“DamNation” Film Wins Enviro Prize

DamNation was presented with the “Documentary Award for Environmental Advocacy,” and a $10,000 cash prize, by the 2014 Environmental Film Festival in Washington, D.C.

LINK (via:National Geographic)

A Dam Shame

Let me get this straight: you want to flood a pristine valley in Canada to generate power so you can ship natural gas overseas to keep Asia’s lights on? 

Site C is a hydroelectric dam site and manmade reservoir project proposed by BC Hydro. If it is built, it will be the fourth dam to strain the Peace River and all that relies so heavily upon it.

LINK (via:onearth)

It's the anadromous version of Wild Waves

Photo: Saberwyn

Fish protections, irrigator access and hydro power generation are chief among the concerns at the mid-Columbia River’s Wanapum Dam, where on Feb. 27 a 65-foot long horizontal crack was discovered at one of the facility’s 12 spillways.

Fish biologists, engineers, and stakeholders are developing plans to modify the two fish ladders at Wanapum Dam to allow migrating salmon and steelhead to safely pass the dam when the adult spring Chinook salmon run begins in mid-April. Over the course of the spring, summer and fall, Chinook, coho and sockeye salmon, steelhead, bull trout, lamprey, shad and other fish species pass over the dam. Wild spring Chinook and steelhead stocks, as well as bull trout, are protected under the Endangered Species Act.

Such ladder fixes could include the installation of a water pumping system to feed the ladders and potentially some sort of slide to ease the fishes’ exit into the Wanapum pool.

The utility is also evaluating plans for capturing and transporting adult fish around the reservoir.

LINK (via: The Dalles Chronicle)

SXSW Film Audience Award Winners Announced

Care to guess which film won in the documentary spotlight category?

Here's a KUT News interview with Ben Knight and Matt Stoecker.

Dam removal is happening, it's in the real world, and it's not that crazy.....

This short video showcases a restoration project at the Fort Collins North Shields Ponds Natural Area, including the removal of the Josh Ames Diversion structure.

LINK (via:The Reporter Herald)

Exeter voters pass Great Dam Removal

Voters passed by a vote of 1,440 yes to 753 a petitioned warrant article seeking $1,786,758 to remove the Great Dam in downtown Exeter in an effort to restore the Exeter River to its natural condition, reduce flooding, and stop environmental damage.

The proposal, which needed at least a 60 percent majority vote to pass, received about 65 percent of the vote.

LINK (via Seacoat Online)

Federal study recommends Green River dam removal

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has proposed removing a dam on the Green River near Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky.

LINK (via:Herald OnLine)

Pigg River Dam removal closer to reality

Friends of the Rivers of Virginia has been working with the Creek Freaks, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Franklin County, Town of Rocky Mount and other groups to partially remove the dam and restore 2.2 miles of the Pigg River upstream of the dam.

LINK (via:The Frankln News-Post)

Groups seek to remove old dams on Evans Creek

Two of Oregon's worst wild fish barriers could be removed from Evans Creek as early as the summer of 2015 under a plan to open as much as 70 miles of prime spawning habitat for the Rogue River Basin's wild salmon and steelhead.

WaterWatch of Oregon has teamed with local conservation groups, angling clubs and state and federal agencies to get the creek's two unused and abandoned dams — Fielder and Wimer — and their antiquated fish ladders out of the way of migrating salmon, including threatened wild coho.

The dams, which date back more than 100 years, are on the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's Top 10 list for worst wild fish impediments in Oregon.

LINK (via:Mail Tribune)

State OK's funding to remove Springborn Dam in Enfield

The Conneticut State Bond Commission approved spending $1 million to remove the state-owned Springborn Dam on the Scantic River.

Removing the dam would open up three additional miles of spawning habitat for American shad, river herring, sea lamprey and eels, state officials said.

LINK (via: The Courant)

Maybe on of these days Stanford will get their shit together?

Elwha Sediment Brings New Life Downstream

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So far about 3 million cubic yards of sediment -- enough to fill about 300,000 dump trucks -- has been released from the giant bathtubs of sediment that formed behind the two hydroelectric dams upstream. And that’s only 16 percent of what’s expected to be delivered downstream in the next five years.

LINK (via:JPR)