This is ridiculous and it completly pisses me off that the Whatcom County Council would write a letter saying that they support Dams partialy because they help Salmon by alleviating the dangers that natural rivers pose to them.

We all know that this is not true, Salmon returned to fleeflowing rivers for thousands of years and flourished. It wasnt until Dams were built, Habitat raped, and fish overharvested that the salmon began to decline.

But.... the Whatcom County Council thinks that, nope, the Dams are actualy good for Salmon, give me a break.

Heres Part of the Article

Dams help salmon, according to the Whatcom County Council.This is the complete text of the letter that the Whatcom County endorsed that will be sent to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, President Clinton, presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush supporting Dams on the basis that they help the Salmon.

The letter

Council plans to send to federal officials and legislators, President Clinton and presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush:

"Whatcom County Council members wish to place on the record their opposition to breaching of the Snake River dams. We believe the cost/benefit ratio of breaching the dams is negligible for salmon recovery.

"In the larger picture, pollution created by replacement power plants and by additional vehicles required to truck commodities currently being barged, create greater hazards to fish, humans and the entire ecosystem. In fact, it is our position the benefits to fish from dams may outweigh potential negative aspects.

"Natural rivers have always presented certain hazards. The shallows create higher temperatures and constricted areas where predators find the fish easy prey. The rapids are notorious for bruising and damaging fish. Dams replace these natural damaging situations with fish ladders and resting pools thereby making their passage less demanding on the salmon's food reserve. In addition to the very positive energy benefit that citizens gain from dams, it is entirely possible that the dams' net effect on salmon survival is also positive.

"We believe factors other than dams must be given serious review. Fifty-eight animal species prey on salmon. It is our position that the protected status of these certain animals must be reevaluated.

"To successfully increase the survival rate of salmon, we believe that good harvest management is equal in importance to that of having quality habitats. It is also our position that the National Marine Fisheries (Service's) focus must remain with monitoring catch as opposed to regulating land use. To regulate land use, we believe, is a usurpation of state rights."

Im not sure what kind of info they were given to make them think this way but obviously Whatcom County Council Members are not very educated on Salmon decline.

It frustrates me that they would write this letter because it says that no Dams arent a problem at all and hey building more might actualy help the Salmon.

Its Hard to express how I feel about this, so sorry for rambling on.

I always heard they grew good weed up in Whatcom County. Now I know it to be true.

While I am a proponent of dam removal, they did make a couple of valid points on non-dam factors relating to salmon decline. Nonetheless their wording on the dam as a benefit indicates that their stance is highly opinionated and backed by circumstantial evidence.

Here is my take on the Dam removal. I completely support the need to help the endangered salmon runs. I think it is a very important thing. We have had dams on our northwest rivers for many decades now, with the salmon runs declining only in the last few. Here in the northwest, we enjoy cheaper electric rates, thanks to the dams. It will cost many millions of dollars to remove the dams, and affect millions of people through higher electric rates. Once this is done, we will never go back to dams again. It makes sense to me to TRY banning nets first. It will only effect a few hundred people or a couple thousand at most. We could even subsidize them for awhile at a whole lot less then removing dams, until we see the impact of this option. If there is no impact on the salmon runs, then, we can spend the millions of dollars on removing dams, just my .02

flyguy
As a lifetime Whatcom County native I can tell you the Whatcom County council is historically a bunch of lame individuals. The current group with the exceptiopn of a few is probably the worst ever. This letter of support they wrote for Franklin County is so lame and they are so uneducated on the issue it is hard to believe. I think Bob Imhoff must have some relatives farming in Franklin County or something. I will not leave this one alone and address it both in person and through the Bellingham Herald with the County Council/. Pure stupidity

Randy, I agree with you completly. Dams are a cheap and efficient way of creating electricity and other forms of generation could be even worse. But what frustrated me was that my city council wrote a letter that is so incredibly stupid . Dams do not help salmon, no way. And they wrote as the voice of Whatcom County. Although I said I agree with Dams as form of electric generation, if a better way was found I would support tearing them out immediately. Really If I had my way theyd be torn out right now, but I realise that it would not benefit anyone and possibly not even the salmon with how bad the runs have gotten.

Personally I would rather have huge healthy runs of native fish than a dam. I think as sporstmen we could get back to our roots and
dive back into the caveman era. As long as we have fire we can cook and stay warm, who needs power, it's over rated. Give me a fish I eat for a day, teach me to fish I eat for a lifetime.

Its a hard choice to make.The way I see it is .If we tear down the dams they will start up the nuclear plants again and we certanly dont need that.I say start with the nets and go from there.I feel the nets have a way bigger impact on our fisheries then the dams do.Its not only tribe nets and commercial its also the foreign fishing 12 miles and closerat times off our coast.We are the only country that lets foreign boats get that close.Most are 200 miles I do beleive.Short of shuting down fishing all together nets and sportsman for 10yrs or so Its gonna be hard to bring the big runs back.Hope I didnt offend anyone.Just my thoughts.

fishaday--
I'm thinkin' that with no electricity you won't be able to see to do your job. That means you may know how to fish for a lifetime, but you'll only be able to afford gammies for about 2 and a half weeks, then what???

Sorry Backlash, I can't help it... You tear down a certain four damns on the lower snake and the world is not gonna go dark- No nuke plants will be built to replace approx 5% of the energy that they produce. - That power is sold because it is surplus. The huge decline is linked to those 4 dams

Randy,
Our salmon runs have not just been declining "in the last few years." They have been declining every since the late 1800's. Salmon runs have DEFINITELY been affected by dams, in fact the wild coho on the Columbia were made extinct primarily by the effect of the dams. For those who think that salmon runs have only been shrinking in recent years, a great book to become educated is "Salmon Without Rivers" by Jim Lichatowich.

Kevin

If there is a buck to be made.

Puresteel:

High seas netting has not been a problem over the past decade. The U.S. has a treaty with the Japanese banning it. The U.S. Coast Guard has caught Taiwaneze boats doing it every so often, but you can't hang your hat on this as a significant cause of decline. The U.S. also has an Exclusive Economic Zone out to 200 miles since the late-seventies and no foreign nationals can fish without permission. Permission has not been granted since the early 80s. This is an old issue.

On the Columbia basin, at present, there is no single greater cause of decline than the dams. Commercial harvest hammered the stocks the first half of the century, but with the dams, there can be no sustainable recovery.

My favorite quote "We believe factors other than dams must be given seriuos review, Fiftyeight animal species prey on salmon. It is our position that the protected status of these certain animals must be reevaluated."

..and how many of these animals are native? Was feeding on millions of smolt in a lake a natural method of capturing prey?

Guns kill people without someone pulling the trigger, the Pope is actually Jewish, and 4 dams destroyed all of the salmon runs on the Snake. Can you pick out which one is actually true???? NOPE-- all false, sorry!!

The whole issue of revival of the salmon and steelhead runs is varied and complex. The dams have had and continue to have a major impact on the runs. I watched a special a few years back that talked about a natural run of salmon that the fish returned from the ocean in five or six years and fish of up to 100 lbs weren not uncommon, I believe it was the Snake River. Anyway once the dam(s) were built (I believe it was in 1920's???) this run of fish was extinct within six years. We have to do our part on all of the parts of this puzzle, C & R, habitat, nets, the whole nine yards. In my mind I agree that starting with getting the nets out is the right thing to do. Just look at California and Florida, no netting and the fish are coming back in bigger numbers every year. I read an article last month that the projected return of Chinook's to the Sacramento River this year is expected to be 200,000 to 300,000 fish. I think that the removal of the dams would be a step in the right direction also. Anyway my 2 cents worth.

Everything that walks, floats, obstructs, strains water, spits, pisses, craps, or throws gear into our oceans and river systems has some sort of negative impact on our worlds andronomous fish runs. Being sportsmen we have certain bias and opinions on the matter. We blame freely what is most evident to our personal view. In most cases we tend to blame the damming of our streams, tribal netting, non-tribal netting,logging etc.. Each one individually has it's fatal consequenses in relation to what most on this site hold very precious...our fish and our access to catching them.

Unfortunately everyone wants a piece of the pie and theres not enough slices to go around. Who's expense does this some at? Not yours, mine, the tribes, big business cheap power advocates, or Joe Blow who wants to come to Forks to catch and keep a trophy wild steelhead. Its the friggin fish who ultimately suffer and the generations behind us who will have to deal with our stupidity.

So whats the solution??? Stop logging, all commercial netting, blow the dams, ban bait fishing, ban access to rivers and streams (since there is allways the redd of a species of andronomous fish in the river)? How about shooting every cormorant, seal, and kingfisher on the Northern Pacific Coast.
Let's ban C/R fishing since a portion of those fish die from fatigue, stress, chemical imbalance. Hell, its all a moot point since theres enough wild fish to merit our game dept. allowing us to conk an increased number wild steelies on some rivers. How about closing the Hoh to sportfishing early to protect the wild steelie run and letting the tribal nets go out the day afterward...oh wait that allready happend a few years ago. Banning all non-tribal netting was a novel idea. But that was pointed at a group that allready wasn't allowed any significant time to fish anymore..much less place their nets in the spawning lanes.

I guess my point is that there are way to many variables for us to control without a helluva lot of collaboration between all these interests. Is that going to happen? I doubt it. We're too greedy and our government is too stupid. Hell, lets blow the damns. Coals cheap.

Just a quick note on high seas driftnetting (my personal pet peeve). One post on this topic stated that high-seas driftnetting is not much of a problem. I strongly disagree. While our coast guard, the Canadians, and Russians do patrol the vast expanse of the North Pacific, there is no possible way they can effectively cover a small fraction of the ocean where salmon and steelhead from the Hoh, Lewis, Skeena, Snake, Rogue, Nushagak and ever other andronomous fish river all meld together in huge schools circulating in massive gyres. A U.S. Coastie officer I chatted with in Kodiak last fall let me know that they generally would like their chances better chasing the old needle in the haystack than looking for the some Taiwanese F/V Ying Ding Fa #4. Ever wonder why these boats all have a number following their name? 'Cause theres another couple of dozen sister ships (#'s 1-3 and 5-62) sneaking around the westernmost Aluetians strangling Bristol Bay Sockeye and Olympic Peninsula steelhead. In addition we have no control over what happens inside the Russian EEZ. While American fishermen are closely regulated on their commercial seasons for both time and areas th Russian fleets are allowed to fish at the 200 mile offshore edge of thier EEZ. Scale samples from fish heading into a Russian can in the last two years have proven that over 10% of thier catch originate in rivers of North America. I've got a sneaking suspicion of where the 12 million missing Bristol Bay sockeye ended up a few years ago. Hey we can't put leashes on our fish and tell them to stay on our side of the fence. They're free game out of international waters.


[This message has been edited by Chuckn'Duck (edited 04-08-2000).]

I worked at one of the dams that are being considered for breaching as a means of increasing salmonid production on the Lower Snake river for 2 years. In that time period I was able to learn a couple of things. No one can honestly say that dams benefit salmon. There is not one stage in the life history of a salmon or steelhead where a dam is beneficial to their survival. However, there has been an incredible amount of money spent on research, data collection, and improving survival rates for these fish over the last couple of decades since the dams were constructed. As a fish biologist, I obviously want what is best for the fish. However, having moved to the eastside, I now realize how important the lower Snake river dams are to the people who live here. It is easy to sit in Seattle and say tear them out because they have a small effect on that person. But to the people that live and work on the eastside, the dams play a much greater role in their lives. I want what most all of us want; healthy fish populations of salmon and steelhead that we can go out and catch and occasionally harvest. But the issue of dam breaching on the lower Snake River is of such immense proportions, of such economic importance, of incredible ecological consequences that it makes my head hurt to think about it.

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I have to say that dams really DO help fish. Just not salmon or steelhead. Just think of all that water for trash fish to live in. Squawfish, carp, sculpins, and other smolt eaters. But then again, salmon need to have holding areas to rest. Just not that big.

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Just because I look big, dumb, and ugly, doesn't mean I am. It means I can stomp you for calling me it!

Chuckn'Duck

I'm not an expert on foreign fisheries, but I was a NMFS Observer aboard foreign boats in the early to mid-eighties. At night, the pollock grounds in the Bering Sea/Gulf of Alaska used to look like a city; there were so many foreign factory trawlers fishing. How much of a problem foreign interception presently is, I'm not sure.

My point is, the distant water foreign fishing fleets have shrunk to 0 in U.S. Pacific waters when they dominated the scene in the 70s and early 80s. Drift netting used to be legal, now its not. And we never did have much control of what those ships do in their own 200 mile zones. If these guys were a major problem, you would think our runs would be gaining ground, not losing ground.

[This message has been edited by obsessed (edited 04-08-2000).]