Copco Lake, post dam removal. (Photo: Ray Haupt)
Klamath Dam Removal: ‘It’s an Environmental Disaster’
‘They purposefully made a disaster and are leaving taxpayers and the locals to clean up their mess’
By Katy Grimes, February 19, 2024 2:30 am
This is the first article in a series about the Klamath Dam Removal project in Siskiyou County.
The removal of dams along the Klamath River in Siskiyou County, Northern California was sold as necessary to save salmon – specifically, “to restore habitat for endangered fish.”
The dams are part of the Klamath project, a series of seven dams built in the 1910’s and 1920’s in the Klamath Basin to bring electricity and agricultural water mitigation for Southern Oregon and Northern California, the Globe reported in 2020. However, in recent years, concerns over the dams’ effect on the wildlife and fishing industry have been raised, especially regarding claims of fish facing extinction because the dams.
In 2018, plans were released to destroy the dam system. However, those plans halted in 2019 because of data errors and issues over who owns the dams. The Bureau of Reclamation swiftly issued a study on the dams’ effects through 2024, leading to California to again push for destruction of the dams.
In June 2020, the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee halted plans again, ruling that PacificCorp, an Oregon utility company owned by Warren Buffett’s Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway, would have to transfer it’s hydroelectric license and co-licensee with the Klamath River Renewal Corp., as well as pay $250 million toward getting out of the demolition project to avoid any liabilities around the demolition.
Governor Newsom implored Buffett to back the demolition project to save the salmon populations that Native American tribes in the area rely on. “The river is sick, and the Klamath Basin tribes are suffering,” said Newsom in his letter. “The Klamath dam removals are a shining example of what we can accomplish when we act according to our values.”
Many tribes also issued a joint letter with Governor Newsom in support of the dams destruction.
2024
“Drawdown of three reservoirs on the Klamath River is well underway, and this step in the dam removal process has already dramatically altered the landscape along the river in Southern Oregon and far Northern California,” OPB.org reported. “Iron Gate, the lowest of the three remaining dams, was first breached on Jan. 9, followed by J.C. Boyle on Jan. 16. On Jan. 23, a concrete plug in the tunnel at the base of Copco 1 was blasted away. The reservoirs drained swiftly, leaving behind vast expanses of fissured mud the color and consistency of chocolate cake batter. The Klamath River is winding through the naked landscape, finding its new shape.”
“Dam removal is expected to improve the health of the Klamath River, the route that Chinook salmon and endangered coho salmon take from the Pacific Ocean to their upstream spawning grounds, and from where the young fish return to the sea.”
It sounded good on paper – at least it did to the bureaucrats agitating for it.
But according to local officials, “it’s an environmental disaster.”
“I’ve been around natural disasters all of my life, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Siskiyou County Supervisor Ray Haupt recently told the Globe. “The river is essentially dead, as is everything in it.”
Haupt was a District Ranger in the Klamath National Forest for 33 years, retired in 2010, and now owns a Forest and Natural Resources Consulting Business. He is a California Registered Professional Forester, a member of the California Professional Foresters Association, an Ag advisor for Etna High School and the College of the Siskiyous tech programs, and is an author of multiple Forest Management and Fire Policies for NAFSR, the National Association of Forest Services Retirees.
Haupt said the sediment plume extends 2 miles into the ocean. And he and local residents are witnessing a massive salmon extinction event.
Supervisor Haupt isn’t the only resident making these observations. OPB.org reported:
Many have seen dead fish stranded in the mud, and on Jan. 27, residents spotted a doe and yearling that had become hopelessly stuck trying to reach water. Volunteer firefighters from the Hornbrook Fire Protection District tried to rescue the mired animals but abandoned the mission as dusk fell. Soon after, an officer from California Department of Fish and Wildlife euthanized the deer.
“The mud was so thick; it was so far out there; they tried so hard,” said Chrissie Reynolds, a long-time resident of Copco Lake who drove to the scene to try to help. “But all that time, those animals were suffering.”
Supervisor Haupt also shared photos of Copco Lake, left almost dry with the dam removals.
“The speed of drawdown did not allow crews to assist with ‘sediment evacuation’ as was planned,” OPB reported. “In that scenario crews would use jets of water and shovels to slough off chunks of mud from the banks as the water level dropped.”
Haupt said what’s left of the water in Copco Lake is brown and thick with mud, and dead fish are everywhere.
Rep. Doug LaMalfa (CA-1) also expressed his disbelief in the results of the dam removal, in a January 30th Facebook post, summarizing the politics of the situation:
Environmentalists and the State of California are celebrating the world’s largest dam removal on the Upper Klamath River, while their work kills endangered species, destroys roads, threatens homes with bank collapse and is already seeing drinking water wells go dry. They purposefully made a disaster and are leaving taxpayers and the locals to clean up their mess.
Dam removal advocates refused to see the big picture, trusting a questionable Master’s thesis over the locals who knew better. Now, we see the results that are being ignored by the media and environmental groups – utter devastation of an ecosystem, and death. Dam removal advocates simply ignored the immense amount of sediment behind each dam, and how releasing it would impact water quality and river health. Now look, the water is black and thick with mud and toxic heavy metals covering every bit of gravel needed for spawning, deer are dying in the muck as is chokes out all life – and it absolutely reeks.
Shameless environmental groups cried that the removal of the dams is essential for fish health and would reverse salmon and steelhead population decline. Tell me, does this water look like a better habitat for the fish?
Newsom and the environmentalists were more interested in the trophy of the dams’ removal than the harm they caused.
The Yreka News posted a video described as a “massive fish kill:”
Video taken 02/06/2024 on the banks of Iron Gate lake, Hornbook, CA footage by William E. Simpson II. This is a screen shot:
Experts say this is a “massive sediment poisoning” and will cause the die-off of numerous species.
Ironically, but without any humility, Gov. Gavin Newsom recently announced:
Following the Newsom Administration’s request for a Federal Fishery Disaster Declaration amid dramatic declines in key salmon stocks in 2023, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced $20.6 million to support impacted fishing communities in California, including commercial fishermen, recreational fishermen, subsistence users and charter businesses.
So after killing off hundreds of thousands of salmon and fish, Gov. Newsom is getting federal money to restore “impacted fisheries.”
Is this gross government incompetence or something more sinister?
Part ll: Why are the Klamath Dams being removed and who is behind it?
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July 19, 2022
Thank you for educating me on this. I had no idea.
They are about to do the same thing at the Columbia River Basin. The hydroelectric power from the Snake River Dams are the backbone of the electric grid in the Pacific Northwest. All to save the salmon.
all to make the people poor and dependant on the gov. they could give a fuck less about salmon
Exactly correct
Yep.
Hydro is virtually carbon free, massive energy — instead of creating even bigger and better dams, the GND ideologues are tearing down the dams we have. How can people be this clueless?
Please don’t try to promote hydro as a type of green energy. This is the end result. Hydro kills a river.
I will promote it as green! Because government and bureaucrats and the so called experts with the corp of engeneers don’t know that flushing out behind the dams from time to time will take care of theis ecological disaster doesn’t mean hydro electric power is the cleanest and cheapest available right now! The electric grid would collapse without it!
Your ignorant.
hydro does not kill a river. how did your brain come up with that. the Klamath dam removal killed the river. do your homework before you start spouting false information.
You people are voting for this, wake up.
That’s because it’s fake news.
Another example of brain-dead leftist policy implementation and its disastrous consequences. They KILL what they are purportedly trying to SAVE. The California side of the Klamath River basin was a pristine and beautiful area back in 2002 when I went there to look at some riverfront properties. LOTS of salmon and steehead migrating upstream. Glad I decided not to purchase now that dams are being removed and destroying the habitat.
The Green Cult is more accurately known as the death cult. Look at wind power that kills millions of birds every year and now whales too. Then there is the clear cutting of forests for wind mills and the shutting down of farms.
Bill Gates also wants to cut down forests and bury the trees.
People need to wake up to reality!
Eco-terrorist is the real term to use.
Bill Gates wants to cut down the humans and bury the people with vaccines. Covid? Over 14 million dead worldwide. He is the epitome of evil.
Liberalism destroys everything it touches.
What a NIGHTMARE. More Gavin Newsom-created DISASTER. Alongside the self-righteous but WRONG and DESTRUCTIVE “environmentalists” and their allies and henchmen who pushed and pushed.
Now what? Will we even see any of these people incorporate into their deluded minds what they have DONE here? Will any one of them AT LEAST be conscience-stricken enough to take responsibility for this catastrophe, such as Gavin Newsom? Will GO-GO-GREEN activists even be remorseful? Will their cheering sideline observers finally realize that whatever environmentalists proclaim as “good and necessary for the environment” has in reality the exact opposite effect? Disastrous effects, in fact?
This is an incredibly destructive blow, and we don’t even know or can know all of the fallout from it yet, although what has been told is bad enough. BEYOND bad enough.
Appreciate so much Katy Grimes’ coverage of this man-made disaster, without which I wonder if anyone would have even known of this result, including those of us who have generally been against all dam removals for years and years as a VERY bad idea but without a complete in-depth knowledge and expertise in it. Awaiting Part 2 of this series and the list of villains.
Due to obvious heat effects on organic soil components, wildland fires are also thought to potentially be a major cause of significant slope instability.
Hmm, why is it the so called environmental “experts” seem to destroy what they touch?
They blow up a dam that fed rivers and created ponds and small lakes. What exactly did they think was going to happen to the landscape and the wildlife that depend on it?
Conservancy projects are kind to the environment. These nut jobs are not!
Devastating outcome!
One Fed Up Cali Girl …. Were the lakes behind the dams used for collecting water by planes and helicopters and used for fighting wild fires caused by lightning? I guess this resource is no longer available.
So once again Newsom and the rest of the criminal Democrat mafia who created this chaos, destruction and death are not being held accountable? The fact that Newsom got taxpayer money to restore “impacted fisheries” after he pushed to remove the dams is infuriating. If there was any real justice in this country, Newsom, Oregon Democrat Gov. Tina Kotek, the unelected bureaucrat stooges on the Public Utilities Commissions in Oregon and California who were appointed by Democrat governors, Democrat party mega donor Warren Buffett, and all the other Democrat connected consultants and contractors involved in destroying the dams and the Klamath River ecosystems would be hauled before tribunals and be held accountable?
“Governor Newsom implored Buffett to back the demolition project to save the salmon populations that Native American tribes in the area rely on.”
That’s complete BS. “Native tribes” do not have a viable fishing industry.
The sinister part is that Newsom wants to “restore” California to a primitive state that relies on solar for electricity and has limited water for its residences and agriculture. The irony is that Newsom recently extended electrical production at Diablo Canyon and gave up electrical production at the Klamath River Dams. The loss of water storage will create man-made droughts. Newsom and company are not working to better California but to destroy it. The only bright side is that once this corrupt leadership is out of power and replaced with commonsense leadership there is going to be a boom cleaning up and replacing the damage done by this regime.
Question; where can we get information about the silt plume spreading out into the Pacific Ocean from the Klamath River?
This article is deeply flawed. The salmon runs occur in late May and September, resulting in a deeper, faster-flowing river essential for healthy salmon habitats. The fish casualties primarily involve non-native species intended for lakes, not rivers. Disaster relief funds are allocated for the tribes due to a poor fishing year in 2020. The Klamath, once the third-largest salmon-producing river in the PNW, now has only 3% of its historic numbers pre-dam construction. The intended audience your writing for contributed to the largest fish kill in U.S. history in 2001, exploiting a loophole for water, causing the death of 70,000 fish within a week. Rather than defending a destructive capitalist lifestyle, support a transformative environmental achievement. Plans are already in place to address the adverse water conditions before the fish arrive, coupled with the introduction of millions of seeds of nearly 100 native plant species along the river.
I think you meant, you’re writing…
Really? How do you expect all that silt to be gone by May?
Talk about flawed thinking. This is absolute and complete incompetence.
Hahahaha you really don’t know what you’re talking about
Loosen up your mask its cutting off the O2 to your small brain.
YEA EVIL CAPAITALISM…. EVIL HUMANS….
it’s amazing thr comments on here… even going so far as saying hydro is a green energy source. it’s an unbelievably myopic viewpoint powered by a one sided propaganda campaign.
My hearts go out to the residents, as I know change is difficult. This river will heal. The mud will turn to hard pan. The grasses will return. and eventually the trees. We have to start somewhere to undo the carnage that we as humans did to thus river basin and the fish that require it.
Right, breaking some eggs to make an omelette.🤬
This devastation was totally predictable. All the environmentalist and engineers had to do was check out the results of tearing down a couple dams on the Elwa River in Olympic National Park a decade earlier. The damns controlled flooding, provided storage for water, provided recreation, produced electricity, and opened a visual window into a century ago. There is no remaining remnant of these dams. I hope the indigenous peoples of the area appreciate it and don’t look towards modern civilization nearby to provide them their food, recreation, and electrical requirements.
The Elwha is an excellent example of the SUCCESS of dam removal. The fisheries have bounced back strongly along with environs around it. The dam itself had become a largely unusable relic, as the Klamath facilities were becoming.
The environmental disaster was flooding all those lands in the first place which displaced wildlife, drowned forests, so it is entirely out of context for officials to complain about environmental “disaster” during a reclamation project which is actually returning the Klamath to it’s natural state before the dams caused the true environmental disaster.
Lol, I think you meant, flooded forests.
thanks for a great article with out quoting the krrc , all is not going as planned.
Only half for fishery’s disaster over 47 million in losses
Let Newsom’s request be shown in,perpetuity :
“The Klamath dam removals are a shining example of what we can accomplish when we act according to our values.”
This is Gavin Newsom’s legacy – he DESTROYS everything he touches and is COMPLETELY INEPT and INEFFECTIVE…
DO NOT let him anywhere NEAR The White,House!!!
Add this to the list of complete failures by Gov. Newsom.
This is more proof that everything the Democrats touch turns to sh*t.
Add how many “controlled burns” have turned into 💩when Mother Nature decided to have some fun?
Gov. “Gaggin” is an IDIOT ! The Iron Gate damn ( the lowest in the River) should have been Left intact and DREDGED to remove the sediment from the upper damns.
This IDIOT was CB on TV with NO presence from the CDFW and HIS appointed “Boss” & Crony CHUCK BONHAM ( another IDIOT)
We need to let the public in CA. And the rest of the country know this as “Gaggin” has his sights set on Being the POTUS !!!
He is the worst thing that has ever, and still continues to be, happened to our Late-Great Sate of California
@Julian
Another eco-fantastic I see. Who lives in some fantasy world where nature was pure and unsullied before us “Evil Westerners” turned up. That “eternal ecosystem” has only been around for at most 10 thousand years. With major disruptions / extinctions due to the major super dropout cycles every 400 plus years. It arrived after the end of the last ice age and will be destroyed by the arrival of the next one. Don’t you know this is an Interglacial.
Then the ecosystem was very seriously impacted by the arrival of the first humans. About 8 thousand years ago. Who have been making serious changes to the environment ever since. The first mass extinctions in the PNW happened soon after the first Amerindians arrived. What us “Evil Westerners” have done is the last two hundred is nothing new. We are just the latest in a long line of those who have serious modified the local ecosystem.
Those dams were built for flood protection. Anyone guess how many years before we heard of very serious damage to property and livelihood from serious flooding downstream. Its going to happen. And people will die.
Just so a small group of smug affluent middle class eco’s can indulge in their Rousseauan fantasy of a “Primordial Garden”. At huge cost to others. A pure luxury good for the wealthy.
If you think capitalism is bad you should visit Eastern European and Russia to see what many decades of Marxism did to the ecosystem. Some (very large) regions will never recover.
So at huge expense we will end up with a new long term ecological disaster. Which the eco’s of course will never take responsibility for. They never do. The fish stocks of course will not recover. That has been a given for over 100 years. Some low value fish will be caught. Not many. The local tribes will still live in abject poverty. And a future of regular severe flooding downstream. Just so a bunch of sanctimonious affluent big city urbanites can get their little hit of self-righteous indignation. Which they are addicted too.
Because Ökosozialismus is never ever about true conservation of nature. Is it? Just the same old lies in a a different package. Some of us are old enough to have read the Club Of Rome report when it first came out. A work of total fiction. But a very politically motivated fiction.
And what you wrote is no different. Most made up stuff with lies by omission. Yes, I’ve read the papers. And my day job involves very complex math. So I know the math of these papers is almost all junk. The ones that are not riddled with very basic errors that is.
Cargo Cult Science at its finest.
Thank you tfourier for your fine and informative comment. Even more valuable because so much of it reflects hands-on knowledge and experience.
I agree with Show and Tell. I do suggest you take the Club of Rome and all the other other names the Demonic Cabal operate under seriously.
@Tfourier
Nicely written and accurate. If you want to see environmental destruction, go to any Communist country.
Leftists are children with reproductive organs. They are unable to see cause and effect.
Unfortunately, this article is poorly informed. No one said or planned for the Klamath to be suddenly transformed into a vibrant fishery-friendly river when the dams were decommissioned. In fact the process is well understood and the Elwah Dam removal has been a great success on the Olympic Peninsula. (See https://www.opb.org/article/2022/08/02/elwha-river-transformed-10-years-after-dam-removal/). There is no unanticipated “environmental disaster”–it just will take some time. Be patient.
As for who inspired the decommissioning, I did the economic study in 2006 that showed that it would not cost PacifiCorp any more to decommission versus relicensing. (And with falling solar and wind power costs, this case has become stronger.)
How many centuries will it take? You sound like a deluded climate stooge who is owned by the WEF globalist cabal. No doubt you were paid well to sell your soul?
@Richard McCann, perhaps you should provide us with a copy of your study and the funding source(s) so that we can evaluate your claims. There are always two sides to a story. The Elwha watershed appears to be completely different from the Klamath. One of the two dams removed on the Elwha was only 4.5 miles from its terminus at Port Angeles. The other was a little farther up but neither was no where near the distance that dams on the Klamath are from the Klamath River’s Pacific Ocean terminus. Therefore, logically, the flushing effect of the watershed all other things being equal would be much greater on the Elwha over a shorter time frame. You appear to be comparing apples and oranges. No one knows with any certainty what the ecological effect of dam removal on the Klamath will be but it will definitely be much longer than 10 years before we find out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restoration_of_the_Elwha_River
Yes, the Elwah is a shorter distance but the Klamath is a bigger watershed. There’s little reason to believe that the effects will be substantially different. And as the saying goes, it’s now water under the bridge.
Here’s a link to the report we did for the California Energy Commission. (It’s no longer on their website.) https://mcubedecon.com/2023/11/15/decommissioning-klamath-river-dams-comes-to-fruition/
There is no evidence that salmon ever swam into the upper Klamath River beyond the site of where the dams were built. There were (are) lava flows across this mid river stretch with cascades that are too high for the salmon to pass through. To cope with that there is even plans today to blast channels through these natural lava barriers to enable the salmon to swim upstream. But they’ll be going where they’ve never migrated before.
Moreover, the upper Klamath basin is a phosphorus rich watershed, and historically when there was a lot of water coming from far upstream it would overflow into the Tule Basin, and NOT flow downstream into the middle and lower Klamath River. This all changed when environmentalists started demanding increased flows downriver. That phosphorus sediment has accumulated behind these dams and will take years to wash out, but more to the point, once the dams are gone, the environmentalists will increase the pressure to divert upstream water from the Tule Basin wetlands and the farmer allocations to send downstream supposedly to help the salmon. But that water is not healthy for the salmon because of the high levels of phosphorus.
Finally, these dams were constructed to help salmon, not to harm them. They had the capacity to release cool water when needed to keep the river downstream under 70 degrees which is favorable to salmon, and to maintain flow at critical times. All that is gone now. The people doing this are misguided, to put it as mildly as possible.
Maybe I’m going to have to be the contrarian here. We’ve heard the Left bleating about environmental disasters before. There was the Enron spill in Alaskan waters years ago. After a year or two had passed everything had gone back to normal and fish populations were thriving. Then there was the big oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico that was supposed to kill all life withing 100 miles of the leak. Yet a year or two later things were back to normal.
So, I’m saying lets wait 5 years and see how the salmon populations look. Eventually the river and the tides will wash most of the sediments out to sea. The ocean going salmon will swim upstream and lay their eggs. The eggs will hatch and new generations of salmon will go to sea. I believe the life cycle of a salmon is three years. They mature in a few months then go live in the sea for three years until they return to the streams where they were born, lay their eggs, die and then become food for the bald eagles and other wildlife. Let’s wait and see until we jump on the environmentalist “whine train.”
killed every fish and microorganism in the entire system for years to come just so jeranamo can spear fish a fish that cannot live in ecosystem that is left. Great job libtards, you singlehandedly destroyed Klamath river ecosystem which also includes the Trinity river as well.
So people seem to be saying that the “vast expanses of fissured mud the color and consistency of chocolate cake batter”, which were created by construction & operation of the dams, is now a disaster caused by removal of the dams. What kind of upside-down logic is that?
And the drying of river banks, left denuded by years of drowning under artificial lake water, are also the result of removing the lake?
There was never an attempt to obfuscate the fact that sediment from the dams would need to be carried down river for some time. The salmon and other aquatic species will return exponentially, but over a period of a few years.
I have to roll my eyes at CW’s comments on the story, and how those darn windmills are killing whales. What a comedian!
How much did the RNC pay Katy Grimes for this article??
Sorry to rain on your parade Tom – we aren’t paid propagandists, and the entire article is sourced with linked evidence and photographic evidence.
“exponentially” you say? You must be a real expert.
Everything the Democrats touch turns to poison.
They mandated “low-flow” toilets. For a decade, we were flushing twice.
They’ve got “no water” urinals, because I guess the World is NOT covered in 2/3 water. Now we have bathrooms with disgusting, unsanitary urinals.
they mandated low-water dishwashers. Now instead of cleaning your dishes crystal clear in 30 minutes using the necessary amount of water, it takes 2-3 hours (of electricity) and your dishes won’t clean except you use 20 gallons of water to pre-rinse them.
They outlawed gasoline cans that have worked since the dawn of time, only to leave us with newfangled devices that consistently spill gasoline all over the place and cause an increased safety risk to the user.
These are evil people that don’t look to the Creator for wisdom. Of course all they do is wrong and will receive the eternal punishment they deserve.
just Democrats doing typical stupid Democrat stuff.
Yall vote for the dumb liberal bastards, so deal with it. You reap what you sow. Just don’t decide to move to my state and screw it up too.
Gooder. Harder.
This is what happens when you allow environazis any power. Fish before humans? Moronic.
South of Louisiana they are building something called the “Mid Barataria diversion” where they are diverting the Mississippi River to “create” land with sediment from the river. This a $3 billion dollar project that will see cutting a several hundred yard swath of the Ms. River levee and allowing its polluted fresh water into the saltwater estuary of the Barataria Basin which will result in a massive kill/ displacement of saltwater fish and the killing of untold numbers of dolphins and turtles. They say it will take 30-50 years to see positive effects of the new created land. All in the name of “Safey” ala “Hurricane Protection”. Massive waste of time and resources with the “unintended consequences” showing up decades later. It’s a giant $$$$$ grab,
Stupid Democrat Environmental GOONS. The “destroyed environment, the dead animals, the dead fish” should be documented in History and paid for by the Communist Green Environmental Groups instead of the taxpayers.
When I grew up in Siskiyou County in the 80s and 90s it was a decent place where ordinary people could live. Thanks to the environmental do-gooders, the families employed in forestry or farming are all but gone and have been replaced by welfare druggies or rich Bay Area transplants. Or no one at all. The genius environmentalists replaced the farmers they hated with pot growers and meth cookers who makes the old farmers look like John Muir. Typical.
Calm down. Did you think it would return to a natural healthy river overnight? It could take years or decades. Q
Im far from a liberal environmentalist but i am a fisherman from the east coast. We pretty much killed all our salmon with dams and I wish we took them down 100 years ago. Most of the still existing dams out east don’t actually fulfill the purpose they were built for anymore. Our salmon over here arnt coming back, and thats what would have happened to yours eventually.
The Self-Destruction Mind Worm has complete control over a majority of Kalifornian’s
It’s debatable if this makes sense it will take quite some time. HOWEVER posters here exhibit ignorance of dismal track record of predictions from their side. Club of Rome (1977) world out of oil by 2015. James Hansen (1085) 3 degrees C global temp rise by 2020 (it was 1/2 one degree). John Holdren Obama’s science advisor? Look up the “Simon wager” with “Bomb” Ehrlich, Holdren was the Brain Trust that LOST Ehrlich $10K.
btw if you think this one is bad wait until you find out what Gov. Glamorgel and his legal eagles at the CARB are doing to the trucking industry with their “EV mandate”–it will double or more the price of all shipped goods while driving hundreds of independents out of business. This will concentrate power in fewer corp. carriers–coincidentally making them easier targets for unionization (the Teamsters hate the independents).
Oh, boo hoo! It’s not the Democrats or the environmentalists who are destroying your livelihoods. With time comes social change, replacement of industries, foreign competition, etc. People across America are continually challenged to find new ways to make a living. Our forefathers would have found ways to use what they have, what lies in front of them, to earn a living. They were nation-builders! Figure it out, invent, but for goodness sake, stop playing the part of the poor victim! Yes, you’d probably all look like Brad Pitt if your parents had only given you better genes! And Katy, while your article includes “photographic evidence” of silt and dead fish, it does not in any way disprove the longer-term benefits of dam removal to restore annual runs of 100’s of thousands of salmon. These will bring thousands of tons of nutrients from the sea to land, and can spawn (pun intended) a renewal of the tourist and sporting industries in northern California.
These are people with tinfoil hats listening to Fox & Friends.
The idea that Doug LaMalfa has any concern about any endangered species is laughable.
Tom Battle, just where on planet Earth can someone working a single job from the sporting or tourism industries support a family? While I am waiting, all of my 37 years in Alaska witnessing the economic and environmental damage brought by the sporting or tourism industries have clearly demonstrated, the only people making money are the big cruise and tour company CEOs.
The unemployment rate in Alaska has generally decreased since 2004, Shann, and is in line with the rest of the country. I admit I don’t know the specifics of work available, but suspect it’s there. The key point is that if we allow the big mining, timber, etc., companies to exploit Alaska’s resources, then your children and grandchildren will pay the price. Look to places like Butte, Montana if you want to see what damage can be wrought. They’ve spent billions, not on restoration as at Klamath, but to repair the toxic mess left behind. And they’ll need to spend billions more in the years to come! Don’t think big business gives a whit about you, your family or your future. They’re only in it to report to their stockholders! And Big Agriculture is not any different. They’re manipulating and controlling water resources everywhere in the name of profit. They grow water-intensive crops like almonds in California, not to feed Americans but to export for profit. It takes 1 gallon of water for every almond they grow, yet they want to convince you to drink almond “milk”. Incredible! And almond orchards cannot go fallow in dry years. We need to start regulating Big Agriculture, rather urgently, not help subsidize their water grab.
Tribes are also involved in this, sacred sucker fish, sacred sucker taxpayers. College leftists and their tribal advocacy crap…what happens to Portland, OR when they start going after dams up north.
Environmentalism is a cult. Clean the cultists out of US colleges and universities before they kill us all. Start with the UC system which apparently a driving force behind this. Ira Einhorn, ‘earth day’ founder, was a nut, killed his wife, put her in a suitcase, put the suitcase in the closet to be discovered years later. Couple years ago, they had an eco-arsonist, college student, busted while at her works, before that, a college professor from NY state, also busted in CA for arson. These people have drunk the kool-aid, well, in her case, apparently bear urine…Oregon has a history also, ELF/ALF, more college students/college-age young people who got recruited to the cause, same stripe of people who helped kill off the Oregon logging industry. This garbage did not just start yesterday and these people will notr stop of their own accord, which is why federal involvement and investigation is reuired to keep the notes, perform the investigations, help inform the public, and act as deterrent to help keep the eco-nuts from doing even more harm than they already have to communities who are now without means of financial support, other than criminal activity or govt. subsidy. Thanks, tree huggers/financial backers.
Well, my only thought is who put the trash in office that did it???? Seems to me it’s their fault.
Nonsense, Bert! The environmentalists aren’t causing American timber to be more expensive than in 1970, but they’re definitely helping to insure some timber may be left in 2070. The world has changed. Put down the joint and start using your noggin instead of abusing it. Other countries have been challenged by change, and they’re finding lucrative new solutions. For example, Scotland, Ireland and Argentina depended heavily on the mutton industry for meat, wool, garments, etc. Remember those Irish sweaters? Synthetics caused their livelihood to vaporize. But today, Scotch and Irish beer & whiskey are huge industries. Their universities are world class, graduating thousands of young people. The Argentine and Chilean economies are still struggling, but have you ever heard of Patagonia? Visiting there is an experience you’ll never forget, and entire cities are being built to support tourism! The bottom line is, again, let’s all stop playing the part of the victim and start figuring out how we’ll move forward.
Tom, I was following your points that dam removal isn’t an on/off switch and it will take at least 5-10 years for the river and salmon spawning to recover to pre-dam conditions. But, then you wrote this:
“The environmentalists aren’t causing American timber to be more expensive than in 1970, but they’re definitely helping to insure some timber may be left in 2070.”
Are you not aware that the logging industry is renewable in the same way as corn farming? Granted, logging companies could do better in planting a wider variety of trees after clear cutting (in Washington they really over do it with Doug Fir to backfill clear cuts), but trees are just a bigger version of corn. It’s why they call them tree farms.
So many local ‘experts’ here. So little actual knowledge. ‘But, but, but the river is muddy now’ is the same misinformed argument that likens weather to climate. A complete fallacy. The river, when allowed its natural run will thrive and be repopulated with anadromous fish that historically accessed spawning grounds above the dams.
The rebounding of natural populations happens faster then expected and this has been borne out with other successful damn removals. Plenty of conspiracists and dim witted libertarians crying about the disruption to ‘their’ way of life. Time to get behind the greater good.
All them DIE hires in authority positions are really working out Great for Californians huh!
God forbid they think about consequences while still brainstorming, and just wait to see what happens after they Fuk it all up!