Hydroelectric Power vs. Salmon

During my first week in Portland I went out with Lizzie Strohmeyer and some of her friends for a drink. I was talking to one of them about my job, and she expressed a strong dislike for the dams because of what they have done to the salmon population around here. I was stunned. I probably shouldn't have been, but in my mind I had always weighed the value of abundant carbon neutral electricity much higher. I understand that salmon are both a valuable economic resource in the region and a part of the local culture, but there are some pretty nice advantages to having these dams around.

So, first a bit of history. Bonneville Dam, the first dam on the Columbia, began construction in 1934. Bonneville Dam is the furthest downstream of any dam on the Columbia. It is also open to the public still, and you may remember that Becca and I visited there on the trip out. Since Bonneville, an enormous number of dams have been constructed on the Columbia and its tributaries. The two dams I am working at, The Dalles and the John Day, are the next two upstream from Bonneville. One of Jon's friends at the Bulldog referred to the Columbia as the most dammed river in the world. Many of these dams create hydroelectric power, but some exist only for flood control. The majority are Corps of Engineers projects, but not all of them.

This extensive damming initially created some serious problems for salmon. Some salmon running up the Columbia used to go as far as British Columbia and Idaho. The number of fish returning each year plummeted. They have never recovered to their original numbers, but things get better for them all the time. And a huge amount of money and energy are put into protecting them. Everything from deterrents such as avian lines and hazing (which I will discuss in a later post) to the extensive hatchery operations.

Really, the means by which they seek to protect salmon are astounding. The fish ladders are immense and complicated, the employees the hire (like me and the hazers) are expensive, they even use barges to transport smolt out to sea, as absurd as that sounds.

At this point I have only presented the negative side of the dams. They endanger the Columbia salmon population, which has only been managing to stay around because of the buckets of money they dump after it. The advantages to these dams are flood control and huge amounts of electricity. Between the wind farms and the dams, pretty much all energy in the northwest is renewable (I think there is one nuclear plant in Oregon).

I have been told that electricity in The Dalles costs about half as much as the national average. And it isn't producing carbon emissions or giving off mercury like the coal plants back east. Most of the energy produced at The Dalles isn't consumed around here, though. Most of it is shipped off to southern California, where they have a much larger need.

The Corps of Engineers is responsible for producing this energy. There is some sort of company that they sell the electricity to that is responsible for the business side of things. But this still brings in a lot of money for the Corps of Engineers. And it is this money, not taxpayer dollars, that funds all of the efforts to restore the salmon populations. I thought this was a bit silly when it was told to me, because presumably if that money wasn't being spent on salmon it would find another use in the government, but it is still good that the problems caused by the dams are not being remedied with additional taxes.

It's a complicated issue. I still lean in the direction of hydroelectric power. But that could be because of who I'm working for. I know that some salmon are returning to areas in Idaho again. And the populations appear to be doing pretty well. But they might not be without all the hatcheries dumping smolt into the river/ocean every year.

What do you all think? Is it worth risking an economically and culturally significant species to produce clean electricity? But more importantly, doesn't that plate of salmon below look pretty good?