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- Hacker News
- Interestingly this thinking has carried over to the UK. And as is often the case, people don't consider the scale changes and second order effects.
'Removing barriers to salmon migration' became a huge deal about 20 years ago, with conservation bodies removing weirs. Yes weirs not dams. Old Mill weirs, for instance, that were there when salmon stocks were high.
A lot of money has been spent, especially in the River Wye, which wriggles between Wales and England. The salmon stocks have plummeted, and got worse since they started.
The thing is Salmon could jump weirs in a flood. That is their evolutionary advantage. They had access to tributaries that no other fish could get too. Now Salmon can get their, along with Barbel, who eat fish eggs... and are not native to the Wye. Just saying.
One 'expert' (at fundraising at least), said 'Salmon could only cross these barriers in high flows' which is fine, because Salmon only run the river at all at high flows.
Weirs also provided varied habitat, and more oxygenated water... that is now lost.
I went to a seminar lead by two of these groups. One gave a presentation about all the dead trees they had removed from the river to 'remove barriers'. The second speaker talked about the dead trees they put in the river to create fish nurseries. I seemed to be the only person that find this absurd.
Now the barrier removal people are claiming success. As in they successfully raised the money and removed the 'barrier', one presumes. Salmon stocks have got worse.
There is more, but that was sad enough on its own
by jimnotgym - It’s more about money as well. There are a lot of private dams that are effectively abandoned and are a threat to the area if they aren’t updated or removed. Same for the publicly maintained ones. Most of them require budget and tax dollars to maintain and a removal is much cheaper long term.by just_howl
- Good for the fish but as winters get warmer these dams will be useful to store rain that doesn't stay put in the mountains as winter snow. This might mean more summer droughts. Also a nice clean source of power. I would rather see fish ladders.by m_herrlich
- As the article alludes, the blueprint/precedent for this kind of work was set in the Klamath river basin in western Oregon. The local tribes deserve a tip of the hat for pushing through the lobbying and suits to get this process started.
And a hat tip to all of the people who made the projects as successful as they have been in saving fish populations. IIRC, they ran into some surprises with volunteer fish which reduced the amount of hatchery fish they anticipated needing.
by hinkley - Lot of good postings here, I'm excited that people are noticing the multiple efforts to help nudge fish passages back to life, where the remaining fish are barely hanging on in some places.
In Washington State we have some of this happening too. A few years ago the long delayed projected to remove the damn on the Elwha on the Olympic Peninsula finally happened - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restoration_of_the_Elwha_River.
- This sounded familiar and then I realized I had read the same article a few weeks ago. This is some strange syndication I would propose changing the link to this one: https://biographic.com/death-by-a-thousand-dams/ it’s also way better layout and fewer ads.by twright
- More good news: after years of fighting, Brookfield Renewable agreed to sell four dams on the Kennebec River which will let Atlantic Salmon go back up river to their spawning territory. This just happened in 2025 and could be a bigger breakthrough than the massive alewife restoration that the article mentions.
My understanding is that the first few victories on this were very very hard but it seems to have created a precedent and a growing example emulated across the country.
https://themainemonitor.org/dams-sale-salmon-return-kennebec...
by glenstein - A rewilding organization bought some forest land, downstream from a dam, that used to get seasonal flooding before the dam was built and made an agreement with the dam operators to do artificial seasonal flooding via ditches they dug. The flooded forest has the effect of providing fish nurseries so hatchlings have a chance to hide and grow before the water recedes and they have to return to the river.
I think it's a testament that human activity and nature don't have to be all or nothing, but we need to consider and mitigate the impact of our actions and always leave space for nature.
by goda90