATTER if they make it past Eureka.
Climate is not a concern here, but California seems to have no problem decommissioning power generation and then just expecting people to pay the resulting higher prices or go without
I have been on both sides of these "environmental" arguments/discussions. The part that always "frustrates" me is the boneheaded stubbornness of BOTH sides AND their 1 size fits ALL mentality. The illogical "religious" euphoria rhetoric that they wish to apply to situations that are NOT the same except in possible appearance continues to baffle me. It soon becomes ALL emotional, incoherent, unreasonable, and illogical with NO ONE willing to listen or even try to understand why they might be wrong. In way too many cases it is not about environment or even ethical aspects - it simply comes down to who has the most money AND who can get the most backing for their "idea". Then when it all goes wrong - it all starts all over again. The "blame" game has brought more destruction to the environment and man's habitat than any "solution" they come up with. IMHO
I think what is not being said is that in 1920 nobody cared about Salmon migration. They were more concerned with being fat and smoking cigars. What I heard was that because the fish got screwed in 1920 they never needed to be taken into consideration moving forward. This seems bizarre to me. Just personally. Now that more "people" care about "salmon" the equation has changed slightly. But only slightly. The other thing nobody seems to want to talk about is siltation. The siltation everyone is bitching about now is a side effect of every dam ever built. It's a feature. Whenever any official talks about reservoir capacity they are lying through their teeth. They never publicize the amount of capacity reduced by siltation. Those cigars... We could talk about farm subsidies but then everyone would arm themselves. We could talk about the Yurok netting salmon at the mouth but it would be the same result. I could go on and on and on but nobody wants to talk about reality. We just want to scream at each other. Is hydroelectric power good or bad? Yes, no maybe so? Are salmon and healthy rivers worth anything? Yes, no maybe so? The whole thing is complex and undeniably subjective.
You're right about it being complex. But I can shed some light on the smoky cigar rooms... In the 1920s, these dams weren't built as part of some large corporate green scheme designed to rip off poor people and feed fat cats. The early dams in the US west were almost ALL build by locally-owned co-ops and small businesses to supply power to a local mill and the surrounding community. Interconnected grids came decades later and was a federal initiative (thank you FDR). The Copco Dams were literally the first electricity this rural region of California and Oregon had ever seen. It picked people out of poverty and into the 20th century - allowing lights, heating, and basic appliances for the first time in history. There is plenty of greed in the story of early 20th-century industrialization and power companies. But this isn't one of them.
Some more than others for example the Canadians dam the Fraser because they wanted their fishing industry intact. Some people knew and especially native people. Salmon are worth a lot nobody else on the planet enjoyed the bounty of fish our people did although like PE mentioned salmon and other migratory fish used to be in more places than just the PNW in great quantities too! I just think when people underestimate the value of salmon they should remember agriculture was perfected by native people to the south and east of us and yet we didn't adopt a sedentary lifestyle to grow corn or beans. We still took care of lands to harvest for later, but because salmon were so abundant we didn't have to farm to be the most densely populated place north of Mexico in pre-columbia times! The coast was very wealthy and shared this across to the plains why shells and such are so apart of their culture because the northwest was able to give a lot because we had a lot of salmon.
None of the mega dam projects were pragmatic. The people living here never thought dams would take away Salmon native and non-native alike. The Fraser River was never dammed on its mainstem for the major importance of the fishing cultually and commercially. Why did we dam our major salmon river?? Grand Coulee Dam was costly if it had not been wartime it would've never been a high dam blocking salmon on the midsection of the Columbia river where Salmon swam from mouth to headwaters historically. Nobody thought about building dams above waterfalls that were naturally barriers to Salmon??? So DUMB, why didn't they think about that??. Because dams were built to block salmon. We now hear people talk about being practical because we are so reliant/overinvested in the dams that DO block Salmon, Chief Joseph Dam and Grand Coulee Dam. Flooding could bave been controlled in these areas above historical barriers to fish migration, hydropower projects and recreation too. Agriculture would STILL have been irrigated through cheaper gravity fed canals from rhe Pend Orielle and alike rivers like the Spokane with higher elevation than the basin that come from the foothills of the Rockies. We're talking about billions to make these changes yet that's what our government sends to war on other continents. Shame. The lower snake river dams are a joke. My dad says the Grand Coulee Dam and Chief Joseph Dam make money and that goes to supporting all these other dams that don't. He's a hydro-mechanic and we're from Coulee Dam, WA. My mom is a tribal member and so I am familiar with this. Just sad those business men didn't think about building the major dams on the Kootenai, Pend Orielle, Spokane, John Day and Snake ABOVE the waterfalls that have been blocking salmon for. thousands of years. We could not have lost as much as we did. We would still see change just like Fraser still has been changed, but not as significantly as the reality of the Columbia river today. Why didn't they build smarter. It all came down greed, money and war. One big single investment to help end the depression and win a war. Still sad to even have small dams when Grand Coulee could be serviced like the 3rd powerhouse and power 1-3 Seattle like cities. Just dumb to have these lower snake and Columbia dams. I pray and hope my relatives on downriver and on rhe snake are able to breech those dams. It's unlikely GCD will ever go down in my lifetime, so I wish more people understood it'd be better to use all the army corps and Boniville money for CJD, GCD and dams above these dams and free the Snake up to Shoshone Falls. It's our last chance. We need either the Snake free or the Upper Columbia and we know one has more important hydropower projects than the other. The loss of power can easily be replaced by upgrading CJD and GCD, hungry horse and the Canadian Dams.
I don't see any new dams being built in the near future, and upgrading existing dams - while a good idea - won't make up for the shortfall of demolishing working power stations like the LSRDs. The math doesn't add up!
@@ArmchairEngineer The math does add up and big dams on the upper Columbia, Chief Joseph Dam, Grand Coulee Dam, Albeni Falls Dam, Libby, Hungry Horse, Boundary, the Canadian Dams and the Treaty dams, SKQ dam, create more than 15,000 megawatts the Snake river only does 2,500. That's not even counting the rest of the dams and we're only talking about the lower snake dams for now. Grand Coulee's 3rd powerhouse almost doubled it's capacity we can add another 2,000 megawatts of power to the grid if we build a 4th powerhouse and create more power from using the Banks lake reservoir to help other sources of energy with storage using the pumps Grand Coulee already has. The 4th powerhouse is ready to be built the end of Grand Coulee Dam is not really a part of the dam it's just a temporary dam placed for when we create a 4th powerhouse. If our enemies ever target the dam that's where they will aim because it's the weakest part of the whole dam. To save our orcas and our region. The Grand Coulee Dam will have to be gone in the year 2224. anyway, we could just build a hydro power system on the parts of the river salmon historically could not swim above most of the basin had waterfalls blocking salmon. China can build huge mega projects and so could we and power the northwest and have fish. The Canadians have a free main stem of the Fraser River and this was chosen over a potential dam that would create more power than the Grand Coulee Dam. There was a war going on and the Great Depression and the dust bowl had people looking to the west and the government jobs and cheap land. And the Grand Coulee Dam was an attack on the Tribes. The upper Columbia Basin in B.C. is unceded land, colonial called "crown land" makes up 93% of B.C. this was never ceded to the crown by the First Nations. I the United States, the federal government stopped making treaties with tribes and then the civil war happened so the upper Columbia Tribes got executive orders and lost their rights to hunt or fish off our reservations or (at the time) leave at all. Despite never giving these rights to their homelands up. The NW fish wars won the rights for Treaty Tribes, but we need to make sure that the Upper Columbia is one day free for Salmon after the Snake River and lower Columbia are dams are breeched for salmon migration first. Salmon could swim to the headwaters and so, Grand Coulee Dam really is in the middle of the river blocking salmon from half of their historic migration. We need to make sure small farmers are able to access the irrigation from the Columbia Basin and we could make sure the lands that are inundated by the breeching of the dams could go to small operations like Native farmers or new and beginning farmers and ranchers.
Just opposite, they're spring-fed creeks flowing into the Klamath above those lakes that are very cold. It might even give a chance for our springers which are almost all gone
OK video until going off the rails at the end. You can care about climate and clean energy in PNW and want the LSRD removed. Why? These dams definitely do hinder salmon migration, they heat up the water quite a bit, and the power generation can and will be replaced by other clean sources matched with battery storage. It's not very "clean" energy if an entire species of fish that many people count on die out. Not to mention how much money we spend to keep hatchery salmon going. These and many other dams are going away. Good riddance.
You make two big claims: 1 - Power from the LSRDs can be "easily replaced" 2 - The dams are responsible for fish "dying out" If I can solidly debunk one or both of those claims, would your stance on breaching the LSRDs change?
In the 80s I witnessed the local tribe string a gill net from bank to bank, twice a day, every fish over about 3" in diameter was harvested from the river. It's not a sustainable process yet the government let's them do whatever they want. This won't work if the tribe wibt let fish grow and spawn.
The harvest on the Klamath is very scientifically regulated to allow subsistence fishing. These folks that have historically lived on the river really want this amazing project to work. They've managed this fishery for many years and I think they're probably going to continue to do a fine job. Let's just give it a chance and see without injecting a bunch of prejudice.
I agree. Native harvest must continue and the tribes are an important partner when it comes to our rivers. As long we make our decisions based on data and logic and not a romantic view of the pre-industrial west, salmon and dams can continue to coexist for the foreseeable future.
Due to the Snake River dams, the river doesn't flow like it should. It is now less ideal salmon habitat, and excellent habitat for invasive carp. The Snake River dams are mediocre energy producers. Their primary use case are are the locks, so the agriculture industry can transport their product to Asia. Replacing the energy with solar, wind, and/or nuclear will remove the energy dependence, but the need for the locks still remain. Only after replacing the locks with an alternative can they be removed. Hopefully, some day, the virtue signalling environmentalists will learn to stop throwing temper tantrums and instead go get engineering degrees so they can "save the planet" with next generation infrastructure instead of just causing problems.
Almost everything you said was wrong. ✔️ Flow "as it should" is a misnomer. Rivers change constantly and flows change naturally. This unnatural alteration has not resulted in the ecology collapsing. The fish are still there! ✔️ The dams are NOT mediocre energy producers. All four are in the top 25 largest hydropower plants in the US! If combined into one unit, they would be the second largest behind Grand Coulee. This myth about them being small power producers needs to be squashed! ✔️ "Primary use case are the locks" is mostly true, as the dams were originally commissioned for navigation. But water transportation is our most climate-friendly method, and would be undermined by putting all that wheat onto trains and trucks. ✔️ Replacing energy with wind and solar is an even bigger myth. Wind and solar are not dispatchable sources, meaning you can't turn them on and off at will. Which means you need a dispatchable source (like a dam) nearby to balance the load. Nuclear is a whole other conversation, and one that should be taken seriously if we want meaningful action on climate change. As for the part about "stop throwing temper tantrums and go get engineering degrees", I wholeheartedly agree! If you are in favor of the environment and in favor of the climate, than you have to be in favor of the Lower Snake River Dams. 😀
@@ArmchairEngineerno we don't. The upper Columbia CANNOT BE FREED because those dams are SO MUCH more important than any Snake River dams. The idea is to free the Snake because the upper Columbia is unfortunately too important and my people will not have a free river, but at least Salmon will survive if we let them through restoring that basin! I wish we could breech CJD and GCD, but my father and community works at those dams and they say it'll never happen in our lifetime because they produce the majority of power. They actually produce less power to allow for downstream dams to run. We can also upgrade these dams capacity to power a few more Seattle sized cities, just free the Snake and our Salmon will make it even in 300 years when Grand Coulee has to be demolished our Salmon will have made it because we decided to save the part of the Columbia Basin we could. Massive landslides and ice dams were in place for long periods of time yet salmon still reestablished themselves every time for thousands of years! I have faith if we free the Snake our salmon will be safe and the upper Columbia tribes are working together to bring salmon up above the important dams ATM.
It’s notable the role that politics and business played in the decision for removal - adding fish passage and associated infrastructure to get the dams up to FERC relicensing standards would have cost twice the price tag of the whole removal and restoration efforts. Also, tribal management and justice is a meaningful outcome on the pros list for this (and most other dam removal projects) alongside ecological benefits. Most dams of this era and scale served not only to disturb subsistence food populations but also displace native communities and much of that is being righted through this process.
"Righted" is a definitive that I'm not comfortable using. Indigenous peoples have experienced centuries of mistreatment. Removing a few structures doesn't change that, nor does it restore fish runs that were decimated decades before the dams were built. A positive step maybe, but it's waaaaay too soon to say "righted."
That's absolutely NOT TRUE about the Snake River dams. The dams definitely hinder salmon migration. Both upstream and downstream. Whether it makes sense to remove the dams is another question given ship navigation and the hydroelectric power generated. Both of which provide a very significant benefit.
I appreciate you acknowledging the value of hydropower and navigation. And the dams are definitely not GOOD for salmon. However, the LSRDs have taken the blame for a collapse in salmon runs that happened decades before the dams were built. Comparing the LSRDs with the Klamath can be deceptive, and needs to be put in proper context.
I find it very hard to believe that "not a single electrical engineer supports this approach" of using solar/wind power vs keeping old dams. Really?????
It's simple math. And treating those two power sources are equivalent doesn't pass the PE exam. If you ever meet a licensed electrical engineer who disagrees, have them email me. I would love to meet them.
We could come up with more clever and less environmentally impactful ways of using hydropower and storage. Just think most of the Columbia Basin is home to rivers with waterfalls that historically blocked salmon a few of these rivers are some of the main tributaries like the Kootenai and Pend Orielle even the Snake River has a blockage to salmon at Shoshone Falls. What if we upgraded the capacity of all the dams above these historic salmon barriers? Or built new facilities? We have so much to tap into if only we weren't seeing our taxes pay for bombs on other continents...
Also besides the major dams like the Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph. None of these smaller dams do much just run of the river with low head and only for power. Grand Coulee could produce 1.5x it's current capacity if we upgraded! We should breech them and only invest in the dams above Grand Coulee in the watershed!
Big fan of river restoration projects! Fix the ecosystems and maybe we can see some really cool animals return. Would love to see more wolves and even grizzlies back in CA.
I don't necessarily agree with his conclusions. There's a lot of ideas that are not quite true. He makes the claim that the reservoirs would heat up from the sun. Hmm...no. Because cold water sinks. So while, the surface water will get warm, down near the dams and where the outflow is, the waters are generally colder. This regulates the temperature of the lower river. Without the dams, and since the water levels will drop during summer time, the water will heat up, thus the salmon will not be able to survive. Before we jump to the conclusion that the dams were the sole reason for the disappearance of the Salmon, we have to look to the cannery ships, sometimes Chinese cannery ships who fish just outside the territorial waters of the US, and scoop up massive amounts of Salmon and Steel head. What happens when there's a severe flood? No dam means no flood control. The lower Klamath will flood and the Yuroks will suffer much damage. Now the Yuroks were heavily involved in the destruction of these dams, claiming that they harmed the Salmon. Where they actually lived there were no dams. The dams were on the upper Klamath. The Yuroks, who were called "Peh-tsick" on the upper Klamath river, subsisted on the Catfish that inhabited the Williams River, and Klamath Lake, and lots of berries and seeds. What is most concerning is what he said near the end. He said there would be no way that what happened on the Elwah dam and the Klamath River would never happen on the lower Snake River. Think again. The environmentalists have lots of liberal money behind them. They will not stop. They already want the dams on the Umpqua to be taken out. They won here. And they will take their win to the Lower Snake River. Many times we hear the same ole mantra that "we can't go back to the past" we must push on to the future. And yet, that"s what we hear. We must go back to when the rivers were free. And at the same time we are told that we need to destroy our gas cars and get into battery cars. Where will all the electricity come from. Won't come from Hydro, nor natural gas, nor oil, nor nuclear. The sun and wind just can't provide that level of service.
I don't remember saying that it would never happen on the Snake! In fact, tens of millions of dollars are being spent trying to make sure that it does happen. What I was trying to do was point out the inconsistency. The Lower Snake is NOTHING like the Klamath or the Elwah. But the dam breaching community is pushing a narrative that says that the logical next dams to breach are on the Lower Snake River. This myth needs to be BUSTED!
@@ArmchairEngineer Link river dam; height 23ft (average depth of the lake 14ft), reservoir cap. 1,1 km3, power cap. 151 MW. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_River_Dam
@@martinkesler8167 the klamath lake dam is not natural. Impeeds Salmon & Steelhead migration to THE major spawning grounds of the many rivers on the eastside of Crater Lake National Park.
He omitted the main factor in the owners deciding to remove the dams…upgrades to bring them to code and full functionality would cost more than the dams could ever return in power generation. When the state agreed to take over the (I think around $200 million) cost of removal, they jumped at the idea.
I disagree with this subsidy of a private company. They made the profits from the dams, they should bear the cost of their removal and remediation, not taxpayers.
Hold on - you brought up the "bring them up the code" issue. Those codes were implemented spesificlly for these dams and were coercive in nature. PacificCorps was basically blackmailed into decommissioning these dams, just like with Condit Dam on the White Salmon.
@@ArmchairEngineer Your evidence?
Not only does that sound completely insane, I have never heard a scintilla of evidence supporting that and have seen tons disputing it.
Working fish ladder regulations were not implemented just for these dams, they are national law. To build fish ladders up to code (and other smaller necessary improvements)would cost far more than they could ever recover with generation even assuming no more upkeep costs ever.
That is simply not true. There is no "national fish ladder" law. All fish passage has been managed on a case-by-case basis with many dams - big and small - choosing to ignore it altogether. Several states are attempting to pass these sorts of codes, but are running into difficulty implementing them on federally-controlled waters or streams that border other states.
Can you show me a link to this "national fish ladder regulation" you refer to?
@@ArmchairEngineer it is called “The National Fish Passage Program”
California also requires them on any dam that blocks fish passage to spawning grounds and has since the 1800’s.
@@theoriginalnewtboy I think that's just a 'program' i.e. a agency funded effort to support and improve fish passages on dams and I don't think USFWS was the main concern. It's not a regulation. The primary regulations relating to fish passages on dams are implemented under licensing/permitting of these facilities. These regulatory powers originate from the Federal Power Act (FPA). FERC (a federal agency) issues the primary license/permit. FERC must seek approval from NOAA (a separate federal agency tasked with managing anadromous fishes, among many other responsibilities) before FERC can issue or renew a permit. Furthermore, NOAA have powers directly under the FPA and indirectly through the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for some of these fishes because they are 'listed' as either 'endangered' or 'threatened' with extinction under the ESA. So both of you are wrong - there are regulations, not 'code' (which is a term typically used to refer to local government planning law, not federal regulations). But those regulations are not specific to these dams - all dams are regulated under the same laws and standards. However, every dam will have a similar but different solution and the costs for implementing will depend on the circumstances of the dam. So maybe there are some dams that are cost effective to implement the rules and other dams that are not. In practice, a relatively small number of regulatory staff will have most of the power to shape the precise requirements of a permit, but they need to be 'reasonable' i.e. meet with both precedent and the regulations and any guidance associated with those regulations, otherwise they won't stand up to legal challenge (and regulatory staff are not in the business of writing permits that can't be defended if challenged in court - not least because they'd quickly loose their jobs, but also because in general they are far more reasonable than people give them credit for when they are on the receiving end of a regulatory consultation!).
Most of the anadromous fish that spawn in the Klamath system, spawn in the tributaries to the Klamath. The major tribs are the Shasta, the Scott, the Salmon river and the Trinity river.
Most of the mainstem Klamath is used by salmon and steelhead to migrate to the tribs (by adult upstream migrants) and back to the Pacific Ocean by juvenile out migrant salmon.
The main reason the dams were removed was because of what they were doing to water quality. The Klamath basin has naturally high concentrations of phosphorus. That makes it ideal for growing some crops, but is not so good for the fish. Much of the irrigation water that runs off the fields picks up nitrogen and other fertilizers, and a lot of cow feces. All of this combined makes the Klamath River coming out of Klamath lake extremely high in nutrients.
The salmonids that live in the Klamath are right on the edge of being able to survive in this warm, low Disolved Oxygen super nutrient rich water. When the dams were built between 1918 & 1962, people didn't know, or seemingly care that much about salmon and steelhead, so they designed and built shallow reservoirs that drew water off the top (surface of the reservoirs) for the intakes of the penstock that drives the turbines.
Of course that meant that as the Klamath flowed into each of the dammed up reservoirs, it would slow down and heat up. It did this at JC Boyle, then Copco, and again at Irongate reservoir. So you can imagine what the water was like after it had all the fertilizer added and then sat in three shallow reservoirs. 🤮
When adult salmon enter the river in late summer and fall, the river is warm and full of nutrients. The adult salmon have to navigate low flows, and sometimes hold and wait for irrigation along the tributaries to stop so there is enough water to swim upstream and spawn. Sometimes the river is so bad that it has huge disease and parasite outbreaks. This is what has killed the most fish.
Keno Dam is still in place only 9 miles above (upstream) of the former JC Boyle dam. Even though it has adequate fish ladders that work relatively well, it backs up a huge chunk of the river all the way to Klamath Falls. The problem there is that even if adult salmon were to get above all that slack, swampy water to spawn, it's doubtful the out migrating juveniles could make it back down through the 20 miles of muck Keno Dam creates.
Removing the four dams near the border will benefit the river tremendously. We will see significant increases in salmon numbers over the next 20 years, and hopefully the farmers and ranchers in the Klamath basin will start doing a better, more efficient job at irrigation and keeping fertilizers out of the Klamath.
The Klamath was the third biggest salmon producer on the west coast before those dams were built, and has the potential to be one of the best again.
Good analysis! Yes, there is plenty of upside for the ecology of the Klamath River. Let's hope that management of the basin is strong and that the outcomes are worth the price.
I mostly agree. I just don’t understand who started this third biggest chinook producer on the West Coast meme. It has to be someone who doesn’t get around much. I’d encourage you to travel north, and visit the Fraser and the Skeena. The Klamath was the fifth biggest chinook producer.
@@billsmith5109 those are both in Canada, the line is about the West Coast of the US.
Have the fish ever considered…*not* swimming up rivers into tributaries to lay eggs that then hatch whereupon the hatchlings have to swim downstream again? 🤷♂️
"We will see significant increases in salmon over the next 20 years"
I want desire and long for you to be correct, but if the Rogue River recovery is any indication of your claim, then your statement is fantastically false. The Rogue is 16years post damn removal and there has been ZERO salmon recovery. ZERO!!!
A good friend of ours who worked in the EPA was instrumental in the dam removal and restoration projects. Sadly, she passed away recently and didn’t get to see the fruits of her hard work.
Hasn't all the electricity from these dams already been replaced? Didn't the Klamath dams provide ~2% of the energy used in the surrounding communities?
yes!
Wind and solar are carbon negative. Nether can exist without fossil fuels
Yes and no. PacificCorps doesn't need to replace the power entirely: they can choose to sell less power because of the interconnected grid. Also, wind and solar are not equivalent power sources, so it is hard to map out exactly where the replacement power will come from.
Not when they were built. Don’t hate the people who built these dams they had good intentions I not sure I can say that about the people who took them out.
@@JimFarmer-l3n Take your own advice. You really have no idea what anyone's intention was back then. None of them are with us now. For all we know it was for profit and greed. How did pacific Corp get the job to run the dams? Slick maneuvering? Probably? Few regs way back then. If you had money you push could most anything through. I love this project. I feel that it is worth the money spent. Restoration projects are important.
Oregon news has reported that Salmon have been found near Klamath Lake in Oregon for the first time since the removal of the dams.
That doesn't seem likely, considering that Keno Dam still stands between the removed structures and Lower Klamath Lake.
@@ArmchairEngineer I think the guy's referring to Spencer Creek above copco 1 and 2
@@ArmchairEngineer They got photos and a video of one of the salmon they confirmed they spotted running up here in Oregon. So it is factual. And apparently the Keno dam has decent fish ladders, whereas the other dams blow it did not.
Reports are true even from locals. Salmon seen as far north as Spencer Creek above former JC Boyle Dam. Keno Dam does have a fish ladder but the ladder wasn’t designed for salmon. Oregon “ODFW” is looking at rebuilding Keno Dam Ladder in years ahead. The Klamath Dam Removals is already spurring Columbia and Snake River Tribes to remove Lower Snake River Dams and Hells Canyon Complex Dams because of cold water trapped behind dams from other cold water tributaries.
Correction, above JC Boyle!
The river isn’t naturally low on oxygen because of Klamath lake. Klamath lake is naturally eutrophic but none of the other reservoirs were natural at all and blooms large amounts of microcystis. Additionally your analysis neglects to consider that the other dams restricted the access of tributaries that are spring fed and represent a constant flux of cool temperature stable water. These tributaries start right above iron gate. Your analysis also doesn’t consider the dams creating habitat that allowed C. Shasta to explode below iron gate. Your snake river analysis is so simplistic it’s hard to begin. Yes some fish can pass but passage is difficult, often through warm water, and often fatal. Breaching the snake dams as a method of fish population restoration has been studied and supported by NMFS back to the 90s until present. The evidence is supported by life cycle survival models conducted under various river scenarios. The evidence of delayed hydrostatic mortality on salmon is empirical in fish biologist communities. There is an argument to be made that the snake dams benefits are far greater than the elwha and Klamath and that is true. To say it wouldn’t benefit the fisheries is disingenuous and not science based.
So, in other words, the Klamath reservoirs took a naturally eutrophic river and made it worse.
The issues you cite on the Lower Snake are full of politically driven conclusions. There is no evidence that only "some fish can pass." The dams are more or less transparent to fish passage, both upstream and downstream. What isn't transparent are the reservoirs themselves, which you correctly claim are often too warm. The data that is conveniently left out is how warm the Snake River water is BEFORE it reaches the LSRDs. The entire state of Idaho is warming the Snake through its ag practices and the Hells Canyon Complex of dams, but everyone wants to blame the dams in Washington.
The NOAA report is a clear case of weaponizing federal agencies. The USACE is forbidden from publishing the data that supports the dams' effectiveness, yet NOAA is allowed to make wildly political claims with sweeping consequences from a forgone conclusion. This inconsistency needs to be called out for the corrupt use of government funding that it is.
I grew up in Southern Oregon. Yes, Upper Klamath Lake has natural algae blooms and warms river. With removal of dams there are spring fed creeks that are now cooling Klamath River (Jenny Creek, Fall Creek, Beaver Creek, Shovel Creek, Spencer Creek). Reports on ground at former Iron Gate Dam now Iron Gate Canyon confirm Klamath River has cooler water temps. Salmon are returning above dam sites as well in dozens and perhaps in low hundreds from local reports. Tribes on Columbia and Snake Rivers are already gearing up to advocate and push for Snake River Dam removals. Tribes are em-powered over Klamath Dam Removals. Mark my words a huge fight is coming over Lower Snake River Dams and possibly removal of Hells Canyon Dams because of cooler water and spring fed tributaries.
@@ArmchairEngineer I work for the government and I highly highly doubt any agency is not allowed to publish data. BOR publishes data that has suspect modelling that magically always have results that suggest "fish need less water". I don't accept your characterization that NMFS data is political. I could just say ACE data is political then. There is a clear profit motive to sell water to ag. I've interacted with these water agencies and I would describe their fish work as dubious at best and downright nefarious at worst. If you want to crack down on government corruption, tell BOR to stop constantly paying private contractors to create poorly made models that always push blame away from water consumption.
There is footage of salmon in Spencer creek where former John c Boyle reservoir. The salmon have no problem getting up into Oregon into former spawning habitat.
Also water that is rushing and turning over generates a lot of Oxogen. It’s still water that doesn’t generate a lot of oxogen also moving water releases heat more efficiently which in turn cools the water.
Informative thank you. Have been following the Project from New Zealand. Can salmon access the Klamath lake naturally or via a fish ladder. Hard to find any info on the Klamath Lake outflow....
yes, these are primitive fish ladders on Keno Dam and Link River Dam. However, only time will tell if salmon will migrate that far upstream.
@@ArmchairEngineer cheers
Reports are coming in from CDFW and ODFW that salmon are making it past all dams and spawning in many of tributaries. Im skeptical of what government is saying so can any locals verify if salmon have made it past the dams?
“Let us all walk in reality” 👍🏼
Best briefing on this topic I’ve seen. Appreciate the logical explanation as well as the included sources. Looking forward to seeing this environment recover. It’ll be interesting to see what further mitigation will be required.
PS - looking on the other news reports on this topic, they are woefully inadequate.
PS2 - wonder what the final cost will be compared to the estimated cost of removal?
PS3 - appreciate the inconsistency you pointed out regarding the Lower Snake River dam comparison
Thanks for watching! I agree, there appears to be a lack of follow through on the pollution mitigation as a result of the deconstruction. fortunately, most of the pollution in the water should clear in a year's time.
Great work showing both sides of the argument with nuance, thank you. While I am alright with the dams coming out, the environmental benefits are equally nuanced and I think many envrionmental groups are overselling it as well. If you break it down by species - it's less impressive. Spring run chinook and summer steelhead are essentially getting access to no new suitable tributaries (because the new tribs are low gradient, not fed by snow melt) and are doing terrible even when their tributaries have little main-channel Klamath influence, so the fish in the existing tribs will do marginally better, at best. Coho are getting access to new tributaries, so their numbers should see a solid bump. Fall chinook and steelhead will see a bump, but are not threatened. So really only one of three threatened species are benefiting.
It's a tricky cost/benefit situation, for sure. I have no doubt that the salmon runs WILL improve once the water quality clears up. But anyone who thinks dam removal is a silver bullet to species recovery is kidding themselves. There are many more factors not being considered, and the loss of clean energy will be felt across the region. I'm hoping for the best!
@thems_the_brakes Threatened or not, the entire ecosystem will befit from the dams being removed. Fish runs will increase. The banks of the old lakebed are already greening up and are producing wildflowers. Next year will have even more flowers more vegetation. The wildlife will increase as food sources increase. The tributaries will definitely benefit as well. Improved passage for fish gets them from the ocean to their spawning beds much faster. Largely increasing their mortality rate. This fall for most Northwest rivers has had a very strong chinook run. I hope they are in the lower Klamath right now. It has been a good water year. Most of the rivers are still high enough that the fall chinook are shooting right through. Not having to sit in the river waiting for a storm to raise the water high enough to enter the feeder streams. The fishes I saw on Tuesday this week were nice and bright. Did not see one spawner that had turned dark.
I think you are a mistaken.
You are a mistaken because those tributaries are spring-fed out of the ground and very cold and suitable for springers
@@karendurant4981 studies show they need cold water and deep scour pools for over-summering and they do not have deep scour pools
The Native recorded history proves originally, before the dams, the Salmon were thick and abundant up here into Oregon in the Klamath basin. The dams went in, and runs died out in kind with haste. The only reason why the last 60-100 years of history the main Salmon runs and spawning habitats exist in the Siskyous/Coast Range is because of these dams. Just because that became the norm does not mean that is how it would be and is in it's natural, unimpeded state. Something you omitted was the fact that the power company who built and owned these dams pointed out how they produced minimal power at max anyway, so the loss would have a negligible impact. That's on top of the fact they were far too expensive to justify repairs or rebuilds.
The immediate results of seeing the very first salmon run into Oregon is clear proof in itself that Salmon, even without having had lived or been born anywhere close to these locations north of the dams for hundreds of generations, still know, remember and naturally desire returning to their ancestral spawning grounds. It proves why the belief that almost all salmon only want to run and spawn into the coast range is pure fiction. The moment the way was opened, they returned.
And to assert that in order to be truly supportive of the environment, one must support and push for preservation and even adding more hydroelectric dams is entirely wrong, and rather insulting. Our electricity is not worth damaging and potentially killing off our own native fish like salmon. Any self-respecting environmentalist wouldn't hesitate to stand against dam removals and building more, as we know full and well the trade offs are not acceptable, and it does far worse damage long term to have them than it does to prevent them.
It seems like we aren't going to come to agreement on what constitutes responsible environmentalism.
Nice presentation. Thx!
Glad you liked it!
Thanks ,that was interesting . Always wondered about the good vs bad on removing Shasta ,Whiskey town ,and Trinity.
Whew, that's a massive jump! The four dams on the Klamath more or less ONLY generated power. They didn't store much irrigation water, did very little flood control, and weren't much of a factor for recreation.
The Shasta / Trinity / Whiskeytown combo is part of a MASSIVE system of water storage for the express purpose of irrigating farmland. Literally millions of acres of agriculture would be affected if those dams ceased to exist. And then on top of that, you would lose a decent amount of clean, reliable hydropower.
The state water project is on a whole different level than the Middle Klamath Dams.
@@ArmchairEngineer You broke that down so well about the Klamath I thought I'd jump over to what I'm always complaining about . The Salmon River in upstate NY has Chinook, steelhead, and Coho that always seemed healthy and abundant. The amount of excuses from these Gov agencies are always changing Since moving to Shasta . I did believe they had things more dialed in out here . And honestly I though the farther up the Klamath maybe near a removed dam would be a good place to prospect for a new gold claim . After the water current eats through all that overburden I can just scoop them gold nuggets off the bedrock 😆 🤣. Once you explained where the Klamath starts I realized why "Happycamp" is where it is and upstream is not better for gold . I'm just always trying to think outside the box . I appreciate your response 👍.
It would be interesting to hear your perspective on the water temperature issue that is one of the major reasons why the Lower Snake River dams are being pushed for removal. You mentioned the negative impact that it has on the Klamath River salmon runs, but did not mention the same thing happening on the Columbia where the salmon run is a shell of its former self largely because of the temperature impact of these dams. Sockeye do best when the river is 60 degrees or below, but these dams helped raise the temperature of the Columbia so it regularly reaches about 70 degrees.
There are some major problems with that argument. Yes, temperatures are rising, and this is a bad thing. But warmer water (and the associated fish die-offs) are happening on both dammed and undammed streams - climate change is causing havoc everywhere! You say that the Columbia salmon runs are "a shell of their former self largely because of the temperature impact of these dams." This is clearly not true, and the 1938 fish run data proves that.
On the Lower Snake, there is some dubious framing of the data occurring on the water temp issue. Most of the presentations totally ignore the fact that the middle Snake is also dammed, raising the temperature before the water ever gets to the LSRDs. This is partially counteracted by the cold water coming out of Dworshak Dam (a fact often ignored by activists).
The fact of the matter is that if you removed the LSRDs, the conditions in the river would improve by small degrees, but not drastically. Meanwhile, the dams that actually DO block salmon and DO raise the temperatures are being ignored by the breaching movement. Why is that?
@@ArmchairEngineer You recognized an error in what I wrote and I apologize for not being more specific. During the cooler months of the year, the increased river temperatures are not as detrimental to salmon populations that need water to stay cold because the water is already so cold to begin with. However, the "shell of its former self comment" was in reference to the summer counts of salmon on the Columbia and Snake where the increased water temperature pushes beyond the limit for most salmon. Starting in the late 60s and 70s (corresponding with Lower Snake River Dam construction) this limit began to be crossed in the summer and summer salmon counts took a nosedive. This is a significant annual period of salmon populations being halved or even quartered compared to counts a recent as the 50s and early 60s.
As for why the Lower Snake River Dams are the targeted offenders, the scope of the watershed that is being impacted by these dams (Snake, Salmon, & Clearwater watershed) is far larger than watershed having its water warmed by just the Middle Snake River Dams (the Snake and much smaller tributaries of the Snake). As a result of this much larger influence, the Lower Snake River dams are negatively impacting not only the additional watersheds, but their scale means that they are having a significant negative impact across the entire Columbia salmon runs whereas the Middle Snake dams don't have the scale of an impacted watershed to be nearly as detrimental.
@@brandonk7361 Activists frequently leave out the fact that the Corps of Engineers operates Dworshak Dam upstream on the Clearwater to draft water from it's very deep, cold reservoir to cool the Snake River significantly during the summer months. So much so that adult passage is not 'blocked' by temperatures as can be noticed quite easily if that temperature augmentation is shut down for any unplanned reason. The undammed Salmon River gets so hot that it would really stagnate adult migration if it weren't for the operation of the dams for temperature. The temperature argument is, respectfully, an unconvincing one when looking at all the facts.
@@aquaristapprentice3810 The Corps of Engineers is required to make an effort to avoid being sued, but that doesn’t change the fact that right now as I write this the water temperature on the lower Snake River is 72 degrees which is far above the 60 degree temperature needed for healthy sockeye. It’s great that the Corps of Engineers is doing something, but what they are able to do with the current infrastructure in place is a losing battle.
Edit: typo
I question the claim that the numbers took a dive in the 60s and 70s. Also, do you know what else was happening in the basin during that same time period? The construction of the Hells Canyon Complex!
The salmon situation is complex and far larger than it is being made out to be. It does everyone a disservice to tell the public that removing these dams will be a silver bullet to species recovery. It's simply not true.
Are there any old photos of the upper klamath tribes from upper klamath lake drying salmon?
I know they dried the sucker by the thousands just curios if salmon ever ran that far up past the lake ?
I am aware of photos of Chinook salmon on the river as far up as the JC Boyle damsite. As for historic migration up to Klamath Lake, I do not know the answer for sure. My guess is that the salmon originally migrated far above Klamath Lake before the European settlement of the west. But I don't know for sure.
People who love the west want free flowing rivers. People who reside in the west do so in a lot of areas that could not be lived in with free flowing rivers.
Wow.😳 That's profound.
Yes, many people do live in historic floodplains that have been protected from flooding by the channelization (concrete), and flow control. That doesn't mean they needed to do it. It just means they wanted to develop the low-lying land for profit. And here we are stuck with Dead Rivers. It doesn't mean that we need to live in these flood plans to live in California. It's a false equivalency.
Flood plains that is
They develop the flood plains and channelize the rivers with concrete to protect people from flooding that shouldn't be living there in the flood plain in the first place. All of the Great Rivers and Southern California have been channelized with concrete to allow people to live in places that maybe we shouldn't be living in.
Love this channel!
As a karuk Indian who spoke with elders who were alive in the late 1800’s saying how salmon runs were so large you could walk across them to 10,000 over the 100 years is insane
Indeed. It's tragic what has happened to the runs in ALL North American rivers, including the East Coast and Gulf rivers that we never talk about.
@@ArmchairEngineer yeah I can only imagine how bad it got down there.. so cal steel head just got put on the endangered list with about 500 left
Even in my life time 51 the runs in happy camp were huge compared to now. I'm also karuk.glad to see the fish getting a chance before they are gone.
FWIW, the Yuroks are down river on the Klamath, the local tribe where these dams were are the Karuks.
The local tribes were Shasta and Modoc. Karuk are the bordering surviving federally recognized tribe who are also working this project.
thank you for the clarification
I don't know much about the Snake River dams but I am very familiar with the Klamath dam removals, and this is a very even-handed handling of that controversial story. I was worried that you would be like all the conservative idiots, or like all the liberal idiots, with your summary; but you handled it perfectly. I suspect that your take on Snake River is also sensible.
THANK YOU! I appreciate the feedback. Please like, subscribe, and share!
I agree with you. I think they should leave the dams in place.
Right on..
:-D
You make so much sense.
Thanks Casey!
The projects on the Columbia would have made more sense if they built the dams on the 2/3 of the river that historically have fish barriers in the form of huge waterfalls that have prevented salmon from migration for thousands of years. Imagine if our flooding control, hydropower, recreation and more all came from dams that didn't affect salmon from swimming up the headwaters of the Columbia or to Shoshone Falls. The Columbia Basin could have been irrigated through gravity fed canals form the rivers flowing from the Rocky Mountain foothills because they are higher in elevation than the basin. This would have been able to eliminate the need for Grand Coulee Dam to be placed in the Grand Coulee. After it was built it cut off salmon from one half of the river. The canal would have been cheaper too. Anyway GCD is here to stay and what we should do is upgrade Chief Joseph Dam and Grand Coulee Dam to be able to power a few more Seattle sized cities and get rid of these other dams. Makes sense to have one part of the Columbia Basin - the Snake river be free because the Upper Columbia cannot in our time because it's too important for our region.
My man!! Never misses!
😁😁😁
It is about water quality mostly. As mentioned in the video and comments below- the river has been dying from toxic warm over-nutrient conditions that even people were getting sick. Any scratch on your body would get infected after touching the water. This has been a long process- 25 years- and finally the river and the ancestral lands will have a chance to seek balance.
Indeed. Let's hope the recovery is as fast and complete as predicted.
@@ArmchairEngineer So far so good.
Garden Grove lol. My hometown.
Home of Disneyland and the Crystal Cathedral.
reporting both sides of an argument, bravo, hopefully this might catch on.🤣
subbed
thanks for the follow! 😀
Noticably omitted was the mention of one Warren Buffett
We could build fish ladders. We also already spend millions and millions of dollars raising and transporting fish all over this state. We could have just spent a little bit more and either laddered or ubered these fish past the dam. Great video. Would love to see someone do a video about the dilapidated sewage systems in the SF Bay Area and the effects the leaking sewage has on the fish / marine life. I know we dump so much of our limited fresh water to flush the bay every year. Would really help with water storage during droughts if the SF Bay Area would fix these sewage issues instead of wasting fresh water to flush it.
Now end all Netting.
Before a dam went in there was uncontrolled over fishing. The first dam on the SR was built in 1890 and picked up steam in 54-75! We have altered this river system so much over time it’s hard to know where to start, but we have to start somewhere! You can talk all you want about fish counts being higher now than before, those are hatchery fish which we have spent billions of dollars to get those numbers!! Before the fish cost nothing! Sockeye number are always low in most places or going extinct. So if you are able to inflate one run or one type of salmon by hatcheries it is not the same. My uncle was born in Washington in 1934. He would always talk about how many native fish he caught when he was growing up or the rare big one. For me I remember the fishing from the 70’s to 90’s. By the late 90’s you could go a whole season without catching a native fish. I left the Navy and Washington in 98. My family still lives up but I don’t even bother to go fishing when I go to visit. I was stationed at Bangor and remember the overheated debates in that area over the Elwha River dams. So many crazy arguments about what would happen if they removed the dams. They are going to kill the river if they remove the dams and cause so much destruction to the strait. None of that happened! People up there are still asking where are all the fish!
It's interesting that the current salmon runs (both wild and hatchery) seem to rise and fall proportionally in both dammed AND undammed streams. Why is that? Is it possible that these creatures that spend 90% of their lifespan in the ocean are seeing their mortality affected more by the sea than by the rivers?
@@ArmchairEngineerAbout half the summer run steelhead on the peninsula now come from one river, the Elwha. Chinook runs continue to trend up. Char, or bull trout, numbers are up, and the fish are noticeably bigger. Now to species that won’t access the upper Elwha due to falls and rapid impassable to them. The dam removal did open up a couple side tribs. Coho are up enough they had the first small tribal harvest fall 2023. Of course sea-run cutthroat number are up, as they are accessing the same tribs the coho are. Chum and pinks. Mostly dependent on the main stem. Lots of new gravels to cover the cobble. That’s the good. Lots of new sands, and silts, though much of the silts went directly to the Straits. That’s the bad. Just now in the last few years starting to really trend up. Pinks, in the years between authorization of dam removal, and Sen. Slade Gordon killing funding bill, almost went extinct. Straying from other river systems, normally a 1% thing that maintains some genetic flow, has been important in re-establishing a population. It’s just in the last three pink two year generations that they have really started to trend up. At sea it’s not some imagined Chinese fleet that they have to contend with. It’s the ease and low expense with which they can be artificially propagated. There is increasing concern that the huge numbers being released by Japan and South Korea are leading to fish starving in the North Pacific. I don’t know if anyone knows what the Kim monarchy does in this regard. They certainly could do the same as the South if they chose to. Chum numbers, with their three to five year generations are just now also trending up. This should help all, especially the pinks, chum and lower river spawning chinook. Chum hens are quite effective at cleaning silts and sand from about a cubic yard of street bed each as they build their redds. However they need fairly clean gravels so redds don’t over silt in during the winter, while eggs and young are in the gravel. Now that populations are trending up the gravel in the lower river should be cleaned up. Positive feedback loop.
It’s hard for people to think of fish generations, not years, in thinking about the trends in the Elwha.
@@ArmchairEngineer no that would make since once the salmon leave the river that they would have the same mortality in hatchery and wild. The fishermen and the predators don’t care if the are wild or hatchery fish. If ocean conditions are bad in those years. That’s why you need a salmon with the most DNA diversity so that some can survive.
And what happened to the Wabashy Dam though?
never heard of it 🤨
I'm in Eureka, and at first, I thought what a big thing this was. When I found out these dams were way far away near the Oregon border, I felt lied to. I don't think these will have as big of an impact as people think unless the Klamath lake was undammed as well so there is a whole free river. And with the farming there, that's not going to happen. Not to mention all of the farm run-off.
I do feel for anyone who bought lake front property up there and will have to see a dirty and heavy metal filled river for a few years or so while it cleans itself.
I'm of the all or nothing approach. Because if we don't go back to complete nature, then what's the point of reducing quality of life?
@Lazris59 Unfortunately your all or nothing approach will have little success when you are dealing with humans. There are multiple reason to remove the dams along with many benefits. They had done nothing about the water quality in both Copco and iron gate. That did not work and the water got worse every year. Removing the dams will have some short term negative impacts. I have recently been to Iron gate. It is already beginning to improve. The rain from this winters storms will do more work flushing out the decomposed algae from the lake beds. The possibility of the lakes having another toxic algae bloom is gone.
I lived in Yreka for many years (not to be confused with Eureka), and if the fish can't get TO the Klamath river, IT DOESN'T MATTER if they make it past Eureka.
@@maxsdad538I'm sure you're talking about Klamath lake. It still opens up 400 mi of spawning tributaries.
you desire so many more followers
Yes, I do!
Great video. Thanks for pointing out the false equivalency bit regarding the LSRDs. You're right, environmentalists should LOVE these dams.
If they actually cared about the environment and the climate, they would be in favor of the LSRDs.
Climate is not a concern here, but California seems to have no problem decommissioning power generation and then just expecting people to pay the resulting higher prices or go without
Very uninformed
@@karendurant4981 no need to call yourself out like that! I suppose you think climate change means droughts and fire weather huh 😂
Hopefully, eel and snake river will be free one day.
If you care about the environment and care about the climate, you must be in favor of the Snake River Dams. 😏
Someone didn't watch the full video.😒
I have been on both sides of these "environmental" arguments/discussions. The part that always "frustrates" me is the boneheaded stubbornness of BOTH sides AND their 1 size fits ALL mentality. The illogical "religious" euphoria rhetoric that they wish to apply to situations that are NOT the same except in possible appearance continues to baffle me. It soon becomes ALL emotional, incoherent, unreasonable, and illogical with NO ONE willing to listen or even try to understand why they might be wrong. In way too many cases it is not about environment or even ethical aspects - it simply comes down to who has the most money AND who can get the most backing for their "idea". Then when it all goes wrong - it all starts all over again. The "blame" game has brought more destruction to the environment and man's habitat than any "solution" they come up with. IMHO
Agreed. We need more fact-based decision making and less ideology-driven overreactions.
I think what is not being said is that in 1920 nobody cared about Salmon migration. They were more concerned with being fat and smoking cigars. What I heard was that because the fish got screwed in 1920 they never needed to be taken into consideration moving forward. This seems bizarre to me. Just personally.
Now that more "people" care about "salmon" the equation has changed slightly. But only slightly.
The other thing nobody seems to want to talk about is siltation. The siltation everyone is bitching about now is a side effect of every dam ever built. It's a feature. Whenever any official talks about reservoir capacity they are lying through their teeth. They never publicize the amount of capacity reduced by siltation. Those cigars...
We could talk about farm subsidies but then everyone would arm themselves. We could talk about the Yurok netting salmon at the mouth but it would be the same result. I could go on and on and on but nobody wants to talk about reality. We just want to scream at each other.
Is hydroelectric power good or bad? Yes, no maybe so?
Are salmon and healthy rivers worth anything? Yes, no maybe so?
The whole thing is complex and undeniably subjective.
You're right about it being complex. But I can shed some light on the smoky cigar rooms...
In the 1920s, these dams weren't built as part of some large corporate green scheme designed to rip off poor people and feed fat cats. The early dams in the US west were almost ALL build by locally-owned co-ops and small businesses to supply power to a local mill and the surrounding community. Interconnected grids came decades later and was a federal initiative (thank you FDR).
The Copco Dams were literally the first electricity this rural region of California and Oregon had ever seen. It picked people out of poverty and into the 20th century - allowing lights, heating, and basic appliances for the first time in history.
There is plenty of greed in the story of early 20th-century industrialization and power companies. But this isn't one of them.
Some more than others for example the Canadians dam the Fraser because they wanted their fishing industry intact. Some people knew and especially native people. Salmon are worth a lot nobody else on the planet enjoyed the bounty of fish our people did although like PE mentioned salmon and other migratory fish used to be in more places than just the PNW in great quantities too! I just think when people underestimate the value of salmon they should remember agriculture was perfected by native people to the south and east of us and yet we didn't adopt a sedentary lifestyle to grow corn or beans. We still took care of lands to harvest for later, but because salmon were so abundant we didn't have to farm to be the most densely populated place north of Mexico in pre-columbia times! The coast was very wealthy and shared this across to the plains why shells and such are so apart of their culture because the northwest was able to give a lot because we had a lot of salmon.
Tell the truth man....
Which part of the video do you disagree with?
Honestly, I’d like to see when they started mapping trees compared to now. If they plant more trees there be more rain
None of the mega dam projects were pragmatic. The people living here never thought dams would take away Salmon native and non-native alike. The Fraser River was never dammed on its mainstem for the major importance of the fishing cultually and commercially. Why did we dam our major salmon river?? Grand Coulee Dam was costly if it had not been wartime it would've never been a high dam blocking salmon on the midsection of the Columbia river where Salmon swam from mouth to headwaters historically. Nobody thought about building dams above waterfalls that were naturally barriers to Salmon??? So DUMB, why didn't they think about that??. Because dams were built to block salmon. We now hear people talk about being practical because we are so reliant/overinvested in the dams that DO block Salmon, Chief Joseph Dam and Grand Coulee Dam. Flooding could bave been controlled in these areas above historical barriers to fish migration, hydropower projects and recreation too. Agriculture would STILL have been irrigated through cheaper gravity fed canals from rhe Pend Orielle and alike rivers like the Spokane with higher elevation than the basin that come from the foothills of the Rockies. We're talking about billions to make these changes yet that's what our government sends to war on other continents. Shame. The lower snake river dams are a joke. My dad says the Grand Coulee Dam and Chief Joseph Dam make money and that goes to supporting all these other dams that don't. He's a hydro-mechanic and we're from Coulee Dam, WA. My mom is a tribal member and so I am familiar with this. Just sad those business men didn't think about building the major dams on the Kootenai, Pend Orielle, Spokane, John Day and Snake ABOVE the waterfalls that have been blocking salmon for. thousands of years. We could not have lost as much as we did. We would still see change just like Fraser still has been changed, but not as significantly as the reality of the Columbia river today. Why didn't they build smarter. It all came down greed, money and war. One big single investment to help end the depression and win a war. Still sad to even have small dams when Grand Coulee could be serviced like the 3rd powerhouse and power 1-3 Seattle like cities. Just dumb to have these lower snake and Columbia dams. I pray and hope my relatives on downriver and on rhe snake are able to breech those dams. It's unlikely GCD will ever go down in my lifetime, so I wish more people understood it'd be better to use all the army corps and Boniville money for CJD, GCD and dams above these dams and free the Snake up to Shoshone Falls. It's our last chance. We need either the Snake free or the Upper Columbia and we know one has more important hydropower projects than the other. The loss of power can easily be replaced by upgrading CJD and GCD, hungry horse and the Canadian Dams.
I don't see any new dams being built in the near future, and upgrading existing dams - while a good idea - won't make up for the shortfall of demolishing working power stations like the LSRDs. The math doesn't add up!
@@ArmchairEngineer The math does add up and big dams on the upper Columbia, Chief Joseph Dam, Grand Coulee Dam, Albeni Falls Dam, Libby, Hungry Horse, Boundary, the Canadian Dams and the Treaty dams, SKQ dam, create more than 15,000 megawatts the Snake river only does 2,500. That's not even counting the rest of the dams and we're only talking about the lower snake dams for now. Grand Coulee's 3rd powerhouse almost doubled it's capacity we can add another 2,000 megawatts of power to the grid if we build a 4th powerhouse and create more power from using the Banks lake reservoir to help other sources of energy with storage using the pumps Grand Coulee already has. The 4th powerhouse is ready to be built the end of Grand Coulee Dam is not really a part of the dam it's just a temporary dam placed for when we create a 4th powerhouse. If our enemies ever target the dam that's where they will aim because it's the weakest part of the whole dam. To save our orcas and our region. The Grand Coulee Dam will have to be gone in the year 2224. anyway, we could just build a hydro power system on the parts of the river salmon historically could not swim above most of the basin had waterfalls blocking salmon. China can build huge mega projects and so could we and power the northwest and have fish. The Canadians have a free main stem of the Fraser River and this was chosen over a potential dam that would create more power than the Grand Coulee Dam. There was a war going on and the Great Depression and the dust bowl had people looking to the west and the government jobs and cheap land. And the Grand Coulee Dam was an attack on the Tribes. The upper Columbia Basin in B.C. is unceded land, colonial called "crown land" makes up 93% of B.C. this was never ceded to the crown by the First Nations. I the United States, the federal government stopped making treaties with tribes and then the civil war happened so the upper Columbia Tribes got executive orders and lost their rights to hunt or fish off our reservations or (at the time) leave at all. Despite never giving these rights to their homelands up. The NW fish wars won the rights for Treaty Tribes, but we need to make sure that the Upper Columbia is one day free for Salmon after the Snake River and lower Columbia are dams are breeched for salmon migration first.
Salmon could swim to the headwaters and so, Grand Coulee Dam really is in the middle of the river blocking salmon from half of their historic migration.
We need to make sure small farmers are able to access the irrigation from the Columbia Basin and we could make sure the lands that are inundated by the breeching of the dams could go to small operations like Native farmers or new and beginning farmers and ranchers.
Honestly, I think they’re going to heat the water up and the fish are gonna die.
Just opposite, they're spring-fed creeks flowing into the Klamath above those lakes that are very cold. It might even give a chance for our springers which are almost all gone
@@karendurant4981 I know back in the day I don’t remember which damn it was but over 200,000 thousand salmon died. because the water was too warm.
Now the Indians can NET the whole river !
Good for them! I'm happy that the tribes got this win and hope that salmon recovery happens for the long term. Only time will tell.
@@ArmchairEngineer How much fish are they 'CURRENTLY' catching on that upper river ?
OK video until going off the rails at the end. You can care about climate and clean energy in PNW and want the LSRD removed. Why? These dams definitely do hinder salmon migration, they heat up the water quite a bit, and the power generation can and will be replaced by other clean sources matched with battery storage. It's not very "clean" energy if an entire species of fish that many people count on die out. Not to mention how much money we spend to keep hatchery salmon going. These and many other dams are going away. Good riddance.
You make two big claims:
1 - Power from the LSRDs can be "easily replaced"
2 - The dams are responsible for fish "dying out"
If I can solidly debunk one or both of those claims, would your stance on breaching the LSRDs change?
In the 80s I witnessed the local tribe string a gill net from bank to bank, twice a day, every fish over about 3" in diameter was harvested from the river. It's not a sustainable process yet the government let's them do whatever they want. This won't work if the tribe wibt let fish grow and spawn.
No, you are mistaken.
The harvest on the Klamath is very scientifically regulated to allow subsistence fishing. These folks that have historically lived on the river really want this amazing project to work. They've managed this fishery for many years and I think they're probably going to continue to do a fine job. Let's just give it a chance and see without injecting a bunch of prejudice.
I agree. Native harvest must continue and the tribes are an important partner when it comes to our rivers. As long we make our decisions based on data and logic and not a romantic view of the pre-industrial west, salmon and dams can continue to coexist for the foreseeable future.
hey man give me a call
shoot me an email
The communists got them.
Get the hell out of here
@@karendurant4981 lol
Due to the Snake River dams, the river doesn't flow like it should. It is now less ideal salmon habitat, and excellent habitat for invasive carp. The Snake River dams are mediocre energy producers. Their primary use case are are the locks, so the agriculture industry can transport their product to Asia. Replacing the energy with solar, wind, and/or nuclear will remove the energy dependence, but the need for the locks still remain. Only after replacing the locks with an alternative can they be removed. Hopefully, some day, the virtue signalling environmentalists will learn to stop throwing temper tantrums and instead go get engineering degrees so they can "save the planet" with next generation infrastructure instead of just causing problems.
Almost everything you said was wrong.
✔️ Flow "as it should" is a misnomer. Rivers change constantly and flows change naturally. This unnatural alteration has not resulted in the ecology collapsing. The fish are still there!
✔️ The dams are NOT mediocre energy producers. All four are in the top 25 largest hydropower plants in the US! If combined into one unit, they would be the second largest behind Grand Coulee. This myth about them being small power producers needs to be squashed!
✔️ "Primary use case are the locks" is mostly true, as the dams were originally commissioned for navigation. But water transportation is our most climate-friendly method, and would be undermined by putting all that wheat onto trains and trucks.
✔️ Replacing energy with wind and solar is an even bigger myth. Wind and solar are not dispatchable sources, meaning you can't turn them on and off at will. Which means you need a dispatchable source (like a dam) nearby to balance the load. Nuclear is a whole other conversation, and one that should be taken seriously if we want meaningful action on climate change.
As for the part about "stop throwing temper tantrums and go get engineering degrees", I wholeheartedly agree! If you are in favor of the environment and in favor of the climate, than you have to be in favor of the Lower Snake River Dams. 😀
@@ArmchairEngineerno we don't. The upper Columbia CANNOT BE FREED because those dams are SO MUCH more important than any Snake River dams. The idea is to free the Snake because the upper Columbia is unfortunately too important and my people will not have a free river, but at least Salmon will survive if we let them through restoring that basin! I wish we could breech CJD and GCD, but my father and community works at those dams and they say it'll never happen in our lifetime because they produce the majority of power. They actually produce less power to allow for downstream dams to run. We can also upgrade these dams capacity to power a few more Seattle sized cities, just free the Snake and our Salmon will make it even in 300 years when Grand Coulee has to be demolished our Salmon will have made it because we decided to save the part of the Columbia Basin we could. Massive landslides and ice dams were in place for long periods of time yet salmon still reestablished themselves every time for thousands of years! I have faith if we free the Snake our salmon will be safe and the upper Columbia tribes are working together to bring salmon up above the important dams ATM.
I don’t understand why we don’t build smarter dams that aren’t designed to destroy anything
Dams don't destroy rivers: they borrow them.
It’s notable the role that politics and business played in the decision for removal - adding fish passage and associated infrastructure to get the dams up to FERC relicensing standards would have cost twice the price tag of the whole removal and restoration efforts. Also, tribal management and justice is a meaningful outcome on the pros list for this (and most other dam removal projects) alongside ecological benefits. Most dams of this era and scale served not only to disturb subsistence food populations but also displace native communities and much of that is being righted through this process.
"Righted" is a definitive that I'm not comfortable using. Indigenous peoples have experienced centuries of mistreatment. Removing a few structures doesn't change that, nor does it restore fish runs that were decimated decades before the dams were built. A positive step maybe, but it's waaaaay too soon to say "righted."
Welcome to agenda 2030
Whose agenda? My camp isn't the one making backroom deals in DC with unnamed lobbyists.
That's absolutely NOT TRUE about the Snake River dams. The dams definitely hinder salmon migration. Both upstream and downstream.
Whether it makes sense to remove the dams is another question given ship navigation and the hydroelectric power generated. Both of which provide a very significant benefit.
I appreciate you acknowledging the value of hydropower and navigation. And the dams are definitely not GOOD for salmon. However, the LSRDs have taken the blame for a collapse in salmon runs that happened decades before the dams were built. Comparing the LSRDs with the Klamath can be deceptive, and needs to be put in proper context.
I find it very hard to believe that "not a single electrical engineer supports this approach" of using solar/wind power vs keeping old dams. Really?????
It's simple math. And treating those two power sources are equivalent doesn't pass the PE exam. If you ever meet a licensed electrical engineer who disagrees, have them email me. I would love to meet them.
We could come up with more clever and less environmentally impactful ways of using hydropower and storage. Just think most of the Columbia Basin is home to rivers with waterfalls that historically blocked salmon a few of these rivers are some of the main tributaries like the Kootenai and Pend Orielle even the Snake River has a blockage to salmon at Shoshone Falls. What if we upgraded the capacity of all the dams above these historic salmon barriers? Or built new facilities? We have so much to tap into if only we weren't seeing our taxes pay for bombs on other continents...
Also besides the major dams like the Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph. None of these smaller dams do much just run of the river with low head and only for power. Grand Coulee could produce 1.5x it's current capacity if we upgraded! We should breech them and only invest in the dams above Grand Coulee in the watershed!
I'm sure the tribe will be returning to their old ways? No cars, no electricity, ect?
They complain about water and power shortages and then teardown dams. DUH
It's strange how they don't seem to put those two things together, isn't it?
Big fan of river restoration projects! Fix the ecosystems and maybe we can see some really cool animals return. Would love to see more wolves and even grizzlies back in CA.
...meanwhile, we lose a huge percentage of our clean, reliable power and ability to guard against floods. Seems like a poor tradeoff.
i cannot watch "selfie" videos...i think they show lack of imagination and respect...
...or a lack of a tripod. Go to my GoFundMe to buy me a new one!
I don't necessarily agree with his conclusions. There's a lot of ideas that are not quite true. He makes the claim that the reservoirs would heat up from the sun. Hmm...no. Because cold water sinks. So while, the surface water will get warm, down near the dams and where the outflow is, the waters are generally colder. This regulates the temperature of the lower river. Without the dams, and since the water levels will drop during summer time, the water will heat up, thus the salmon will not be able to survive. Before we jump to the conclusion that the dams were the sole reason for the disappearance of the Salmon, we have to look to the cannery ships, sometimes Chinese cannery ships who fish just outside the territorial waters of the US, and scoop up massive amounts of Salmon and Steel head.
What happens when there's a severe flood? No dam means no flood control. The lower Klamath will flood and the Yuroks will suffer much damage.
Now the Yuroks were heavily involved in the destruction of these dams, claiming that they harmed the Salmon. Where they actually lived there were no dams. The dams were on the upper Klamath. The Yuroks, who were called "Peh-tsick" on the upper Klamath river, subsisted on the Catfish that inhabited the Williams River, and Klamath Lake, and lots of berries and seeds.
What is most concerning is what he said near the end. He said there would be no way that what happened on the Elwah dam and the Klamath River would never happen on the lower Snake River. Think again. The environmentalists have lots of liberal money behind them. They will not stop. They already want the dams on the Umpqua to be taken out. They won here. And they will take their win to the Lower Snake River.
Many times we hear the same ole mantra that "we can't go back to the past" we must push on to the future. And yet, that"s what we hear. We must go back to when the rivers were free. And at the same time we are told that we need to destroy our gas cars and get into battery cars. Where will all the electricity come from. Won't come from Hydro, nor natural gas, nor oil, nor nuclear. The sun and wind just can't provide that level of service.
I don't remember saying that it would never happen on the Snake! In fact, tens of millions of dollars are being spent trying to make sure that it does happen. What I was trying to do was point out the inconsistency. The Lower Snake is NOTHING like the Klamath or the Elwah. But the dam breaching community is pushing a narrative that says that the logical next dams to breach are on the Lower Snake River. This myth needs to be BUSTED!
Klamath lake is not natural, there is also a dam
klamath lake was there before the dam
It actually IS natural. The Link River Dam only raises the lake level slightly. It functions more as a diversion dam than a storage dam.
@@ArmchairEngineer Link river dam; height 23ft (average depth of the lake 14ft), reservoir cap. 1,1 km3, power cap. 151 MW. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_River_Dam
Not in its current state. There was no dam.
@@martinkesler8167 the klamath lake dam is not natural. Impeeds Salmon & Steelhead migration to THE major spawning grounds of the many rivers on the eastside of Crater Lake National Park.
But the benifit out weighs the salmon.
only time will tell
What a stupid title!
Can you help me write a better one? I could use improved SEO.🤷♂️
How much are you being paid from the power companies
Nothing. But I'm accepting donations on my website, if you are offering.😏