Dams have such immense economic and agricultural usage. Why aren’t we investing as much money as it takes to save the salmon but keep the dam?
The PNW has something like 80% of its power coming from clean hydro. It’d be a shame to lose that.
The PNW has something like 80% of its power coming from clean hydro. It’d be a shame to lose that.
Nothing insurmountable (dredge the silt, build them bigger so the reservoir lasts until the fall, etc), but it just means the most cost effective way to help the salmon is tear down a lot of these dams.
This is a good question I'd like to hear more about. The fish ladder at Bonneville, for example, is fairly steep all considered. For the kind of money we have invested in the facility, would it be reasonable to invest some serious effort in making a more usable ladder?
Somewhere up the thread, a 3% success rate was thrown out, so maybe some designs are better than others.
East of the divide is the Mississippi basin so that’s a whole different story.
Salmon snagging is a thing for us and the bears.