The Sandy river is my front yard. I've never been so happy as the day I was notified about the dams removal. Watching such a rapid recovery after the removal was nothing short of amazing. Today it's as it was centuries ago, and some days it almost seems to be smiling.
Ha ha! Same here! I saw one video about 4 videos ago and now I’m hooked. I didn’t know this was a thing. Nor did I ever think about the negative impacts that dams have on our fish populations.
I find it funny that as a child we used to play in a rain gully next to a covered play area and in the rain build dams and make them fail like the scale model they built. When they cut the notch it looked exactly like our play.
60 years ago my cousins, brother, and I would use a firecracker to blast a hole in our "dam". Strangely, none of us went into civil engineering, though my brother did become a geologist.
Thank you for having the wisdom and courage and doing the right thing for all the living creatures of this earth... This very morning I will be attending a meeting in an effort to remove the Gold River Dam in Placer County, California. Hopefully, Nevada Irrigation District will come to their sensed and remove the Gold Hill Dam that was built by the pioneers over a 150 years ago...
This is marketing, not a documentary. Look at what a great company we are!!! Had there not been an endangered species in the river they would have never taken any action.
@@bleachinuri Because doing the right thing when nobody is looking is the proper measure of character. Me no electricity... not an issue. I spend weeks in the wilderness on horseback. Your criticism is noted.
@@ShainAndrews good for you, I don't trust people that are to kind or to goody 2 shoes, that's not human nature and if your too good your hiding something 😉 😜.
I'm editing this post because I conflated, unfairly, Portland General Electric (PGE) with Pacific Gas & Electric. Thanks to bearinmind (below) for point this out. I stand corrected.
The small amount of electricity from that dam is easily replaced by wind power from the Columbia River Gorge area and from areas east of the Cascade Range where the wind blows strongly fairly consistently.
Wow, very heartening to see this video. I hope this is happening all over the world. A return to wild and scenic rivers. I live next to the Shasta Dam which is filled by the snows of an active volcano, Mt. Shasta in California, and flows into the Sacramento River on its way to the San Francisco delta area where it empties into the Pacific Ocean. I wonder what the people in Sacramento are going to do for power when they take that dam down. They already took down our local dam where I live in Red Bluff, downriver from Shasta about 30 miles. Slowly but surely the salmon are coming back and following right behind is a whole new flock of eagles and hawks, beautiful birds.
Liberals don't understand that ALL forms of energy have high prices on the environment, inc solar and wind, and the latter two forms are more feel-good toys at this point, capable of only a tiny fraction of our energy needs.
I lived in the are my whole life. This was a wonderful project. PGE would never generate power here again. It was the right thing for them to do it was the right thing for the river. It was a huge learning lab for many different scientists. It was a huge success.
panning is relatively harmless to the environment, but it should be regulated. If you are successful, thousands will come searching for their fortune. The cost to the environment could be great if not peoperly regulated
In any given group of people gathered together specifically to observe something, there will be at least one who feels the need to shout, "LOOK AT THAT!!"
Great….take out all of the dams then you can buy power from California’s Three New Nuclear power plants and those are just for the 35,000,000 cars and trucks to recharge their battery’s. So in reality California will really need at least 12 nuclear power plants.
I wonder what the evviros who brought the lawsuits that closed this and other hydro electric dams think replaced the power that was lost? I suspect it wasn't wind or solar.
Great doco guys - 💹➡ 2018 wonder how it all flows ? & Crikey them fish 🐟🐡 40lbs -+ 18Kilos au OZ - dams served a purpose electricity BUT once old its good to see the river system restored well done 🚣♂️ 🤽♂️ 👨👩👦👦
Not only do the fish get their River back the free flowing can deposit the sediments down river where it can replenish the area around the mouth of the river reducing or slowing down coastal erosion.
Here’s a story from a long, long time ago: The year was 1971, it was a cold February morning. I can’t quite recall if I was brought to tears, when I read the newspaper claiming a women had lost her husband. Something about this event stirred some feelings deep within. I decided to get in my Chevrolet and drive down the the levee, but to my dismay the ground was unusually dry.
it was demolished back in 2007-2008. So the area is well over 10 years past when the dam was removed. With this removal they also got rid of Roslyn Lake that was created with this dam and the Little Sandy Dam as well. So it's on track to become what it used to look like before the dam.
@@barrym4079 No it hasn't. We have only one coal fired plant and it's many miles further up the gorge. I'm sure the power that was needed to replace this dam was MORE than handled by solar and wind generators that are already exceeding the needs of Pacific Power and Light. They are winding down the c.f. plant!
skunkhome agree on it being “swamp gas”, but methane is odorless in nature. There probably was some sort of sulfur released seeing as Mt Hood lay upstream
Looks like another toy for university lunatics who have no real idea of what they are doing, don’t know what their work should produce and just wasting tax payers money for some fun! Typical of self assumed geniuses who can’t make it in the real world where results actually means something. Me thinks since it’s Oregon I wonder how much Dope was smoked to get rid of the dam and produce this video?
@alison webster I've got a BS in environmental science and I totally agree with the previous comment. Washing all sediment down stream probably did more damage to the rivers fish habitat than you can imagine. The buildup happened over time and the fish adapted to it and the ladder. The sediment just killed multiple generations of salmon.
It’s a damn shame to remove these dams. Clean the, out, keep making technological improvements and build more of them. Otherwise, we may as well give up and move back into caves.
this was done several years ago now, I wonder what it looks like now, if the primary objective worked as planned, if the fish really benefit as much as expected, and the electric needs and bills after this .
well the powerhouse that the dam helped supply with water was only able to produce enough electricity (22 Megawatts) for 12,000 homes. Compare this to the dams along the Columbia river and the respective tributaries generate 29 Gigawatts as of 2012 (the dam featured was taken out in 2007-2008) which can power roughly 21 million homes assuming standard electrical usage. So the dam was likely a drop in the bucket compared to where most Portland General Electric customers got their power from.
@@alex-marquette You are correct. The direction is efficiency of money. There is no advantage to having many smaller generators when a few will do the job by simply modifying the distribution system. Other than that, the destruction of the smaller generators includes a lot of tax and cash flow benefits.
And now the 1600 homes that used that hydro- electric power must now rely on solar (only works on sunny days) or wind power (only on windy days). What a bonus for the power supply companies. Brace yourselves for astronomic power bills.
Well and not only that the panels are only 18% efficient the best of them are we found that out when we went to go install solar on our house. Our situation is perfectly posed for constant sunlight all day long from the time the sun comes up this time the sun goes down we would have sunlight pretty much three-quarters of the year and even on snowy days we would get patches of sunlight so we'd only have to have a small battery Bank we don't use a lot of electricity but we'd have it set up for a washer and dryer refrigerator Luckily the heat, stove and hot water heater are gas. There is also a supplemental wood heavy duty warming Style with power blower fireplace insert which uses minimal wood 2 heat the ceramic plates. What we found out was that the use of solar panels would leave us dependent upon the electric company for good we would not make enough energy off the sun no matter if we were 24/7 on the sun because of their inefficiency. We thought about doing the little wind turbines but because we get really serious wind and the trees you can't guarantee that something won't bust them up flying pinecones limbs needles squirrels I went ahead and just said the stick with what we've got. Are fireplace produces practically no emissions as we have a scrubber on it we use very little heating as where our house is smaller we always keep rooms that we don't use closed we have excellent insulation, a special custom built window installations for winter that are removed and replaced with Summer wait I enjoyed making those but it's just crazy some of the stuff people expect us to do when really all it is is a fraud.
@@valiantsfelinesmccarty6678 First of all, solar panels can reach a maximum efficiency of about 34% at the moment. Secondly, what a stupid argument. If you talk about this efficiency, it is the efficiency of the solar cells to convert sunlight directly into electricity, so it cannot even be compared to hydroelectricity or wind-energy. Both are (indirectly) ultimately powered by the sun, hydroelectricity through condensation and rain and wind energy through the movement of air which is also caused by the sun. If you would calculate how much sun energy is needed to provide you with enough water to get the same amount of energy it would be more than you need for solar panels. And finally, even the best plants only have a "solar energy to biomass conversion rate" of 2%, multiply that by 0.1 for every trophic level to find out that your beefburger has an energy efficiency of about 0.02%.
@alison webster maybe they don't let you get the better quality in my country we have investigated it and you know what if you want to believe the lies go ahead. I don't need to move to the city. I barely use any electricity as it is so it's not a big problem for me. What I don't like is the lies. But go ahead brainwashed
@@donaldbrown7252 Currently in IL we are subsidizing nuclear plants. They should build some natural gas powered ones to replace the power generated and shut them down.
I love watching how dams are built. I also love seeing them destroyed. in both ways they are great. one way helps humanity get energy and water flow control....the other is just mother nature wild and free....I love both sides. Lotta people hate dams, a lot of people don't. I like um both.
Great work guys. A job well done and something to be justifiably proud of. Like the man said at the end we borrowed the river's energy for a hundred years now it's time to give it back. I'd love to be around in a hundred years to see how the Chinese replicate this work at Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. Doubtless this project and others like it will be cited in the UA-cam videos of the future. Important work, diligently done.
Ok but where u gonna get power for an all electric world which we are moving more towards. I guess it's back to coal which is more deadly than a dam would be
@@patrickzink2191 The goal is to reduce the size of the middle and working classes. Therefore, the powers that be won't allow coal to take the place of these hydro plants. They're moving to green energy _(sustainable development),_ which will lead to higher costs of goods/services, fewer jobs etc.
BIEN , BIG DAMS NO MORE, BUT LITTLE DAMS , VS EROSIONES YES , TRATAMIENTO INTEGRAL DE CUENCAS NO OLVIDARLO ES LA BASE DE LA CAPTURA Y COSECHA DE AGUA . ANIMOOOOOOOOOOO
@@Stillnonofya you need to stop tuning in to CNN then. They are blowing this whole ANtifa thing out of proportion just like the rest of MSM. MSM is food for Sheep.
I was being facetious dunderheads. The destruction of hydro power dams is indicative of a lack or critical and productive thinking. Hydro power production is the best "greenest" way to produce electrons. The infrastructure is long lasting. durable and reliable simple technology that can pay dividends for 100 plus years. In this world of concern for green house gas emissions, It is one with the smallest carbon foot print. There is always away round a problem. That dam could have been modified to remove the silt accumulations and a system to allow fish access into the water shed area. Construction and bureaucratic cost have become out of control. To build a facility like that today would be prohibitively expensive. "run of the river" projects take huge capitol investments and require decades of time to pay off. Our governments open door policies that promote massive immigration will only create ever growing demand for electricity. So It was a joke that went over you heads. Nuclear power is seriously being looked at again to replace and produce power that will feed our ever insatiable need to grow like weeds that will eventually destroy this world.
A hundred years ago we built these dams and they produced electricity, replacing a part of the fishing industry. Now with the demolishing of these dams we are replacing the electricity industry for the fishing industry. That of course means more fish will be able to feed more people. That part is good,but we also must find more ways to produce cheap electricity.
Nat McDougal (I hope I spelled that right) made a mistake, now he's putting it right. That's a real man. Most would pass the buck. This century is when mankind repairs the damage we have wrought on this planet. These guys need a round of applause.
Sorry, did I miss the bit where Nat McDougal said they were doing this for free? Really? You don't stick that much kit and manpower into a job for nothing.
only one problem with the save the fish philosophy,dams like around here were built to protect people from killing floods that kept happening over and over,and theres no better way to generate electricity than dams, think about it nuclear??? really we don't know of any safe way to deal with the radioactive waste that will be deadly for thousands of years, wind no way in the near future thats gonna supply enough electricity to even break even on the cost of them ugly assed things, solar ??? battery systems are about as toxic as nuclear. electricity by water is still our best option,and guess what we have more species of fish in the dammned area than we had before.
Going to have to do a lot more than remove a few dams. When the earth's population has gone from 6 billion to 8 billion in 23 years (6 billion Oct 12 1999 to 8 billion Nov 15 2022) there's a HUGE problem! Most of that growth has occurred in Africa, where they can't grow enough food to feed their populations but keep having children like they were still dying from disease and starvation!
To remove the rubble and sediment they are going to have to FISH NET THE WATER FLOOR TO PROTECT THE SALMON. Install fish nets about a quarter mile to half a mile up the water channel so the salmon will not be able to swim down the channel until they are finished doing the work of removing the damn, rubble, and sediment. That's also gives the area of water they will be working in to restore it's pH factor suitable for the fish.
Primacord is not wire. It is an explosive in it's own rite. You can take primacord and tie into a ball of knots and you have now just built your own home made bomb. Now ignite it, and see what happens. There are different types with their own ignition mechanisms.
Excellent video and project. Would like to have seen the cofferdam burst and wash-away better. Too many artsy fartsy closeup shots that really didn't help. (Later, I noticed half a dozen other similar critiques).
Hello, missed this the first time. 70 million watts. Really? How about 70 billion microwatts? A watt is a really small unit of energy. What's wrong with 70 kilowatts? Quite liked the video, apart from this hyperbole.
The power companies concluded that the hydroelectric power made was not the most cost effective. Salmon ladders were also too expensive to install. The only opponents were recreational users of the reservoirs and lake side property owners.
"Lakeside" LOL You make it sound like there was summer houses, docks and ski boats. There was no lake. It was still a river with tons and tons of sediment buildup behind the dam. It was so thick you could literally walk across the face of the dam without going over your knees. No widening and depth increase behind the dam. Just a new man made concrete channel that diverted water for power use at Bull Run.
Seems it could have been just as good to breach the dam, let the river run free long enough for most of the silt to wash out, then rebuild the dam with some necessary upgrades along the way. We cannot depend on wind and solar alone, we need a mixture of energy sources to meet our needs.
Some evidence suggests that dams cause buildup of harmful chemicals in salmon and other fish. I think we can do without them plus the fact that they will have twice the habitat in twice the production according to the video
As we are in tears about restoring this river back to normal Thailand is building over 100 Dams on all it's rivers destroying thousands of acres of habitat & displacing thousands of people; I dread to think how much fish & other wildlife in their rivers will be lost? Globally this project is 'one in a million', the rush is on to exploit the last of virgin territory on the planet.
in that case why remove the dam? gravity is one of the best power sources. they removed it i guess because Nature didn't found a way so it had to be helped.
Good on you guys and girls who were part of the dam demolishment. It's great how man can restore a massive structure back to origanal states's. There was a dam here. What ???who said that ???? No dam here now . Very good work . I love how the prep work of years before, successfully works now .
Well spoken for the Anadromous Species! Fisheries and Coastal Connectivity can and will provide habitat, sediment can slowly be released or through larger flow pulses that effectively over time the release will begin to filter and release these sediments as river hydrology, flow regimes , and other aspects of the emerging new river system to adjust if most is organically acceptable and not toxic materials, mine tailings, or other more commercial style inputs from Industrial or other human activities. Beaver and muskrats help to systematically provide water tables through water retention activities, active management through downed woody debris recruitment, deeper water profiles to aid both species deep water cover to elude predators, and these guys take a bit too much credit as do many theoretical costs as Nature could do better as Human Dams are removed properly. Both species diversify and encourage vegetation growth and sproutin sites as ranker or more mature vegetation is consumed, utilized, and implemented into local food webs, nutrient cycles, insect development and recruitment such as Stoneflies, Caddisflies, etc, so Natural process and niche related activies help to restore Water tables on the River by slowing river or stream flows and are especially dutiful in low water years as they can efficiently manage water releases.
This damn was really in my neighborhood. We really like our salmon up here. People love catching big ones and come up from the forty eight for the thrill. We have no shortage of electic producing damns
You do realize that this river flows into the Columbia River, not the Colorado river. Further the state of Oregon doesn't even rely on the Colorado river for anything along with this river is the melt runoff of snow on Mt. Hood. Also the Colorado river is drying up for reasons that affect the states along the river. Which the biggest factor is that we are relying on river in that area that was over estimated to it's capacity and the climate changing where there is less snowfall (and subsequently less runoff) occurring where the river originates.
how was noone in this meeting like.. hey.. we should do a time lapse of the entire event.. and get the shot of the small stream turning into a river in one shot.. not these little clips
Megatonnes of sediment builds up behind dams in few decades. Remove the dam and most of that will wash downstream, despite efforts to stabilize it with plants. It will smother spawning beds and do other damage, and while the river will-probably, eventually, mostly-clean itself, it only takes one year’s total failure to destroy a spawning run. Suggestion? Build one suction dredge that can be taken apart, transported by truck, and reassembled behind a dam scheduled for removal; we should be able to schedule dam removals so that one or two machines will do for all. Dredge most of the sediment out from behind the dam, and it will not be there to wash downstream. I don’t know where/how we dispose of all that, if it’s contaminated with agricultural and other chemicals-but then we don’t want to let that contaminate the downstream river bottom anyway. Where it is clean enough, it’s silt, very rich soil, and it could be sold to farmers or as a component of potting soil. There are no wastes, only un-utilized resources.
I'm still trying to find some gold in the colorado mountain creeks via 2in keene backpack dredge,get bout 4 5gal buckets of "black sand" and u MIGHT get 1-8 flakes of "glitter" tiny tiny bits of gold(I know I'm not missing anything)
Old country boy. I see that an improvement to the removal of sediments could have been achieved by having placed explosive charges in the sediments to loosen and fluff them up, especially along the edges out from the center of the stream flow.
Ok, the fish win. How is the electric produced here (formerly) going to be replaced? need all the juice we can get to run all those electric cars here. windmills, gotta cut down the trees, solar panels, ditto, OH! fairy dust. that solves the problem.
We were being made to pay to keep this and many more outdated power going because the companies didn’t want to spend the money to remove them. And didn’t care because they just kept making us pay to keep them going the only way to keep these old plants going was to pass it on to us. And the government was letting them get away with it. This old Technology wasn’t paying for itself any longer it should’ve been gone a long time ago. The new Technology is so much better than this old Technology.
@@FYMASMD "Cheaper to destroy the dams than maintain it"? Is that your argument? 🤦♂️. WTF?!! Of course it's easier to destroy than you build. The economic effects are judged by the output it produced. Electricity. Yes, it was a small dam compared to others. But so was the river it was built on.
Funny how i just watched a documentary about the removal of Condit dam and they removed in the exact same way. Let the river take away the sediment... yet they say it has not been done before...
I watched the removal on TV years ago. Being a transplant from Minnesota, it was still exciting for myself and all of Oregon! Who says going a step back is a bad thing! Go Vikings! (Minnesota.) lol
Our economy does. You can't remove all the infrastructure that supports modern society and go back to the old ways without reverting society back to those old ways.
The Sandy river is my front yard.
I've never been so happy as the day I was notified about the dams removal. Watching such a rapid recovery after the removal was nothing short of amazing.
Today it's as it was centuries ago, and some days it almost seems to be smiling.
Don’t know how I found myself in the depths of the damn deconstruction UA-cam community, but the hippie in me has come quite astonished .
yo bro me too
Me too I started watching 3 videos ago cuz I saw jerry on the eel
Not a hippie but definitely enjoying these types of documentaries
Great job. Now those 16,000 homes can use fossil fuels.
Ha ha! Same here! I saw one video about 4 videos ago and now I’m hooked. I didn’t know this was a thing. Nor did I ever think about the negative impacts that dams have on our fish populations.
22:25 "Its like the river doesn't even... remember there was a dam here!"
Sneaking a little animism in there. I love it.
This river just don't give a dam.
I find it funny that as a child we used to play in a rain gully next to a covered play area and in the rain build dams and make them fail like the scale model they built. When they cut the notch it looked exactly like our play.
60 years ago my cousins, brother, and I would use a firecracker to blast a hole in our "dam". Strangely, none of us went into civil engineering, though my brother did become a geologist.
/
Thank you for having the wisdom and courage and doing the right thing for all the living creatures of this earth... This very morning I will be attending a meeting in an effort to remove the Gold River Dam in Placer County, California. Hopefully, Nevada Irrigation District will come to their sensed and remove the Gold Hill Dam that was built by the pioneers over a 150 years ago...
I miss these kind of documentaries.
Me too. There back.
This is marketing, not a documentary. Look at what a great company we are!!! Had there not been an endangered species in the river they would have never taken any action.
@@ShainAndrews and why should they if there wasn't an andangered species 🤔, everyone is a critic, maybe go without electricity for a couple of weeks
@@bleachinuri Because doing the right thing when nobody is looking is the proper measure of character. Me no electricity... not an issue. I spend weeks in the wilderness on horseback. Your criticism is noted.
@@ShainAndrews good for you, I don't trust people that are to kind or to goody 2 shoes, that's not human nature and if your too good your hiding something 😉 😜.
Fantastic well done....great to see this kind of work being done at last.
Excellent! Bravo! Thanks for this professional video and great thanks for NOT having background music.
this is a feel good story, we can reach the promised land when we get the snake river dams out
Excellent documentary and excellent work in dam removal.
I'm editing this post because I conflated, unfairly, Portland General Electric (PGE) with Pacific Gas & Electric. Thanks to bearinmind (below) for point this out. I stand corrected.
That was Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) not Portland General Electric (PGE). No relation to Erin Brockavich.
The small amount of electricity from that dam is easily replaced by wind power from the Columbia River Gorge area and from areas east of the Cascade Range where the wind blows strongly fairly consistently.
@@bearinmind50 I've edited my post to remove the incorrect info. Thank you for pointing that out and being civil while doing so. I stand corrected.
Not many people on the internet wanna admit they are wrong, especially so humbly. Keep the healthy spirit alive friend.
@@azure6729 Thank you.
Wow, very heartening to see this video. I hope this is happening all over the world. A return to wild and scenic rivers. I live next to the Shasta Dam which is filled by the snows of an active volcano, Mt. Shasta in California, and flows into the Sacramento River on its way to the San Francisco delta area where it empties into the Pacific Ocean. I wonder what the people in Sacramento are going to do for power when they take that dam down. They already took down our local dam where I live in Red Bluff, downriver from Shasta about 30 miles. Slowly but surely the salmon are coming back and following right behind is a whole new flock of eagles and hawks, beautiful birds.
Liberals don't understand that ALL forms of energy have high prices on the environment, inc solar and wind, and the latter two forms are more feel-good toys at this point, capable of only a tiny fraction of our energy needs.
Good job guys.
I lived in the are my whole life. This was a wonderful project. PGE would never generate power here again. It was the right thing for them to do it was the right thing for the river. It was a huge learning lab for many different scientists. It was a huge success.
Thanks for the dam tour!
Do you have any dam questions?
I am your dam guide
If I lived around there, I'd be doing some gold panning downstream from where that dam used to sit.
That causes problems. NO, we don't want you to. I LIVE HERE.
it's a free country, you should try it.
@@0649Hayes Go Phuck yourself Socialist Antifa lover!
@@joelcrunk651 well that escalated quickly
panning is relatively harmless to the environment, but it should be regulated. If you are successful, thousands will come searching for their fortune. The cost to the environment could be great if not peoperly regulated
In any given group of people gathered together specifically to observe something, there will be at least one who feels the need to shout, "LOOK AT THAT!!"
Thanks for all of those that helped get this removed, i live very close to the Sandy river and visit it everyday with my dogs
Great….take out all of the dams then you can buy power from California’s Three New Nuclear power plants and those are just for the 35,000,000 cars and trucks to recharge their battery’s.
So in reality California will really need at least 12 nuclear power plants.
@@alanwomack5055 You should leave since you don't like the greatest country on the planet.
@@Sum_Tings_Wong I fought for America in Vietnam in the years 1970 and 1971. So take your Chinese ass and go to hell.
Wow great job everyone!
I wish they had a time-lapse of the whole thing without it cutting to a bunch of different shots.
It is a bit confusing to me, that hydro power, one of the cleanest forms of energy, should be taken away by environmentalism.
I wonder what the evviros who brought the lawsuits that closed this and other hydro electric dams think replaced the power that was lost?
I suspect it wasn't wind or solar.
To save the salmon, a keystone species, you have to balance species survival against hydro power. They both cant win.
Hydro power does not produce much CO2, but a dam pretty much shuts down an entire ecosystem.
It benefits humans and that's the problem environmentalists have. Environmentalism is dreadfully anti-human, anti-prosperity, and anti-industry.
Mercury poisioning, its fatal and it dont get better😮
That was really cool!
Awesome video of a fantastic engineering feat!
Great doco guys - 💹➡ 2018 wonder how it all flows ? & Crikey them fish 🐟🐡 40lbs -+ 18Kilos au OZ - dams served a purpose electricity BUT once old its good to see the river system restored well done 🚣♂️ 🤽♂️ 👨👩👦👦
did you have a stroke whilst typing this?
@@breakcoregivesmewo0od611 yeah
What a great story of technical prowess in the service of mother nature
now time to build some wild and scenic windmills
Not only do the fish get their River back the free flowing can deposit the sediments down river where it can replenish the area around the mouth of the river reducing or slowing down coastal erosion.
Here’s a story from a long, long time ago: The year was 1971, it was a cold February morning. I can’t quite recall if I was brought to tears, when I read the newspaper claiming a women had lost her husband. Something about this event stirred some feelings deep within. I decided to get in my Chevrolet and drive down the the levee, but to my dismay the ground was unusually dry.
paradoxed Hahaha... Chevy to the Levee but the levee was dry... that old chestnut.
Lol
Brad Martin now i get it 🤦🏾♂️🤷🏾♂️😂
Oh brudda
I would like to see what happening to the area down river.
I'm sure it created more habitats for wifelife
Gotta love the high pitched tone on the narrators mic that none of the production staff noticed because none of them could hear it
Great documentary! What an amazing show of nature healing itself.
Yeah, All by itself.
Six years later, how did it go?
what impacts on fisheries?
Indian nets are catching even more fish,!
This was done in 2014. What is the status of the area now in 2019?
it was demolished back in 2007-2008. So the area is well over 10 years past when the dam was removed. With this removal they also got rid of Roslyn Lake that was created with this dam and the Little Sandy Dam as well. So it's on track to become what it used to look like before the dam.
The dam still isn't there.
@@stacymirba1433: Lol. True but the water is.
the hydro it produced has been replaced by a coal plant.
@@barrym4079 No it hasn't. We have only one coal fired plant and it's many miles further up the gorge. I'm sure the power that was needed to replace this dam was MORE than handled by solar and wind generators that are already exceeding the needs of Pacific Power and Light. They are winding down the c.f. plant!
Those hints of Sulfur he talked about was H2S, Hydrogen Sulphide. That's not a gas you want to trifle with, especially in a lower confined space.
DEFINITELY...
Got H2S POISONING IN 2010... WORKING FOR THE PARK CITY SEWER DISTRICT !
LICKHER&STICKHER INTHEPINK I DON'T KNOW WHY WE'RE YELLING, BUT YOU'RE LUCKY YOU MADE IT OUT ALIVE.
It’s likely he’s actually smelling methane (swamp gas)
skunkhome agree on it being “swamp gas”, but methane is odorless in nature. There probably was some sort of sulfur released seeing as Mt Hood lay upstream
Thank you, Portland General Electric. Not for the video. But for the decision you made.
hmm wonder what the cost of that Minn university river dam model and study was..
Looks like another toy for university lunatics who have no real idea of what they are doing, don’t know what their work should produce and just wasting tax payers money for some fun! Typical of self assumed geniuses who can’t make it in the real world where results actually means something. Me thinks since it’s Oregon I wonder how much Dope was smoked to get rid of the dam and produce this video?
@alison webster I've got a BS in environmental science and I totally agree with the previous comment. Washing all sediment down stream probably did more damage to the rivers fish habitat than you can imagine. The buildup happened over time and the fish adapted to it and the ladder. The sediment just killed multiple generations of salmon.
It’s a damn shame to remove these dams. Clean the, out, keep making technological improvements and build more of them.
Otherwise, we may as well give up and move back into caves.
this was done several years ago now, I wonder what it looks like now, if the primary objective worked as planned, if the fish really benefit as much as expected, and the electric needs and bills after this .
well the powerhouse that the dam helped supply with water was only able to produce enough electricity (22 Megawatts) for 12,000 homes. Compare this to the dams along the Columbia river and the respective tributaries generate 29 Gigawatts as of 2012 (the dam featured was taken out in 2007-2008) which can power roughly 21 million homes assuming standard electrical usage. So the dam was likely a drop in the bucket compared to where most Portland General Electric customers got their power from.
@@alex-marquette You are correct. The direction is efficiency of money. There is no advantage to having many smaller generators when a few will do the job by simply modifying the distribution system. Other than that, the destruction of the smaller generators includes a lot of tax and cash flow benefits.
So have crews of beavers now shown up and starting modifying the river to their own liking?
A wonderfully magical sight to see this river being able to breathe again in 90 to 100 years. Goodbye to concrete.
Our society is built on concrete, unless you want to go back to a hunter gatherer society we NEED concrete!
And now the 1600 homes that used that hydro- electric power must now rely on solar (only works on sunny days) or wind power (only on windy days). What a bonus for the power supply companies. Brace yourselves for astronomic power bills.
yes bend over. same thing in illinois
Well and not only that the panels are only 18% efficient the best of them are we found that out when we went to go install solar on our house. Our situation is perfectly posed for constant sunlight all day long from the time the sun comes up this time the sun goes down we would have sunlight pretty much three-quarters of the year and even on snowy days we would get patches of sunlight so we'd only have to have a small battery Bank we don't use a lot of electricity but we'd have it set up for a washer and dryer refrigerator
Luckily the heat, stove and hot water heater are gas. There is also a supplemental wood heavy duty warming Style with power blower fireplace insert which uses minimal wood 2 heat the ceramic plates. What we found out was that the use of solar panels would leave us dependent upon the electric company for good we would not make enough energy off the sun no matter if we were 24/7 on the sun because of their inefficiency. We thought about doing the little wind turbines but because we get really serious wind and the trees you can't guarantee that something won't bust them up flying pinecones limbs needles squirrels I went ahead and just said the stick with what we've got. Are fireplace produces practically no emissions as we have a scrubber on it we use very little heating as where our house is smaller we always keep rooms that we don't use closed we have excellent insulation, a special custom built window installations for winter that are removed and replaced with Summer wait I enjoyed making those but it's just crazy some of the stuff people expect us to do when really all it is is a fraud.
@@valiantsfelinesmccarty6678 First of all, solar panels can reach a maximum efficiency of about 34% at the moment. Secondly, what a stupid argument. If you talk about this efficiency, it is the efficiency of the solar cells to convert sunlight directly into electricity, so it cannot even be compared to hydroelectricity or wind-energy. Both are (indirectly) ultimately powered by the sun, hydroelectricity through condensation and rain and wind energy through the movement of air which is also caused by the sun. If you would calculate how much sun energy is needed to provide you with enough water to get the same amount of energy it would be more than you need for solar panels. And finally, even the best plants only have a "solar energy to biomass conversion rate" of 2%, multiply that by 0.1 for every trophic level to find out that your beefburger has an energy efficiency of about 0.02%.
@alison webster maybe they don't let you get the better quality in my country we have investigated it and you know what if you want to believe the lies go ahead. I don't need to move to the city. I barely use any electricity as it is so it's not a big problem for me. What I don't like is the lies. But go ahead brainwashed
@@donaldbrown7252 Currently in IL we are subsidizing nuclear plants.
They should build some natural gas powered ones to replace the power generated and shut them down.
I love watching how dams are built. I also love seeing them destroyed. in both ways they are great. one way helps humanity get energy and water flow control....the other is just mother nature wild and free....I love both sides. Lotta people hate dams, a lot of people don't. I like um both.
If ya all want it wild and free tear down Portland next and return it to the wild natural place it once was.
It's all about trade offs my friend
Robert K everything but the OMSI
Great video and a great story - well done all!
Great work guys. A job well done and something to be justifiably proud of. Like the man said at the end we borrowed the river's energy for a hundred years now it's time to give it back. I'd love to be around in a hundred years to see how the Chinese replicate this work at Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. Doubtless this project and others like it will be cited in the UA-cam videos of the future. Important work, diligently done.
Ok but where u gonna get power for an all electric world which we are moving more towards. I guess it's back to coal which is more deadly than a dam would be
patrick Zink There are renewable sources that don't harm the environment nearly this much.
@@patrickzink2191 The goal is to reduce the size of the middle and working classes. Therefore, the powers that be won't allow coal to take the place of these hydro plants. They're moving to green energy _(sustainable development),_ which will lead to higher costs of goods/services, fewer jobs etc.
@@Studio23Media Does your 'environment' include birds and bats?
Not You Yes. And despite what conspiracy theories you believe, windmills are not bird killing machines. Stop believing nonsense
Would have been interesting to run all that sediment through a gold sluice.
AGREED
BIEN , BIG DAMS NO MORE, BUT LITTLE DAMS , VS EROSIONES YES , TRATAMIENTO INTEGRAL DE CUENCAS NO OLVIDARLO ES LA BASE DE LA CAPTURA Y COSECHA DE AGUA . ANIMOOOOOOOOOOO
Good news ‘bout good people. The more I hear about Portland, the more I like it!
Yea the blowing up part is the best -
You tuned in lately. Portland is very “likable”. If there is a Portland left.
@@Stillnonofya you need to stop tuning in to CNN then. They are blowing this whole ANtifa thing out of proportion just like the rest of MSM. MSM is food for Sheep.
Now the river should be diverted into a nuclear power plant cooling system to replace the power lost from the dam removal
Moron.
Cry elsewhere. Stop breeding Thanks 😉😎
Obviously, you have no idea what’s happening here
I was being facetious dunderheads. The destruction of hydro power dams is indicative of a lack or critical and productive thinking. Hydro power production is the best "greenest" way to produce electrons. The infrastructure is long lasting. durable and reliable simple technology that can pay dividends for 100 plus years. In this world of concern for green house gas emissions, It is one with the smallest carbon foot print. There is always away round a problem. That dam could have been modified to remove the silt accumulations and a system to allow fish access into the water shed area. Construction and bureaucratic cost have become out of control. To build a facility like that today would be prohibitively expensive. "run of the river" projects take huge capitol investments and require decades of time to pay off. Our governments open door policies that promote massive immigration will only create ever growing demand for electricity. So It was a joke that went over you heads. Nuclear power is seriously being looked at again to replace and produce power that will feed our ever insatiable need to grow like weeds that will eventually destroy this world.
absolutely brilliant to see all the planning and hard work come to fruition and the sediment all washed downstream....
One thing for certain is the sediment went somewhere and had its affect there (good or bad) .
You guys are to smart for your on good. Second guessing what water can do? Niagara? falls
The presentation was just plain old good work. The project speaks for itself. Thanks from Philadelphis
A hundred years ago we built these dams and they produced electricity, replacing a part of the fishing industry. Now with the demolishing of these dams we are replacing the electricity industry for the fishing industry. That of course means more fish will be able to feed more people. That part is good,but we also must find more ways to produce cheap electricity.
Nuclear......and coal.
The fish are protected so eat one & go to jail - look at one w/ mean eye & get a fine..
@@zabaleta66 fuck coal, it’s the single worst thing that’s ever happened to our atmosphere. we will be underwater in 100 years if we keep using coal.
Cheap electricity? Not going to happen. It will be the overlords living like kings and the rest of us will be their slaves.
Nat McDougal (I hope I spelled that right) made a mistake, now he's putting it right. That's a real man. Most would pass the buck. This century is when mankind repairs the damage we have wrought on this planet. These guys need a round of applause.
Sorry, did I miss the bit where Nat McDougal said they were doing this for free? Really? You don't stick that much kit and manpower into a job for nothing.
One way or another, we paid for it’s construction AND demolition. Never under-estimate the power of the American tax-dollar!
only one problem with the save the fish philosophy,dams like around here were built to protect people from killing floods that kept happening over and over,and theres no better way to generate electricity than dams, think about it nuclear??? really we don't know of any safe way to deal with the radioactive waste that will be deadly for thousands of years, wind no way in the near future thats gonna supply enough electricity to even break even on the cost of them ugly assed things, solar ??? battery systems are about as toxic as nuclear. electricity by water is still our best option,and guess what we have more species of fish in the dammned area than we had before.
Going to have to do a lot more than remove a few dams. When the earth's population has gone from 6 billion to 8 billion in 23 years (6 billion Oct 12 1999 to 8 billion Nov 15 2022) there's a HUGE problem! Most of that growth has occurred in Africa, where they can't grow enough food to feed their populations but keep having children like they were still dying from disease and starvation!
To remove the rubble and sediment they are going to have to FISH NET THE WATER FLOOR TO PROTECT THE SALMON. Install fish nets about a quarter mile to half a mile up the water channel so the salmon will not be able to swim down the channel until they are finished doing the work of removing the damn, rubble, and sediment. That's also gives the area of water they will be working in to restore it's pH factor suitable for the fish.
FREAKING EPIC.
Love how you can see the signal transmit through the wire to the explosvies
Primacord is not wire. It is an explosive in it's own rite. You can take primacord and tie into a ball of knots and you have now just built your own home made bomb. Now ignite it, and see what happens. There are different types with their own ignition mechanisms.
Excellent video and project. Would like to have seen the cofferdam burst and wash-away better. Too many artsy fartsy closeup shots that really didn't help. (Later, I noticed half a dozen other similar critiques).
Is this river undamed all the way to it's head waters now?
Yup! Isn't it GRAND?
Libs be like “omg we need renewables”
Libs be like “omg no dams, we can’t have some salmon affected”
The cognitive dissonance is beyond comprehension
Hello, missed this the first time. 70 million watts. Really? How about 70 billion microwatts? A watt is a really small unit of energy. What's wrong with 70 kilowatts?
Quite liked the video, apart from this hyperbole.
The power companies concluded that the hydroelectric power made was not the most cost effective. Salmon ladders were also too expensive to install. The only opponents were recreational users of the reservoirs and lake side property owners.
"Lakeside" LOL You make it sound like there was summer houses, docks and ski boats.
There was no lake. It was still a river with tons and tons of sediment buildup behind the dam. It was so thick you could literally walk across the face of the dam without going over your knees. No widening and depth increase behind the dam. Just a new man made concrete channel that diverted water for power use at Bull Run.
The power of water is unbelievable
Seems it could have been just as good to breach the dam, let the river run free long enough for most of the silt to wash out, then rebuild the dam with some necessary upgrades along the way. We cannot depend on wind and solar alone, we need a mixture of energy sources to meet our needs.
Some evidence suggests that dams cause buildup of harmful chemicals in salmon and other fish. I think we can do without them plus the fact that they will have twice the habitat in twice the production according to the video
True. But the amount of power that many of these smaller 100-year old hydros produce is pitifully small when compared to the liability of their age.
This erosion is what happened during the first stages of The Flood 4,370 years ago and during the last phases of drain down.
I wonder what it looked like 150 years ago, before all the Bridges and Dams?
No cities, very little population and small farms and hunting. You want to go back to that time in our society, I really doubt it!
That was amazing!
I didn't know this stuff was going on. Fantastic video and a great project.
This is beautiful to see. God bless these men and woman everyday and God bless the good ol' US of A.
As we are in tears about restoring this river back to normal Thailand is building over 100 Dams on all it's rivers destroying thousands of acres of habitat & displacing thousands of people; I dread to think how much fish & other wildlife in their rivers will be lost? Globally this project is 'one in a million', the rush is on to exploit the last of virgin territory on the planet.
Sounds like Thailand needs to stop breeding so much, slow down their population growth.
"In tears?" May I suggest a mental health consultation?
A priceless opportunity for all profiteers to replace the dirt and pay society back, you will be first 👍🏼
Well done.
damn, that was a nice job!
wow, the size of the salmons, unbelievable!
Now where do you get the power to light your paisley sky and make your Skittles?
“Nature will find a way.” Ian Malcolm
in that case why remove the dam? gravity is one of the best power sources.
they removed it i guess because Nature didn't found a way so it had to be helped.
@@Ramotttholl - I guess you didn’t see the movie “Jurassic Park”
Good on you guys and girls who were part of the dam demolishment.
It's great how man can restore a massive structure back to origanal states's.
There was a dam here.
What ???who said that ???? No dam here now .
Very good work . I love how the prep work of years before, successfully works now .
That's a wild story. Looks lots nicer without the dam.
honestly gave me chills
Well spoken for the Anadromous Species! Fisheries and Coastal Connectivity can and will provide habitat, sediment can slowly be released or through larger flow pulses that effectively over time the release will begin to filter and release these sediments as river hydrology, flow regimes , and other aspects of the emerging new river system to adjust if most is organically acceptable and not toxic materials, mine tailings, or other more commercial style inputs from Industrial or other human activities. Beaver and muskrats help to systematically provide water tables through water retention activities, active management through downed woody debris recruitment, deeper water profiles to aid both species deep water cover to elude predators, and these guys take a bit too much credit as do many theoretical costs as Nature could do better as Human Dams are removed properly. Both species diversify and encourage vegetation growth and sproutin sites as ranker or more mature vegetation is consumed, utilized, and implemented into local food webs, nutrient cycles, insect development and recruitment such as Stoneflies, Caddisflies, etc, so Natural process and niche related activies help to restore Water tables on the River by slowing river or stream flows and are especially dutiful in low water years as they can efficiently manage water releases.
Loved seeing the excitement in those men working the job! Especially the one jumping up and down with his camera like a kid on Christmas morning!!
This damn was really in my neighborhood. We really like our salmon up here. People love catching big ones and come up from the forty eight for the thrill. We have no shortage of electic producing damns
Dam. Damn is what you say when you stub your toe!
Just wait they will remove those dams as well then what oh and no more days at that lake
How can it be in your neighborhood? You state people come up from the "48". This is not Alaska. Uh Oregon ring a bell in you're hollow head??
what was the effect upon the salmon ?
The following year did Salmon return and what percentage??????????!!?!!???????!
Truth doesn't matter feelings do.
No no more damn only bless. Very nice..
nice video
Wow. Cutting a notch with a forklift.
Hope you enjoy the dry Colorado River in the future. Not too smart.
You do realize that this river flows into the Columbia River, not the Colorado river. Further the state of Oregon doesn't even rely on the Colorado river for anything along with this river is the melt runoff of snow on Mt. Hood.
Also the Colorado river is drying up for reasons that affect the states along the river. Which the biggest factor is that we are relying on river in that area that was over estimated to it's capacity and the climate changing where there is less snowfall (and subsequently less runoff) occurring where the river originates.
how was noone in this meeting like.. hey.. we should do a time lapse of the entire event.. and get the shot of the small stream turning into a river in one shot.. not these little clips
2:50 neegan
Now that would just make it worse, add a channel for the fish and make it beautiful.😊
Megatonnes of sediment builds up behind dams in few decades. Remove the dam and most of that will wash downstream, despite efforts to stabilize it with plants. It will smother spawning beds and do other damage, and while the river will-probably, eventually, mostly-clean itself, it only takes one year’s total failure to destroy a spawning run. Suggestion?
Build one suction dredge that can be taken apart, transported by truck, and reassembled behind a dam scheduled for removal; we should be able to schedule dam removals so that one or two machines will do for all. Dredge most of the sediment out from behind the dam, and it will not be there to wash downstream. I don’t know where/how we dispose of all that, if it’s contaminated with agricultural and other chemicals-but then we don’t want to let that contaminate the downstream river bottom anyway. Where it is clean enough, it’s silt, very rich soil, and it could be sold to farmers or as a component of potting soil.
There are no wastes, only un-utilized resources.
Gold gold gold in the sediments!
Nope. This area has very little if any Au.
I'm still trying to find some gold in the colorado mountain creeks via 2in keene backpack dredge,get bout 4 5gal buckets of "black sand" and u MIGHT get 1-8 flakes of "glitter" tiny tiny bits of gold(I know I'm not missing anything)
Anyone else want to play with the scale model?
I was reading that like you were offering, like you had it set up in your shed or something
Old country boy. I see that an improvement to the removal of sediments could have been achieved by having placed explosive charges in the sediments to loosen and fluff them up, especially along the edges out from the center of the stream flow.
No need. Mother nature has more power in the 'heavy winter flows' than a truck load of explosives.
Very interesting. Have a nice day now.
Yale University courses
7
Ok, the fish win. How is the electric produced here (formerly) going to be replaced? need all the juice we can get to run all those electric cars here. windmills, gotta cut down the trees, solar panels, ditto, OH! fairy dust. that solves the problem.
the amount of power small hydros like this is pitifully small
Bullshit. It was cheaper to remove the dam than to maintain it. Its all a smokescreen. The help it gives salmon is secondary.
@Andrew Layton 😧🔫
We were being made to pay to keep this and many more outdated power going because the companies didn’t want to spend the money to remove them. And didn’t care because they just kept making us pay to keep them going the only way to keep these old plants going was to pass it on to us. And the government was letting them get away with it. This old Technology wasn’t paying for itself any longer it should’ve been gone a long time ago. The new Technology is so much better than this old Technology.
@@FYMASMD "Cheaper to destroy the dams than maintain it"? Is that your argument? 🤦♂️. WTF?!! Of course it's easier to destroy than you build.
The economic effects are judged by the output it produced. Electricity. Yes, it was a small dam compared to others. But so was the river it was built on.
thank u for thinkin for our grandchildren
Funny how i just watched a documentary about the removal of Condit dam and they removed in the exact same way. Let the river take away the sediment... yet they say it has not been done before...
Micke Larsson they were saying the first time for that amount of sediment not the first for letting the river take the sediment away
Condit didn't have thid much sediment.
Marmot was in 07...condit in 2011..
And how are fish going to swim upstream with four waterfalls blocking them?
I love this very cool
I watched the removal on TV years ago. Being a transplant from Minnesota, it was still exciting for myself and all of Oregon!
Who says going a step back is a bad thing!
Go Vikings! (Minnesota.) lol
...GO HAWKS!!!!!
Our economy does. You can't remove all the infrastructure that supports modern society and go back to the old ways without reverting society back to those old ways.
Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarokatuh
Masya Allah beautiful ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️🌹💐💐💐💐💐 Maha Kuasa Ciptaan Mu ya Allah 🤲🤲🤲🤲🙏🙏🙏🙏❤️🌹💐
Thank you.