Tear down the dams now

Perhaps driven in part by this latest report, the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board is urging Congress to tear down the Klamath River dams.

It's time for Washington to heed science over politics. The test involves the ailing Klamath River, where four aging power dams along the California-Oregon border are holding back farming, tainting river flows with toxic algae, and decimating migratory fish.

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Condit-Dam Removal Episode 1

NarrativeLab spent a year documenting the removal of Condit Dam on Washington's White Salmon River after almost 100 years of operation for PacifiCorp. This episode introduces the project and shows how the river's salmon were put into position to utilize their new habitat.

Steelhead above Condit Dam

Taken by Jeanette Burkhardt of Yakama Nation Fisheries on 7/16/12, a video still of a Steelhead ‘going for it’ at BZ Falls!

(via:Friends of the White Salmon River)

Biologists document fish migrating upstream of Condit Dam following dam's breaching.

The Dawn of Dam Removal

Bruce Babbitt, who served as governor of Arizona from 1978 to 1987 and as Secretary of the Interior under Bill Clinton, recently wrote an environmental essay for Patagonia's latest catalog.

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It's like Field of Dreams," he added. As in, build it, and they will come. Or in this case, un-build it.

Photo: John McMillan

More on that 35 inch male steelhead spotted by biologist John McMillan and collegue Ray Moses on the Elwha.

The gray ghosts of the Elwha are back: wild steelhead, already spotted beyond the free flowing stretch of river that used to be Elwha Dam, for the first time in a century.

"We saw this really large fish, we hadn't tagged anything like it, it was also in better condition than all the other fish," McMillan said. "We could only conclude it had made it up there on its own.

LINK (via: The Seattle Times)

Damnation Q&A

Outside does a little Q&A session with Damnation co-producers Travis Rummel and Matt Stoecker.

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