Babbitt can expect to rack up the frequent-flier miles. About 75,000 big dams block American rivers, testaments to the conviction that any river flowing to sea unimpeded is a waste of water and power. But that attitude is under attack. Many of the aging dams kill millions of valuable salmon migrating to sea. As a result, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is refusing to relicense dams where the environmental costs outweigh the value of the hydropower, or demanding that a dam be retrofitted with fish ladders. That’s often so expensive that the owner opts to tear down the dam instead. Portland (Ore.) General Electric will raze dams on the Sandy and Little Sandy rivers, for instance, rather than make repairs. Demolition will free 22 miles of salmon and steelhead spawning grounds.
This year dams will fall from California to Connecticut (map). It shouldn’t take long to see results. The Quaker Neck Dam on the Neuse River in North Carolina came down in 1997-98; bass and striped shad are already running again. On Butte Creek in northern California, removing three dams beginning in 1997 allowed the salmon run to jump from zero to 20,000. Those numbers have environmentalists and fishermen eying dams in the Olympic Peninsula, where dozens of populations of salmon are endangered or extinct. The Elwha and Glines Canyon dams, for example, cut the annual runs of salmon and steelhead on the Elwha River from 380,000 early this century to zero. The biggest targets are four hydroelectrics on the Snake River. But many locals oppose razing these giants, which supply 5 percent of the region’s electricity, because doing so could raise rates the same amount. Call it salmon vs. watts.
