In the last decade, Pennsylvania has ripped out 100 obsolete dams. Shad and other migratory species are loving it. Dozens of smaller dams either have been removed or are targeted for removal - so many that Pennsylvania is considered a leader in a national movement to unclog rivers and streams, ridding them of obstructions that slow the water, trap sediment, block fish passage and, in some cases, constitute safety hazards. ( Philly Inquirer)
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Enrique Gili is a freelance writer covering Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS), issues for regional magazines in the Southland and beyond. I live in Ocean Beach, San Diego the coolest beach town around.
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« Why Did the Chicken Cross the Ocean? | Main | Greening Dirty Vessels »
A Watershed Restored
Category: Environment
Posted on: June 7, 2007 11:20 AM, by EJGili
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Pennsylvania's crusade to eliminate dams is not environmentally healthy. The people involved have a "dams are bad - period" attitude, formed in part by the deaths caused by unmaintained badly designed dams and infused with a certain naivete; they don't seem to realize that by converting all PA's streams into high-speed chutes leading to the sea they will do at least as much damage as the dams themselves do.
THINK, PEOPLE. Before the coming of the white man all these streams were heavily impounded by beavers. We no longer have the prerequisite forest to support the number of beaver this requires (and tree owners shoot beavers anyway regardless of protection laws... not to mention the problem of giardia lamba or "beaver fever" endemic in the remaining PA beaver population). The lifecycle of the native trout requires dams that fish can pass both upstream and downstream - so we need to FIX the dams, making them trout and mollusk friendly, not REMOVE them.
Here's one example of people doing real science around dams:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/07/0715_050715_hydrobeaver.html
Un-informed pseudo-green dambusters are going to harm the streams even more than the 18th and 19th century dam-builders did. We could end up with scoured arroyos reminiscent of the desert southwest if we're not careful! Removing dams is not in any sense "restoration" - (unless you are reintroducing enormous populations of beaver, that is) - it's just the latest environmentally destructive fad.
Posted by: Medievalist | June 11, 2007 08:56 PM