Feds require fish ladders at Ore. dams (at four hydroelectric dams on Klamath River)

AP on Yahoo ^ | 1/30/07 | Jeff Barnard - ap

[ECM]

Steve Thompson, California-Nevada operations manager for Fish and Wildlife, said the dam modifications are necessary to "provide important new conservation benefits for people and for the fish of the Klamath River."

But mainly for the fish...

[Tribune7]

Seven other hydroelectric dams in Oregon and Washington — two owned by PacifiCorp — are to be removed in the next few years.

Global-warming-is-not-a-crisis-but-government-stupidity-is-a-big-one bump

[Tribune7]

ping

[ElkGroveDan]

Next year they'll be demanding "fish walkers" along the shore for the older salmon that can't climb the ladder.

[festus]

Fish climb ladders huh ?

I always wondered how that bass got on the top of my extension ladder.

[Calpernia]

Fish ladders were designed to allow adult salmon & steelhead to migrate past dams to their spawning grounds & regarded at the time as being the cure-all for salmon restoration.

Not considered were over-harvest, predation, water temperature, loss of habitat for spawning & juvenile fish, de-watering streams for irrigation, among others.

[Young Scholar]

The four dams at issue straddle the Oregon-California line and produce enough power to serve 70,000 customers.

That doesn't really sound like that many people, and I can't imagine it would be worth the company $300 million to keep them. I suppose there's always the option of more coal-fired or--even more sure to thrill the environmentalists--nuclear plants.

[KarlInOhio]

Does the Americans with Disabilities Act require fish elevators for those salmon who can't swim up the ladders?

[Clinging Bitterly]

300 million seems like a lot, it would have to return what, a billion maybe over the 50 years. 70,000 customers would be paying that. It might pencil out I dunno.

But it's crazy. K river has been blocked for a century and suddenly that one system is the cause of the decline in salmon, I think not. As for the tribes, it was within my lifetime that they were paid off by the taxpayers for the native rights that they sold under treaty.

[SierraWasp]

Yup! There'll be a bunch of 'em in the pool at the bottom yellin... "HELP! I'VE FALLEN AN I CAN'T GIT UP!!!"

I swear we're fast becoming a nation being taken over by complete IDIOTS!!! (I won't even go near that Auburn Dam thread!)

[USNBandit]

This is a no shi#!er. In Nevada when the fish ladder didn't work at Pyramid Lake they installed a fish elevator. The current contraption is called a fish lock, but basically it is an elevator.

[ApplegateRanch]

Dams about 100 years of exitence.

Salmon 4-6 year breeding cyle; death after breeding.

25 generations for the "effect" of the dams to show up?!?

Oh, wait; HATCHERY fish are not counted, even though the hatchery got its breeding stock from the fish originally unable to pass the dams when they were built. Now those generations of fish return to the hatchery, but aren't really "Klamath River" salmon.

If, as they claim, the salmon return to the very gravel bar where they hatched and lived before going to the ocean: how does "opening 350 miles of stream habitat" have salmon return to it, when NO salmon has used it for 100 years?

Or, do they plan to PLANT that habitat with HATCHERY roe or smolts?

[ElCid89]

Insanity. The dam's been there 50 years, isn't there a grandfather clause or something? There must be some sort of appeal process for this idiocy.

[sociotard]

Yeah, the fish ladders will help, but the reservoirs are too warm and . . . well, there's just a lot of problems. And yes, they'd have to seed the river with eggs from hatcheries.

This is an issue I'm torn over. I'm not willing to give up electric power, but I like the idea of keeping the salmon populations strong. That's not just because I like eating salmon, but because the salmon help prop up the food web in the northwest. I like camping out here. It'd be sad to see a bunch of other animal species die out because the salmon died out.

[DTogo]

Good! Remove the dams and let all the Enviro-whackos watch the swimming salmon by candle light during regular evening brown-outs.

[goldstategop]

Higher electricity bills to save the fish. Oregonians can decide if the trade-off is worth it.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[calcowgirl]

Klamath Ping.

[fish hawk]

I'm a Yurok Indian from the Klamath river and let me say that you are so full of (can't say it here) and must have left your brain at the bar. To start with you must have missed the next to last paragraph stating other reasons for the decline in salmon. Then your remark about us being paid off is pure fantasy. Would you like to pull up some papers to let us know where and when we were paid off as I did not receive my check. I see you're from Eugene, well that explains it.

[cherry]

mainly helps the Indians....who despite their billions in casino revenue like to think of themselves as nature lovers.....I don't know what they do on the Kalamath, but they gill net fish on the Columbia...no matter what fish....native or introduced.....its all theirs