NICK POPE
CONTRIBUTOR
A well-funded environmentalist group played a key role in the push to remove dams in the Pacific Northwest’s Klamath River ahead of premature deaths of thousands of salmon.
American Rivers — an organization that has received millions of dollars from left-of-center environmentalist grantmaking organizations in recent years — was “the orchestrator of the Klamath dams removal project,” according to Siskiyou News, a local outlet in Northern California. The drawdowns of several reservoirs pursuant to the scheduled removal of four dams in the river preceded the deaths of “hundreds of thousands” of young salmon in the waterway, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting.
The push to remove the dams is often marketed as beneficial for salmon, as proponents of the plan — including American Rivers — have argued that the dams obstruct the natural movements of salmon as well as their access to habitat. However, weeks after beginning the process to remove one of the systems scheduled for deconstruction on the river, a large number of the 830,000 young salmon released into the river on Feb. 26 had died as of March 2, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW). (RELATED: White House Won’t Confirm If Biden Will Visit East Palestine, Says He’s ‘Taking It Very Seriously’)
CDFW officials attributed the mass-death to gas bubble disease, which is caused by changes in water pressure, and stated that the changes in pressure driving the deaths was attributable to old dam infrastructure that is slated for removal. The agency further stated that water turbidity and dissolved oxygen levels do not appear to have contributed to the mass-death.
The young salmon that died travelled through a tunnel involved in the dam infrastructure that had previously not been accessible to the fish before officials altered the flow of water through the system as part of the removal process, Peter Tira, an information officer for the CDFW, explained to the Daily Caller News Foundation. The deaths were primarily a function of where the fish were released into the water, and the outcome, though unfortunate, is a learning opportunity for stakeholders who remain committed to making the Klamath River a free-flowing cold water river system again in the long-term, Tira told the DCNF.
American Rivers is also closely involved with the Klamath River Renewal Corporation (KRRC), a nonprofit coalition that is playing a key role in the removals in accordance with its stated mission to “remove the Klamath hydroelectric dams and restore a free-flowing river.” Along with other organizations involved with the KRRC, American Rivers has appointed several officials to the group’s board of directors.
However, some officials and environmental policy experts are not buying the government’s explanation for the mass-death of salmon, asserting instead that it is clear that the removal of the dams set conditions for the mass-death.
“The risk of gas bubbles is well known, so the fact that one million salmon were killed is a failure of government staff to prevent their death. Rather than act as this is the fault of the dam, government staff should acknowledge their mistake and learn from it,” Todd Myers, the director of the Washington Policy Center’s Center for the Environment, told the DCNF. “It is unfortunately typical that when government actions harm the environment, agencies spend more time deflecting blame than addressing the problem or being held accountable.”
https://dailycaller.com/2024/03/24/river-essentially-dead-enviros-push-save-salmon-ended-killing-hundreds-thousands/
Regardless of whether or not dam removal is the right decision, poor planning or execution of the removals should not be excused, Myers emphasized.
Republican California Rep. Doug LaMalfa, whose district includes the river and a is a longtime opponent of removing the dams, agreed with Myers’ assessment of the causes for the deaths.
LaMalfa has been warning removal proponents “from day one” that moving to hastily remove the dams without a comprehensive plan to handle second-order effects could be catastrophic, he told the DCNF. He believes many proponents of removing dams are mostly interested in adding metaphorical “trophies” to their shelves rather than devising and implementing effective plans to remove the dams responsibly.
“This is about political scores. People like me and others have been warning them for two decades that when you do this and you have no plan for the silt — and they don’t have one — they have been exposed that they have no plan. They’re just doing it, doing it on the fly,” LaMalfa told the DCNF. “We see the destruction with the flume that has gone down the whole river and out in the ocean. I understand it’s even moved all the way up towards Crescent City, which is many miles up the coast.”
https://dailycaller.com/2024/03/24/river-essentially-dead-enviros-push-save-salmon-ended-killing-hundreds-thousands/
American Rivers, meanwhile, does not appear to have publicly addressed the high volume of salmon deaths in the river, despite having advocated for the removal of the Klamath River dams for years. American Rivers did not respond to requests for comment.
“I’ve been around natural disasters all of my life, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Siskiyou County Supervisor Ray Haupt told the California Globe. “The river is essentially dead, as is everything in it.” (RELATED: Scientists Look To Fight Climate Change By Dumping 6,000 Gallons Of Chemicals Into Ocean Near Martha’s Vineyard)
American Rivers has received at least $3.6 million from left-of-center grantmaking and environmentalist organizations — including the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Resources Legacy Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Water Foundation — since 2020, according to a review of tax filings. The New Venture Fund, one of the grantmaking nonprofits overseen by left-wing dark money behemoth Arabella Advisors, gave American Rivers nearly $400,000 between 2020 and 2022, according to tax filings.
There are still several other dams on the river that are set to come down as part of the removal project. Many property owners are seeing the values of their property along the water drop because of changes driven by the dam removal, LaMalfa told the DCNF.
“People with homes in the area are seeing their home values drop, even in one case their actual house might drop into the canyon because the water table has shifted,” LaMalfa told the DCNF. “And people with loans on their homes no longer have the value to keep their equity up.”
https://dailycaller.com/2024/03/24/river-essentially-dead-enviros-push-save-salmon-ended-killing-hundreds-thousands/
For its part, KRRC has established a mitigation fund to pay locals who may be adversely impacted by the consequences of dam removal.
“The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) manages the Fall Creek Fish Hatchery,” which is the facility that released the ill-fated salmon into the waterway, a KRRC spokesperson told the DCNF. “The Department determined the mortality of salmon fry was caused by remaining dam infrastructure, not by dam removal. Fortunately, that infrastructure will be removed along with the rest of the dam this year. In the meantime, CDFW will be trucking fish around the dam to avoid this occurring with upcoming releases from the hatchery. “
https://dailycaller.com/2024/03/24/river-essentially-dead-enviros-push-save-salmon-ended-killing-hundreds-thousands/
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
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I’m not a bit surprised–“to save salmons we must destroy salmons.” Environmentalists are more destructive to the environment than previous, conservative practices. PETA thinks unfertilized eggs (the ones usually sold in stores) are “sentient beings” and want to cancel anything to do with Easter eggs. I agree with Dan Bongino: “liberals suck!”
Lox of luck getting environmental whackos to think rationally.
LOX (Liquid OXygen) is very dangerous. The military video on “The Man from LOX” is quite informative. The last scene is gross–not for the faint of heart!
I like mine with cream cheese schmear on a bagel.
And your cream cheese bagel will probably spontaneously combust!
Thanks for that old reminder. The Man from Lox. Being in naval aviation it was one of the many we had to watch. Wearing rings as aircrew was another that had scenes not for the faint of heart. But then again many of the survival training lectures/films during Viet Nam were well you know.
If they could think rationally, they wouldn’t be environmental whackos in the first place.
“liberals suck!”
Can you send one over please (:-))
Pretty sure no environmentalists said what you say they said, or that they thought that way either. They wanted the dams removed. But as the one oversight group stated here, it’s the government’s fault that they effed up the process. Execution is everything.
This is not an artifact of environmental protection – it is an artifact of government incompetence.
Much like the Gold Creek disaster outside Silverton Colorado a few years ago. The EPA was engaged in remedial action for the numerous highly polluted former gold mines in that area, and hired a contractor to remove and treat the water from one of the mines. So far so good .. but then the contractor incompetently operated their remedial action scheme, and as a result released a massive cloud of orange colored water contaminated with heavy metals that ended up traveling all the way down to the Navajo reservation in Arizona, eventually dumping into the Colorado River. The businesses along the route that depended heavily upon tourism were devastated.
Having good intentions is never enough.
Execution is everything.
yeah id bet the people who will be losing cheaper hydropower and water use and having land n biz affected also have some views on “execution”
It is true that government should not be trusted to do much of anything, which begs the question: Why do environmentalists always partner with the government. I suggest it is because environmental bureaucracy is as corruptible, and as knee-jerk as government is. They want something done NOW and seldom think it through. Conservationists, on the other hand, consider the reality that change is disruptive even if it seems desirable and are more deliberate in their actions.
I would venture to say environmental bureaucracy and government bureaucracy are so intertwined as to be indistinguishable from each other. Quite the incestuous relationship.
Just look at the USEPA and the California EPA.
The word conservationist needs to gain populism.
It’s not what they say, it’s what they do.
You obviously don’t know the old saying: “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” To be an environmentalist, you just have to say: “I’m an environmentalist, and I hate Capitalism.”
One of the reasons Patrick Moore left Greenpeace was because Communists had taken the organization over. If you’re an environmentalist, then you’re probably a Communist too.
I believe in conservation, but why should I destroy everything in the name of conservation? It’s complete nonsense.
The “climate change” scam is another Communist attempt to destroy the US Republic and all Western democracies. And the useful idiots are falling for it.
Thank-you for being a member of that sick club. I eschew your comments.
Indeed. Destroying dams is not in itself conservation. Since the natural world is adaptable, at some point a dam becomes part of the steady state and sudden removal is extremely disruptive, as demonstrated here. Environmentalists seem to consider a system as a snapshot, and suddenly changing the image will set everything aright. Same with the climate system. They have no grasp of complexity.
Story Tip
Cliff Mass comments on published lies about climate.
As usual. he nails it
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2024/
Proving that liberals are mentally ill. This just another example that they don’t know what the hell they are doing. The Klamath is dead and will be for some time to come. Not just the salmon but everything else along with it. These enviros/climate cultists/et al are just nuts and need to be stopped. They destroy everything they touch, cuz of “feelings”, of course.
I want to take the other side here: I too love dams, swim and boat in Folsom and Natomas lakes. One time, talking with my dad about his apprenticeship in Placerville in 1954, he mentioned friends steelhead fishing in Hangtown creek after work. I got to thinking if there were steelhead, there were also salmon … though probably pretty beat up.
Then Folsom dam goes in 40 miles to the west, and stops the salmon and steelhead from spawning. Then I considered what wildlife depended upon the spawning salmon, what lived off the carcasses, what lived of the unviable eggs, what fed upon the fry, what a crash that must have been to the ecosystem the first fall the salmon didn’t spawn. The American River drainage above the dam is a pretty large footprint (525 square miles). The salmon run should be in the hundreds of thousands, but sometimes is in the hundreds. The lowest run I recall was less than 900 spawning salmon.
For as much as I like lakes, boating, swimming, fishing, etc. We need to utilize the Sacramento Valley Aquifer and remove the dams.
One of the big problems with removing dams is a huge amount of sediment that builds up behind them over time.
You really can’t just open up the dam and let all that sediment out.
The proper method would be to bypass the dam, drain it slowly and carefully, then dig out the sediment.
If the area upstream was most natural, the chances are the sediment will be useful for top-dressing farms etc..
If the area upstream means toxic substances could have accumulated.. then you have to either treat the sediment, or find somewhere it can be dumped where it won’t cause problems.
Neither is going to be cheap, but if you want to preserve the downstream river system, it has to be done.
YOU CAN’T JUST REMOVE A DAM !!
I agree. I’m all for dam removal and restoration of native fisheries. But it has to be done the right way.
If they don’t store water from winter snow most of those in California will have to leave the watershed.
As I understand, salmon always return to the place where they hatched. If the dam stopped the salmon from returning and spawning at any particular location, that population is now extinct, you might even say extirpated, so simply removing the dam isn’t going to “restore” a damn thing, because no salmon will continue on up the river even after the dam is removed, that’s not what’s programmed into their GPS.
If able, the salmon migrate above the dam, as were the salmon which were killed by the deconstruction project.
” I considered what wildlife depended upon the spawning salmon, what lived off the carcasses, what lived of the unviable eggs, what fed upon the fry, what a crash that must have been to the ecosystem the first fall the salmon didn’t spawn.”
Stocking Coho a freshwater salmon species above the dam will meet the needs you have
stated very well. We have Silver Salmon planted here in the Northern Rockies at the Headwaters of the Missouri with 4 dams and there is an eagle migration in the fall
along with nesting pairs in abundance. You should come up sometime and see for
yourself. The silver salmon take a good bit of experience to catch on a fly when they run in the fall
but after you figure it out they are great. Most guys just snag them which is legal but not
same as have a 5-6 pounder rise to take a fly in the fast water. If you get them while they are
still bright they smoke up very nicely, usually in late August early September.
I own farm ground with a blue ribbon tributary creek running through it and see
bald eagles year round and have a salmon run there in the fall along with some huge brown
trout. The rainbows run in the spring but the water is usually high from runnoff.
Correction–I should have written Kokanee not Coho and the reference to
silver is by color not species…reminder to self stay off the phone while
posting.
The dams themselves form an ecosystem which is then destroyed when the dams are removed.
What about them?
(And many salmon/trout that become landlocked still breed and thrive.)
Solutions to dams blocking salmon migration have been found.
It’s a mixed bag when stakeholders get some learnings because you know who’s paying for that dribble.
As I recall, this subject came in another thread a few weeks ago. At that time, I and others commented about all the things that had changed and adjusted to the dams being in place for over half a century or even a whole one. Here we have a real example: Just take the dams out and everything will be exactly like it was before – NO, not nearly that simple.
The anti-dam crowd should be damned.
It already is. Try asking how many of them know Jesus?
O/T: Thousands of solar panels in Texas destroyed by hailstorm.
Link: https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1772466901345599716
Looks like a St Patricks Day green river to me
Which one is the Klamath and which one is the “…another waterway…”?
When it comes to understanding and applying today’s technologies, politicians and bureaucrats (in and outside of government) are very often like children playing with matches: they do not appreciate the dangers of misuse, and rarely plan beyond one level of risks and consequences. Besides the example of this article, the most consequential example is the call to interconnect all of the various electric power networks of the US into one national network.
Talk about putting all the eggs in one (fragile) basket.
“the outcome, though unfortunate, is a learning opportunity for stakeholders” – The White Star Line, April 1912. Also Boeing.
That famous quote from Obama about Biden could be applied to all of government.
You can’t underestimate the ability of government to f*** things up.
In short, this is yet another bad idea by Democrats to add to the heap of ruinous insanity.
Always with the quick cover story afterward, but little deep thinking in advance. I am pretty sure that removal of these dams contributed to some of our recent rate increase. There was a reserve account established to amortize the undepreciated value of these dams.
Amortizing the fish was unexpected…
We can’t do a proper consequence analysis of removing a dam and they want to change the ocean chemistry. Oh boy. How will they fix whatever (and something will) goes wrong with that.
The left has a long history of doing what sounds good, rather than what works.
It’s unfortunate. But next time it will work! Just listen to them tell you how much fairer their plan will be.
On one hand, we have renewable energy fanatics proclaiming that we can use hydro as a back up for unreliable wind and solar.
On the other hand we have environmental whack jobs doing everything they can to make sure that even existing hydro dams are torn down.
Perhaps the individuals pushing this plan bought shares in a salmon distributor, otherwise how can we explain the motivation to kill the very fish they claim to protect. Or maybe they just subscribe to the imbecilic doctrine that we must destroy the environment to save it.
Obviously, fish ladders were working.
Alleged experts simply hated dams, ignoring silt loads stopped by the dam.
That level of silt will kill:
Most insect life living on the river’s bottom,
Kill most cold water fish,
Prevent cold water spawn that require rocky, gravel or sand for egg laying and fry,
Kill an mollusca living on the river’s bottom…
Next to go will be animals dependent upon fish in the river, e.g., bears, ospreys and eagles.
Hard hit will be bears expecting to fatten on returning salmon.
One does wonder how the Native Americans will take the loss from salmon that will not return in future years.
That river will reek from the silt and the dead water life. Plant life riverside should love the fertilizer boost.