“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”

Two words to keep in mind when you read this story..... Susitna Dam.

Salmon runs, and wildlife that depended on salmon, were never rehabilitated after dams were built on the Eklutna River to supply electricity in the early years of Anchorage. A multi-agency working group has been unable to restore the river, much less the fish. Electric utilities, which own all rights to the water, are unwilling to share it with fish. Few people remember the original agreement. More than two decades after the agreement was signed, Alaskans are still searching for a solution.

LINK (via: Alaska Dispatch News)

"We borrowed from nature to make those dams. Now let’s return them to nature.”

Photo: Tom Moffatt/ASF

The Atlantic Salmon Federation and the Sheepscot Valley Conservation Association have approached the towns of Alna and Whitefield in Maine with proposals to either purchase or negotiate the removal of Alna’s Head Tide Dam and Whitefield’s Coopers Mills Dam.

LINK (via: BDN Maine)

Atlantic salmon leaping in northern Newfoundland (photo Tom Moffatt/ASF) - See more at: http://www.asf.ca/images.html#sthash.1K73NW8s.dpuf

Large hydro dams aren’t “green”

Photo: Sascha Brück

People believe hydroelectric dams provide clean energy.

It’s not true.

The actually drive climate change.

LINK (via: Commonsense Canada)

How the founder of clothier Patagonia became an opponent of dams

The Globe and Mail profiles Yvon Chouinard and his recent dam busting efforts.

LINK

"If and when Stanford will let them"

Photo: Matt Stoecker

Federally threatened steelhead trout could return to the creeks upstream of Stanford University's Searsville Dam within weeks if the structure is taken down, according to a new report from a biologist and proponent of the dam's removal.

Matt Stoecker based his assessment primarily on the widespread presence of rainbow trout, a close cousin of the oceangoing steelhead, in Corte Madera Creek and its tributaries. The fish rely on the same kind of freshwater habitat early in their life cycle, he said.

LINK (via: Santa Cruz Sentinel)

Tell Stanford to remove the Searsville Dam.

The Trouble With Dams

Rober Devine wrote this piece that could have come form the script of DamNation back in 1995.

Some 100,000 dams regulate America's rivers and creeks, often at the expense of ecosystems--and of taxpayers, who are subsidizing handouts to a large number of farmers, frloodplain occupants, hydro-electricity users, and river-transportation interests.

LINK (via:The Atlantic)