Currently browsing… dam removal
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The public has spoken: Go all in on recovering the Kennebec River
It’s Atlantic salmon spawning season on Maine’s Kennebec River, and the regal fish are making their way from the Atlantic Ocean into the river on their annual run. As we know, it’s a run that’s just a tiny fraction of what it once was; those federally endangered salmon and other migratory species are halted by…
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The Elwha River: A wild ride through a decade of dam removal
A connected river is good for nature, period. And because we are a part of and depend on nature, it is good for humanity too.
John R. McMillan, Science Director, The Conservation Angler All photos provided by John McMillan “The river will never recover!” This is one of the responses I've seen in recent months from skeptics of the historic dam removal project currently underway on the Klamath River – the largest such project ever to date. This claim is…
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Bringing the salmon home
On the border of Oregon and California, the largest dam removal ever attempted, anywhere on the planet, is underway on the Klamath River.
When the dams come out, the Klamath will come back. May 2024: The Klamath River dam removal is well underway. The smallest of the four dams to be removed, Copco 2, is already gone. The reservoirs behind the three remaining dams – Copco 1, Iron Gate, and JC Boyle – were drained this winter and…
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FERC plans sells Kennebec’s endangered Atlantic salmon short
This week, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission released a Draft EIS affecting four hydroelectric dams on Maine’s Kennebec River. The FERC recommendations amount to incremental improvements over what is now a dire situation for Atlantic salmon in the Kennebec. We have tried the incremental approach before on rivers like the Connecticut, Merrimack, Saco, and Androscoggin.…
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Free the Eklutna River
The Eklutna People envision a thriving fishery accessible by all. Right now, we have the power to return a salmon producing stream back to Southcentral Alaska. The effort to restore the Eklutna River has reached a pivotal moment, with the operators of the Eklutna Hydroelectric Project now accepting public comments on their draft Fish and…
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Klamath Reservoir Drawdown Begins
The world’s largest dam removal project takes another step forward as the reservoirs behind Iron Gate, Copco 1 and JC Boyle Dams begin to be drained In the middle of January, early in the morning on a cold winter’s day, the process to reconnect the Klamath River took another huge step forward. Crews opened the…
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Hello to a River
For those of us born of water, sky, forest and meadow, for whom nature and the natural experience is not only a desired condition, but a necessary one, good writing about this world fuels our souls. The best authors are well-known, Rachel Carson, Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, Aldo Leopold, Wendell Berry and, of course, Henry…