Free the Snake: Restoring America’s Greatest Salmon River
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- Опубликовано: 29 июн 2015
- Snake River Salmon have been trucked, put on barges, diverted up fish ladders-all in the hope that enough would get by four dams to reach their historic habitat in numbers that would assure their future. It’s not working: It’s time to breach the dams and reconnect wild salmon to this important watershed. Learn more at www.patagonia.com/new-localism...
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Jim Waddell is now one of my personal heroes. I learned about his role in this story in DamNation, and I want to know more about this tragic political game. Sincerely, multi-generational Idahoan.
As a member of the Kennebec Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited (in Maine), the originating conservation group who came up with the idea of removing the "Edward's Dam" in Augusta, Maine in an effort to improve the fishing in the Kennebec River, my heart and prayers go out to you in this effort. It was a long and difficult path we took, but eventually we won the fight, and that dam became the first dam in the country to be removed over the protestations of the dam owners! So, it CAN be accomplished! One final thought; What does a Salmon say when swimming upstream to spawn and runs into a cement wall???? Answer: DAM(n)!
The world seemed to survive ok for 100 years as it was. Nature adjusts. What about the ecosystems created in the bodies of water that the dams create? Why aren’t those important?
Honestly have been learning so much about the cons of damming. Where I'm from dams are seen as a necessity. But now I think we should balance the 2 and see what's best.
***** - Can you link the petition, please?
Freedom is for all Americans including all wild life . peace to all
I will always buy Patagonia gear as long as you continue your dam busting work.
Amen let it flow
my tears are in that river
@t bone fisher 😂
Myth: dams provide clean energy.
Great film Patagonia! What is this song?
The earth is a garden and we are the caretakers.
Gardens have fences around them.
awesome.
Excellently fashioned film forwarding a regenerative cause.
Any updates, were dams removed?
No
These ideas might help.
Fish Runs saving Dams and Water Shortages
Update 7/4/2021
Do you have a nearby moving river or stream? You can now place a slow speed water generator on the bottom of the stream and make power 24 hours a day. The unit is called a Waterotor made in Canada. The Waterotors won't harm fish and can be scaled up to meet the needs of small towns or cities. Make the power miles away from the small town, sell the power to the power company than use the power to make water anywhere. Atmospheric water generators can make drinking water and irrigation water, and with a Waterotor, power can be made even in remote regions of the World. You just need moving water 3 to 4 miles an hour in streams, irrigation channels, fish ladders or even waste water outlet's. Garbage treatment plants can also use the power they make burning garbage to make water with atmospheric water generators and add storage tanks to supply small towns and cities. Adding Waterotors below dams can maximize electrical power made by any dam and replace power lost if the dam has a fish ladder or channel for fish to move up and down stream. A dam can be saved for flood control by adding these powered fish ladders and channels or notching the dam and putting in a flood gate to raise and lower the river during fish runs. Now people and fish can share the river. Note using the methane from sewage treatment plants or garbage landfills might be used to generate electricity for any water making projects. You might use your own City sewage system to make filtered irrigation water for lawns and gardens they have a system like that in my my small town. Note, what to make even more power? Then by covering fish ladders and channels with spaced solar panels decreases evaporation of the water and increases the efficiency of the solar panels.
A now overdue idea, dealing with forest fires. You build and place atmospheric water generators and 100,000 to 5,000,000 gallon water tanks on hilltops to protect your town. You cover the tanks with solar panels and add wind turbines to make power anywhere. You sell the power, drinking water and irrigation water, then by adding irrigation pipes down the hillsides, you can create fire lines that lasts up to 24 hours. You make these fire lines by adding TetraKO, by Earth Clean at a 4 to 6 percent solution to the water. Turn on these stand alone units remotely, your fire trucks can work elsewhere or resupply themselves with needed water. Fire protection, drinking water, irrigation water and stand alone power for any city or town in need. Here again, Waterotor generators could be used to generate power for the hilltop water making units. These ideas all can be done today, just search RUclips, and then tell someone.
Very cool. Good idea
It's 6 years later...how about an update
I'm from Lewiston ID. Replace hydropowerr with solar and blow those dam things up.
I've benefitted from working in the small ship industry for 30 years, including the trips that go into Lewiston/Clarkston. I can sincerely understand why those 2 communities would not want the L4SRD to come out. Personally, even though it would eliminate my version of taking travelers to that area, I know folks would still find their way into Lewiston/Clarkston just to access Hells Canyon. I'm ok losing that part of my work, since boats (small ships, to be exact) would not enter the Snake any more. Wondering if you are involved with any community groups or discussion groups in Lewiston about this and what the local sentiment is in general?
Great work
We farm salmon incorrectly.
If they were slimy eels that no one ate or cared about I don't think dams and riparian water sheds would be as much of a concern. But these are SALMON.
It's so bad today that over 50% of our annual consumption of salmon comes from farm raised fish fed on cat food with dye added to make the meat look like salmon meat. It completely lacks the nutritional profile of a wild salmon. it's crap fish, tilapia.
the proper way to farm a fish that is anadromous is to supercharge the entirety of the watershed with micro hatchery efforts.
As riparian habitat is reclaimed (by the removal of a dam for instance), we must leverage our technology to the salmon's benefit. What I mean by this is rather than just open up the water way and allow the salmon to repopulate the upper watershed spawning grounds naturally, which could take centuries to fully recharge the run, use the technology of a mitigation hatchery to select wild fish for fertilizing / hatching out to the alevin stage (egg sack attached) and then release them high up in the natal spawning grounds of the water shed.
Here's a good example of what Im talking about. Say you have a valuable (culturally and $$$) spring run of kings that is 'present' in the river, but not strong. They're only spawning in one tributary of 3 possible tributaries in the watershed.
So, use nets or a water wheel to siphon off a hundred pairs of fish to select for reseeding one of the other tributaries in order to bolster the run. (you'll net around a million fertilized eggs) Spawn them out artificially in a mitigation hatchery but get them into the proposed natal spawning grounds of the unused tributary as soon as they are hatched out, before you anesthetize them, jam a wire in their nose and clip a fin. minimal human handling!
You'll have to repeat this effort for a full cycle (4 years) to establish the run in that tributary, but now more fish are making use of the riparian environment and the total run should grow stronger.
Repeat with other species and with the remainder of the tributaries that will support a spawning salmon within the water shed. (streams and such)
One species helps the other. The issue with salmon spawning beds silting in is not an issue of logging roads but rather a lack of a million pairs of salmon tails excavating the gravel beds to MAKE them suitable for egg laying and fertilization. So, chum salmon, coho, pinks etc, while not as marketable as a king are equally important to the upper riparian environment. Their tails help the creation and maturation of spawning beds high up in the river watershed. Their eggs and fry and smolts all become part of the larger riparian food chain that is so important to growing large healthy salmon prior to their journey to the sea.
Can you have too many salmon return to a river? how long do you want to wait to realize your recovery efforts? Opening up a river with no further human interaction is the slowest possible path to restoration that you can take. We need to intelligently leverage our technology to supercharge these natural salmon nurseries.
that's how salmon farming should be done moving forward. It will benefit everyone, the tribes, the commercial guys, the recreational fishermen, the salmon and the riparian habitat that will benefit from actually having marine resources reach high up into the river system again.
Thanks for reading
We need the water and power. Fish ladders
And silt cranes.
Free the Salmon listen to the experts.
The "experts" that are paid by the anti hatchery fish Nazis?
Fish Nazis the real villains of WWII.
so funnily enough if your against the river you become the damn
o hell no...
We need to subsidize the rails and not the barges. A restored Snake river and surround rail system would do more for our economy than the dams. I would take a passenger train to Lewiston to kayak on a free Snake and spend the night at a hotel and eat dinner in a restaurant.
State needs to make sure the rail infrastructure is in good working condition and charge the logistics companies a fair fee that helps them move goods but also finance at least part of the rail infasstructure spending
When you figure out whose politically connected friend benefits from using rail instead of barges you will realize in part why the 4 lower dams are the target for removal instead of the dams with no fish passage on the Snake that caused the destruction in the first place.
Who the heck gave this video a thumbs down? A dam owner?
Probs
Mabey a boater who enjoys fishin Bass in his stagnant nasty lake.
Republican senator in Idaho posted video in support of dam removal!! This is HUGE!! MOVES AER BEING MADE!!!
He's in bed with nuclear power and he can't get rich off of government by targeting the dams in Idaho because he wouldn't get re-elected.
It's 2021.... and we finally got Republican support on this in Idaho... lets make this happen!
Better late than never, which is usually the best you can hope for from the GOP.
Yeah the only two reasons Simpson is targeting the dams in Washington are #1 targeting the dams in Idaho that have caused the destruction and are sitting on the majority of habitat that salmon traditionally used is politically damaging for him.
#2 he and nuclear energy are great pals.
Redfish Lake no longer has red fish.
***** The link in the description is broken, and can you link the petition please? Great video, love you guys!
i would love to support this cause and sign the petition.. does anyone have more information about this
Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson is actively working on removing the dams. Google it.
Do you know what a fish says when it hits concrete?
Cod dam it?
@@matmay1904 Dam!
@@SealionDefenseBrigade lol
Nice film! You should pop 2-10% warp stabilize on that wale clip.
Why is the sole focus on the lower snake river dams? These dams have have fish passage and produce low energy costs to much of the state plus an abundance of additional other benefits. The focus needs to be on the upper Snake river dams that have NO FISH PASSAGE and ultimately closed nearly half of the Salmon and Steelhead spawning grounds. Why isn't the focus on these dams? Takedown those dams or provide fish passage. There is some agenda here that is not Salmon recovery.
Absolutely agree that the full fish barrier dams need to be looked at, but it's these 4 massive dams that literally destroy salmon habitat. Lakes are not habitat for wild salmon, nor are they actually used by baby hatchery salmon, because all hatchery salmon are put in tanks and barged downriver. Above these four dams, salmon *can* make it to Idaho via the Salmon and Snake and Clearwater Rivers.
Where the LSRD dams are concerned, "fish passage" is debatable. We pay the government hundreds of millions of dollars every year to barge hatchery smolts downriver through 8 dams. I don't call government spending to the tune of hundreds of millions per year, per dam, for fish barging "fish passage." It's a money suck and we never get a return on it. Further, barged fish are only hatchery fish. The wild fish are basically gone because of dams and habitat destruction made by the massive lake system created by the 4 large Columbia and 4 large Snake River dams. Clearly, we have to keep the Columbia River dams, but we really don't need the Snake River dams and lakes. Wild salmon do not live in lake habitats. Only sockeye spawn in slow water, but no sockeye spawn in slack water lakes. Chinook, Silvers, Chum, and Pinks require cold, shallow, fast running rivers and streams in order to spawn. We need to recognize that saving salmon means wild salmon, not just hatchery salmon, and for wild salmon we need to get rid of man made lakes. We also pay the government hundreds of millions of dollars to maintain those 4 non-critical dams. They don't provide irreplaceable resources except for ship access to Lewiston and Clarkston, and even that is not critical infrastructure. Why do we always talk about the economic benefits of running barges to Lewiston, Idaho without talking about the cost of maintaining the 4 dams it takes to make it possible. Are we as a *society* actually benefitting, or are we actually losing money by subsidizing vessel access to a place that was never meant to have Pacific Ocean access?
This watershed used to house the largest wild salmon returns on Earth. More than anything in Alaska or BC. The removal of these four non-critical dams (they are run of the river, so they don't provide flood control, and they also don't provide irreplaceable water for irrigation, as is stated in multiple sources). Tens of thousands of wild salmon used to return to Idaho, feeding thousands along the way. Now they're lucky to get 4 fish. Removing those four dams eliminates 140 miles of virtual slack water lake and replaces it with 140 miles of actual salmon habitat, and with the dams removed we pay zero to fund these government programs. We pay zero to get salmon back to that part of this massive watershed. The hundreds of millions spent on those 4 dams can go to economic re-framing for Lewiston and Clarkston and renewable power projects that can actually help our communities. I'd love to stop paying the government to barge hatchery fish around dams, and I'd love to stop paying the government to manage what the landscape can do for free: provide habitat, irrigate reasonable amounts of crops, and heal the landscape. The tribes have waited long enough for the United States to stop breaking its treaties with them every single day.
@@suerooney1622 From what I understand about hatchery fish, they do not have the genetic viability for long term survival and that they need regular infusions of genetic material from wild fish in order to continue to reproduce successfully. I'm not an expert but I visited a hatchery many years ago and watched as workers mix wild eggs and sperm with hatchery fish, it was explained to us observers that the hatchery fish needed that boost from the wild fish or they would eventually decline in vitality to the point they couldn't survive. Before that, I had bought into the idea that hatcheries were helping the fish to survive but realized then the hatcheries are a dead end and without wild fish, hatchery salmon couldn't continue.
@suerooney1622 the 4 lower dams don't sit on traditional habitat that the majority of salmon spawned on the mainstem Snake.
The majority of spawning took place between Hells Canyon and Shoshone Falls where migration ended naturally.
@@suerooney1622the water behind the dams aren't slackwater lakes the are run of the river dams which means the water enters the dams at the same speed it was sent to them by the dam above them and it exits the 4 dams going the same speed.
C.J Strike is a slackwater pool.
The 4 Lower dams flow with current.
@@jeremiahjohnson1513they mix wild genetics in for diversity, not because they need the DNA to reproduce. It's to prevent inbreeding in a sense. Hatchery fish and wild fish both stray, why? It's nature way of introducing new genetics into the run so you don't end up with a bunch of malfunctioning inbred salmon that would have a hard time surviving.
Furthermore mixing wild DNA with Hatchery fish keeps the Hatchery fish genetically similar to the wild fish in the watershed.
Salmon come back as free food for everyone. We need these dams out now before famines hit and we are starving. Wake up people. Agricultural farming for the masses is set up to fail in the long term. We need to restore the earth before it's too late. Vote with your dollars people and start growing your own food and supporting local farmers and ranchers we are in this together god bless
We gotta get some wild back. World population is only increasing. Time for forward thinking.
Damn dams!
Remove the Dams and bring back the Samon
Free the Snake is also a 90's porn title.
I mean, just sayin LOL
If elected, I will remove these damn dams!!! I am Steve Sharon. Washington Commissioner of Public Lands Candidate 2020. www.stephensharon.com
the three lower snake river dams should taken down !
Rivers should run and drain free to the coast, it is so primitive to construct dam after dam.
I lived on a Reservation in the early 90's.
The Colorado River RARELY reached the ocean because of damming and irrigation..
That's a lot of water. That's a lot of climate disruption. I'll assume.
Why limit dam removal to just the Snake? What about the Columbia River? Why not dream big? The Columbia was once the greatest salmon river in the world, with tens of millions of fish. Why not remove all dams from the Columbia River and make it a great salmon river once again?
The absurd music contributes nothing to this video except noise pollution.
You need to take out the dams on the Columbia river too. Their need for farmers is far less than the need for nature and our own survival.
2013. Record runs!!! Dams were present. Can we look at commercial fishing within 5 miles of the coast. In the last 5 years grocery stores are selling wild caught salmon and steelhead at a record high. Can we look at sea lions? Sea lions figured out the theory of economics. Supply and demand. Our rivers are supplying huge amounts of fish returning to the rivers. The world we live in started millions of years ago. Just like humans, animals are evolving. We make avenues for fish to return their natural habitat. Dams are not the problem.
But they are a problem and they aren't designed to last forever
Just some quick math here... at 1 billion spent a year even if thats a million fish thats $1,000 per fish. All to keep a outdated dam in place?
Sea Lions are important part of the Pacific Northwest ecology. There is peer reviewed science to support that sea lions bring important nutrients up river to areas starved of nutrients by the dams. Sea lions weed out the genetically inferior species , the sick, the injured and they help strengthen and protect the DNA and the genetics of the wild salmon which is quite the opposite relationship that hatchery fish and wild salmon have. Hatchery salmon have been found to weaken the genetics and alter the very DNA of the wild fish in just one life cycle. There is not one peer reviewed study that supports killing sea lion as a means to increase populations of wild salmon. On the other hand, there are plenty of peer reviewed studies to support dam removal and toxic remediation of our water ways as productive positive steps to take to increase populations of wild salmon In addition, there is peer reviewed literature to support sea lions as being important for creating healthy productive aquatic habitats able to support large schools of wild fish such as anchovy and sardine that wild salmon rely on for their sustenance not sport. Science in the 21 century found that predator removal programs do not work no matter how much money you throw at them because another predator will always come in and fill the niche of the removed. You can witness this affect with the human species too. In closing trophic cascades shows that removing sea lions from their habitats causes ecological collapse unlike removing the four lower dams on the Snake river
www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2012/05/sea-lion-poo-important-for-ocean-health/
news.flinders.edu.au/blog/2012/05/15/sea-lions-fuel-ocean-life/
journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0036478&type=printable
.
Salmon are cold water fish. If the ocean and in river water temperatures are above 68* degrees salmon die. The Columbia/ Willamette rivers for over half the year do not even meet EPA benchmarks as suitable cold water habitat to support cold water fish anymore and that is another good reason out of many as to why the four lower dams on the Snake must be breached.
www.columbiariverkeeper.org/news/2015/7/dams-hot-water-crisis-columbia
www.fpc.org/river_home.html
It will wreak the environment to remove all of the dams. How will we create all that electricity we will lose? With coal or gas plants? Not to mention we have had a record salmon return every year for the last 5 years.
Only 3% of dams supply hydroelectric power. www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/dam-removals/
A good portion of these older dams just run to either provide cheap industrial power, or just enough to go into the grid to get paid for. This creates a system where owners use a public resource for personal profit. Once the equipment breaks down enough maintentence is stopped, its abandoned and the public is left to deal with a mess that made someone else money.
The sky is falling- and it is raining dead fish. To bad humans did not act sooner to breach these dams and to curb their destructive ways. Who thought it was a good idea to place a wall of concrete in the middle of a living aquatic ecosystem ---- on top one of the best salmon runs since time immemorial.. Free Celilo Falls too! Bust up the dams! Bust them up!
There are 4 dams on the Columbia River below the Snake River. All of these salmon that will benefit from "unfettered" access to the Snake River have to had successfully bypassed 4 dams prior to reaching the mouth of the Snake. I live at the mouth of the Snake. Are any of you suggesting that salmon are defeated by the Snake River dams, but unhindered by the previous 4? If successful in removing the Snake River dams, will the focus turn to 4 below the Snake... and the 7 above the Snake?
To suggest that Wind and Solar can replace the power generation of these dams is nothing but a bald faced lie. They can't even make a dent in the current power demands of the region. And suggesting that the transport of grain is the primary reason for the dams existence is also a bald faced lie. Millions of people in the majority of the State of Washington are dependent on the water for power and irrigation. Eastern Washington is one of the bread baskets of the United States. It will all return to its former desert conditions without the water in the reservoirs. Literally millions of people's livelihoods would be destroyed, as well as the value of their farms. Towns and all of the economies would collapse, without access to municipal, drinking, and irrigation water. So, without irrigation water, there is no wheat or any other agriculture to transport on the railroads. Without the towns and their millions of residents, there is no need for railroads.., and quite soon there won't be any rail service other than the miniscule amount of manufactured goods being moved "to and fro" between the coast and the interior. I say miniscule because virtually all industry is located where water is abundant and available. This idea that (supposedly) trading the lives of millions of salmon for lives and livelihoods of millions of people is an absurdity that boggles the mind. It is stu-pidity on the grandest scale. This idea has been addressed over and over again by the residents of this area... and always rejected. Appealing to the desires of urban people for a pristine wilderness playground, at the expense of the people that occupy this future playground, is no different than the confiscation of Native American lands in the previous centuries. So, gather up your heartstrings, your desires to "fix" the world, and leave local issues to the local people. They are the ones that carry the burdensome consequences of your pseudo-moralistic plans for the lands of others.
BTW, more and improved fish ladders installed at each of these dams will alleviate a significant amount of the "salmon blockage" issues, at a much lower cost. Problem eliminated without the destruction of Billion dollar economies.., and the people that are dependent on them. Go away. Mind your own business. Solve your local problems before you meddle in the "perceived and manufactured" problems of your neighbors.
You weaken your argument by bringing up "global warming" trope.