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Steve Clark
ECCA102
04/30/20
Dams and the Life of a Salmon
Imagine a salmon coming back to his place of birth, ready to fight up stream to get to the exact place he was born, just to find a dam blocking his way. That is exactly what happened to countless salmon all over the United States early in the nineteen hundreds when many dams were built for hydroelectric power. There are still over seventy-five thousand in the United States standing today (Witze 23). Salmon are anadromous, meaning they split their life by swimming in fresh and salt water (Morgan 56). Salmon are born well upstream from the ocean, swim downstream to the ocean then spend up to the next four years in the ocean feeding until they have matured. Once matured, they are internally driven to return to the place of their birth to spawn and die.
All dams that impede the life cycle of salmon should be torn down. This is not just an American issue; it has happened all over the world. In the Pacific Northeast there are 13 species of salmon and trout that are on the endangered species list (Morgan 56). Some dams were even made with the salmon in mind; they had fish ladders to give the salmon a means to return. The Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River is one such dam. The ladder is a “spiral structure” the fish must swim up, there is a “resting pool” where the fish can be seen and counted (Morgan 56). It’s hard to imagine that returning salmon are so low in number that they can be counted manually.
Salmon do more for us then become a tasty dinner; not only do we eat them but the entire ecosystem they swim through is affected. Salmon have been called an “essential species” because their life cycle effects so many other species (Tobias 15). We have all seen the documentaries and even television advertisements where the bear catches the salmon swimming upstream. Bears are not the only ones; whales and coyotes, even the ground itself takes “nutrients” that the salmon bring from the “ocean” to places it would have never gone to without the travels of the salmon (Tobias 15).
Native Americans are also affected by the lower salmon numbers caused by the dams. The only “homegrown and traditional” means of making a living on the reservation is fishing (Clausen 23). It seems the oppression the American people have put on the Native Americans is never ending. This is considered a “wealth transfer,” as the tribal people had an abundance of wealth before the colonies came and went to being impoverished so the neighboring Americans can have cheap power (Clausen 23). To hear this, is seems like it is coming from some third world dictatorship; but it’s happening right here in America.
Not only have we built dams for hydroelectric power, we have also built them to change the natural direction of rivers to move water where it’s needed. “The whole San Francisco Bay ecosystem” is in peril due to the diversion of water in California in order to supply the growing population (Tobias 13). In this case not only are dams killing off salmon, they are destroying what some call a paradise. There is a lot at stake here; the San Francisco Bay is where the fresh river water and the ocean meet, creating a “habitat” for shrimp, crabs, and pelicans, to name a few, and it is all at risk (Tobias 13). It’s hard to believe.
Dams are expensive. The federal government maintains 31 dams in the Pacific Northwest that sell the electricity generated by the dams has spent two hundred and twenty million dollars in upkeep a year since 2007 (Morgan 59). That seems like an overwhelming amount of money to pump into a system that is so devastating to our environment. These dams also have a system of fisheries where salmon are hatched above the dam then roughly transported below the dam and released, then there are ladders built into the dams so the fish can return at an additional cost of seventy seven million dollars a year but few make the return trip (Morgan 59). That is almost three hundred million dollars a year spent on 31 dams, and as previously mentioned, there are seventy-five thousand in the United States alone.
So, you may be asking yourself how many fish have really been affected? It is reported that in the Gulf of Maine, before Europeans came to America, there was an average return from the ocean of five hundred thousand salmon, now it is two thousand (Stevens et al. 1795). Granted that was over two hundred years ago, and the settlers and current residents harvest many, but it still a deep decline in population. These returning fish are “listed as endangered under the United States Endangered Species Act” (Stevens et al. 1795). This is only one area affected, and salmon populations are stressed worldwide.
Climate change has also been said to influence all living things on earth. It is well known that the temperature of the ocean is increasing. In 2015 researchers indicate that the increased water temperature of the ocean killed off many of the salmon, and those in who “favor breaching the barriers” question if the rivers run as nature intended, could that cool off the ocean so the salmon would spawn and increase their survival (Morgan 60). As a skeptic of man’s role in global climate change, there is no question in this case. The dams need to go.
The question then comes up of what good are the dams doing, providing electricity? From a 2018 study of the Bonneville Dam, if the power it puts out were to be replaced with other green power sources, it would only cost the subscribers an additional two dollars a month (Morgan 60). This is a small price compared to suffering the salmon endure. Dam removal needs to be higher on the list of political agendas.
Some dams are coming down. Over one thousand dams have been removed in recent history, however most have been smaller ones less than ten feet high (Witze 24). This is a start, but we need to do more. The way a dam is taken down is also important; the two main ways include “blow and go” where an explosive is set off at the base of the dam, causing it to blow open and a gradual take down of the dam (Witze 23). I think the gradual take down would be a little easier on the environment. In 2011 the removal of the Condit Dam was done with a “blow and go” take down that pushed sediment “squirting out as a high-speed debris flow” (Witze 24). This will not only change the direction of the river, but it will leave a large area where the stored water was kept awaiting new growth.
The Elwah River’s dams were taken down gradually to prevent the sediment from being pushed down river, but this multi-year endeavor still pushed enough sediment to “clog the intake filters at a water treatment plant” (Witze 24). This is how they all should be taken down and still caused issues. In only a few short years after the dam’s removal life has come back to the land, and the salmon are passing by where the dam once stood (Witze 22). This supports my personal belief that nature will overcome.
Humans have put their mark on the world in many positive and negative ways. All dams that impede the life cycle of salmon should be torn down. The horrific effects they cause are surprising with very little positive aspects. Many of them, built almost one hundred years ago, were built without the knowledge of what harm they would cause. They were built as the United States tried to recover from the Great Depression. They were built so that we could supply water to an ever-expanding nation. Dams have seen their time and now they need to be removed so the salmon can run free and all the other eco-systems they affect can go back as nature intended them to be.
Works Cited
Clausen, Jan. “Extinction Is Forever.” Dollars & Sense, no. 229, May 2000, p. 20.
Accessed on 17 April 2020
Morgan, Kate. “Run Wild Run Free.” Popular Science, vol. 292, no. 1, Spring 2020, pp. 54–118. Accessed on 17 April 2020
Stevens, Justin R, et al. “Modeling the Impacts of Dams and Stocking Practices on an Endangered Atlantic Salmon (Salmo Salar).” Canadian Journal of Fisheries & Aquatic Sciences, vol. 76, no. 10, Oct. 2019, pp. 1795–1807. Accessed on 17 April 2020
TOBIAS, JIMMY. “The Extinction Crisis Comes Home.” Nation, vol. 310, no. 13, May 2020, pp. 12–17. Accessed 26 April 2020
Witze, Alexandra. “Let the River Run.” Science News, vol. 187, no. 1, Jan. 2015, pp. 22–26. Accessed 2 May 2020