Groups plan to pull dams and rebuild Salmon runs on the Klamath river.
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Once ranked at the third most productive river on the West coast of the United States, the Salmon runs in the Klamath river have all but rolled over and gone belly up. Now a group wants to pull the dams and restore habitat an idea lauded by some and rejected by others.
The plan, announced Tuesday, came after two years of closed-door negotiations and resolved long-standing differences over how to divide Klamath Basin water between a federal irrigation project and fish protected by the Endangered Species Act.
The agreement, which would be the largest dam removal project in the nation’s history, must be reviewed by federal agencies, including the U.S. Justice Department. The deal would open 300 miles of rivers that have not seen salmon in the past century and restore 60 miles of reservoir to free-flowing river, according to American Rivers, a conservation group.
Removal of the Klamath River dams, perhaps as soon as 2015, depends on agreement from their owner, Portland-based utility PacifiCorp, as well as some $400 million in new spending on salmon restoration, primarily from Congress, for a total of $1 billion over 10 years. Read the Full Article…
While I am a big proponent of green power, we must take into consideration the effects that dams have on our rivers. Fish ladders are only a partial solution to the issue as we see with the Columbia river. Ladders restrict the movement of fish, and primarily only benefit Salmon. Of course the fish ladders also make for a great place for Sea Lions to put on an all you can eat buffet.
More emphasis needs to be put on the preservation and restoration of our Pacific rivers and watersheds. Pollution, logging, poor water management, dams and lacking hatchery practices and rampant Indian fishing violations all have taken their toll on our Salmon runs. I think it is time we seriously reviewed the commercial harvesting rules, Indian fishing rights and their abuse of those rights, and just how much effort we are putting into saving our wild Salmon runs.
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