The noble efforts to preserve the salmon by dam removal campaigns are running smack into the reality that salmon go extinct just as fast (if not faster) when there's no snowpack and the spawning waters dry up or heat up too much.

The 5% Project

I believe that the first harnessing of water as an energy source, other than in navigation, was done by monastic communities in medieval France, Cistercians perhaps, who used water wheels to power mills.  I hope that did not involve the building of dams, and that the energy of the stream's current was sufficient for their purposes.  Anyway, it strikes me as an ideal model, a kind of icon, of how human beings can utilize a river's energy without disrupting its community of living creatures too much.

Here is a lovely way of describing the value of biodiversity, from the Save Our Wild Salmon spokesman's piece in the Oregonian:
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When we lose wild salmon, we lose the places of our lives as God gave them to us and us to them. When we restore salmon, we restore our places with theirs. Places to gather, talk and trade, to live, grow up and, in departing, hand on.
>>

I much prefer this sort of writing, to the regrettable paragraph on biodiversity in the Mongabay piece on Peter Raven, in BioD's "Grit your teeth" thread.  To be sure, non-believing environmentalists will not want to endorse a statement that refers frankly to God, and to God's relevance to environmental ethics.  Nor should they be forced to.  On the other hand, I do not see why they cannot be hospitable, if other environmentalists choose to express themselves this way.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

The noble efforts to preserve the salmon by dam removal campaigns are running smack into the reality that salmon go extinct just as fast (if not faster) when there's no snowpack and the spawning waters dry up or heat up too much.

Nuclear power can keep the rivers running at constant flow-rates and at constant temperature, if you wish.

My father has a PhD in fish pathology and spent a lifetime resisting dams.  His original job was to find the cause of cancer in trout.  When he disclosed that the pulp mills were the source he was dismissed rather than step on the big money makers.  It's ok to talk about the environment as long as money is not involved.

So, if you want "diversity" you must apply pressure.  Extinction is part of the growth of nature.  Just worrying about extinction per se is not interesting.  We're really talking about rates of adaption.

For example, although having lots of McDonalds around might be tragic for one body type in one generation, there are people who can happily eat McDonalds and thrive.   So the next generation will be lots of high consumption skinny people.

In a sense, that's a much easier solution to the problem than completely remaking our food supply.


Texeme.Construct(function(x)=Participation(x))

It isn't always possible to fix mistakes.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

On the other hand, the four lower Snake River dams could be removed, and...restore four species of Snake River anadromous fish

(from a paper by Alan Berryman, Emeritus Professor of Entomology and Natural Resource Sciences at WSU)

"A dramatic collapse of the steelhead population occurred in 1973-5 with only 12,000 fish climbing Ice Harbor dam in 1974. This collapse occurred 2-3 years after the closure of Dworshak dam on the North Fork of the Clearwater River...

Since both A and B runs pass over all the dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers, and since there was no evidence of a collapse of the A run, we are lead to conclude that the collapse was mainly caused by the closure of Dworshak dam, an event that caused the loss of all steelhead spawned in the North Fork of the Clearwater River...

It is surprising that none of the other dams showed any impact on returning steelhead populations. The only other large decrease in the B-run was in 1951, prior to the major dam-building period. In fact the Bonneville steelhead counts have remained remarkably steady for almost 60 years...

Our analysis, as well as simple logic, suggests that the wild B-run is in greatest danger because the construction of Dworshak dam removed most of the spawning habitat for this strain. It is not clear if the low dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers are a real threat to the wild populations. "

Common sense is an oxymoron...

The fact that this small dam and a few others power my entire county with renewable hydropower is something I like, but given the choice between that and salmon, I may have chosen to live in the dark ...

This choice is really unecessary.  Much more hydro power could be generated without damns.  With generating devices located along rivers that do not impeded fish, wildlife, or navigation.

Once again "conventional wisdom" prevents the use of renewable energy and destroys natural biodiversity.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Much more hydro power could be generated without damns.  With generating devices located along rivers that do not impeded fish, wildlife, or navigation.

The potential energy in a river is simply river-water mass * elevation. How are you going to generate more hydropower via run-of-river than via a continuous string of dams?

Economically, navigationally, ecologically, and physically.  Impossible even to build one more dam in the US due to environmental objections.

In fact most of presnt dams ought to be removed and replaced with side gates in rivers to manage flooding by shunting flood waters into wetlands.  Depleted aquifers need replenishment, restoring wetlands is the way to do it.  Floods provide the water.

The reason that devices that harvest energy all along the river can dwarf the power from dams is that it is impossible to build anymore dams.  But devices that do not have the drawbacks of destroying fish and hindering navigation can be placed all along rivers, tapping the flow that dams cannot.

Distributed hydro power generation.  A huge untapped renwable resource.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog