redneck_billcollector
Purveyor Of Fine Spirits
I have watched over the past 10 or more years the Elwha River in Washington State as it is being reborn with, what until now, the largest dam removal project in history. It is fascinating to watch nature cure the problems we have created. The summer steelhead population was reborn and the bull trout have rebounded much more than most expected. Coho and King salmon are making a slow, but steady come back with sockeye, pink and chum beginning to reappear after what has been basically an absence.
The Elwha dam removal project is being replaced by the Klamath River dam removal project as the largest in history. This past week was a milestone in this particular project and by this time next year four dams on the river are expected to be removed opening up over 400 miles of spawning habitat. Dam removal is not a "pretty" scene, aside from the political fight involving it, the silt released can be offsetting to some, but silt is supposed to be moved by the river, and when you get, at times, nearly 100 years of silt built up in a reservoir, it can seem almost disastrous. The Elwha has shown us that it only lasts for a little while in the scope of things and where the river meets the ocean, the estuary is restored.
I know that dam removal can be a very hot political "potato" so to speak and I fall on the side of dam removal. I personally live on a reservoir formed by a dam on the Flint River, and I would love to see the dam gone even though my property value would decrease. For that matter I would love to see all the dams below Atlanta gone on the Chattahoochee and the Flint. They serve little purpose, and the reservoirs are filled with invasive plants and species of fish that have no business in this water shed. As reservoirs become filled with silt, they actually increase the severity of floods (just look at the 1994 and 1998 floods on the Flint) and the impact to the native species is just plain bad.
The ACF Basin has many unique species of mussels, invertebrates and fish that are disappearing at a rather rapid rate. The Gulf Strain Striped Bass, the Gulf Sturgeon and the Alabama Shad are just a few. Yeah, we like fishing in these reservoirs, but lets be honest, they have all largely passed their peak with regards to this, and I would rather catch a large striped bass of dozens of shoal bass a day than the invasive spotted bass or the lethargic largemouth that now inhabit these reservoirs. These reservoirs have become nutrient dumps overrun with invasive plants that do nothing other than warm the river up and deprive Apalachicola Bay of the sediments and seasonal flows it needs to recover.
I know many, if not most, will disagree, but I want to see the Flint filled with Alabama shad, watch sturgeon work their way past the shoals and see the river swamps fill again like they are supposed to do and take all the excess nutrients out of the rivers and feed it with the leaves and detritus that is largely missing now. I want to leave my grandchildren a better world so that they might be able to enjoy it like I did as a child. It has been said that rivers are the kidneys of the land, and with these dams, the kidneys are not working properly, and we all know what happens when the kidneys fail, the body follows suit.
The Elwha dam removal project is being replaced by the Klamath River dam removal project as the largest in history. This past week was a milestone in this particular project and by this time next year four dams on the river are expected to be removed opening up over 400 miles of spawning habitat. Dam removal is not a "pretty" scene, aside from the political fight involving it, the silt released can be offsetting to some, but silt is supposed to be moved by the river, and when you get, at times, nearly 100 years of silt built up in a reservoir, it can seem almost disastrous. The Elwha has shown us that it only lasts for a little while in the scope of things and where the river meets the ocean, the estuary is restored.
I know that dam removal can be a very hot political "potato" so to speak and I fall on the side of dam removal. I personally live on a reservoir formed by a dam on the Flint River, and I would love to see the dam gone even though my property value would decrease. For that matter I would love to see all the dams below Atlanta gone on the Chattahoochee and the Flint. They serve little purpose, and the reservoirs are filled with invasive plants and species of fish that have no business in this water shed. As reservoirs become filled with silt, they actually increase the severity of floods (just look at the 1994 and 1998 floods on the Flint) and the impact to the native species is just plain bad.
The ACF Basin has many unique species of mussels, invertebrates and fish that are disappearing at a rather rapid rate. The Gulf Strain Striped Bass, the Gulf Sturgeon and the Alabama Shad are just a few. Yeah, we like fishing in these reservoirs, but lets be honest, they have all largely passed their peak with regards to this, and I would rather catch a large striped bass of dozens of shoal bass a day than the invasive spotted bass or the lethargic largemouth that now inhabit these reservoirs. These reservoirs have become nutrient dumps overrun with invasive plants that do nothing other than warm the river up and deprive Apalachicola Bay of the sediments and seasonal flows it needs to recover.
I know many, if not most, will disagree, but I want to see the Flint filled with Alabama shad, watch sturgeon work their way past the shoals and see the river swamps fill again like they are supposed to do and take all the excess nutrients out of the rivers and feed it with the leaves and detritus that is largely missing now. I want to leave my grandchildren a better world so that they might be able to enjoy it like I did as a child. It has been said that rivers are the kidneys of the land, and with these dams, the kidneys are not working properly, and we all know what happens when the kidneys fail, the body follows suit.
