Baghdad's river revival

As the rivers go, so goes the nation...

Or is it the reverse? Regardless of which comes first, you can read the health of a country by looking at rivers. And in Iraq, Baghdad's rivers are in revival.

According to Hamza Hendawi:

Men in shorts splash in its murky brown waters or hop onto pleasure boats that blare sexy Iraqi pop songs. Lovers meet by its banks or take a short nighttime cruise, some even defying the rules of conservative Baghdad to steal a quick kiss in the dark.

During the sectarian violence of 2006-2007, the Tigris River that cuts through the capital was a virtual front line between Sunnis on the west bank and Shiites on the east. It was here, in a river whose name has traditionally evoked poetry and love, that death squads dumped their victims.

Nowadays, as the violence has eased, increasing numbers of Baghdadis are casting aside bad memories and embracing the river like a long-lost friend.

What a treat to hear some good news for rivers from the cradle of civilization. Next up for the Tigris River? How about a little imagination, like Salmon in the Yemen?

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Instant river, just add water

The so-called Chelan River works if you add water. See photo (right).

According to the online-only Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

The Chelan County Public Utility District is spending nearly $16 million to restore year-round flow to the Chelan River Gorge, a four-mile stretch of river that tumbles from the dam at the foot of Lake Chelan to the Columbia River, about 400 feet below.

As a test, crews started spilling water Monday into the normally dry river bed. Water pooled near the river's mouth and spilled into a carefully engineered channel with strategically placed boulders, logs and rocks, all to provide new spawning habitat for steelhead and chinook salmon.

"It's one thing to look at the drawings, but when you see how the water actually flows around the boulders and wood structures and riffle, it's another story," biologist Steve Hays, the PUD's fish and wildlife senior adviser, told The Wenatchee World.

It's great to see water put back in a river, and it's truly strange to know that there are rivers around the world that have all their water removed. It's a traveshamockery (a borrowed phrase that means a travesty of a sham of a mockery).

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When the rivers run dry

OK, maybe not dry. But rivers are running lower over the last 50 years, a process that threatens to reshuffle ocean conditions in ways we can barely imagine.

If you're an ocean lover, you CARE DEEPLY about river flows...or you should. River flows matter in ocean productivity patterns and such problems as dead zones. And here's a chance to post that nifty photo I found showing a plankton bloom of my bit of coast (right).

An interesting side note, why was this article in the politics & government section of the paper? It sounds like science, but I guess it's likely to turn into one of those political footballs that gets kicked around (like climate change).

What's happening to make rivers run lower? Several factors combine to reduce river flow, including climate change, dams, and water withdrawals for human use. Oh, now I see why this isn't covered as "science." Will river flows become the next big partisan shouting match, so that hydrology is the next science to gets mangled by politicians.

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Saving the oceans on land

More good oceans news from Congress and the President. Ocean health will be protected by actions on land, creating new Wilderness Areas and new Wild & Scenic Rivers.

How does this help the oceans? By keeping natural processes intact on land we help some ocean creatures directly (e.g. salmon) and others indirectly (e.g. because they eat salmon).

The river news comes from that fantastic group American Rivers:

The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 designates 86 new Wild and Scenic Rivers, totaling over 1,100 miles in Oregon, Idaho, Arizona, Wyoming, Utah, California, and Massachusetts. The legislation includes important protections for 350,000 acres of land along the rivers and also contains new Wilderness designations for over two million acres of public land.

And the Wilderness news comes from The Wilderness Society:

Congress just passed the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act, the largest addition to the National Wilderness Preservation System in over a decade and one of the biggest public land conservation measures ever. It now goes to the president’s desk for signature. The Omnibus package rivals some of the greatest pieces of land protection legislation passed during the past fifty years.

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Turning a corner on dam removal

I never thought I'd see the day that a rural Oregon county called for removal of a dam. Jackson County in resource-using southern Oregon wants a dam removed from the Rogue River, nice.

Why am I surprised? Jackson County is famous for, among other things, the longest public library closure in the United States, thanks to residents voting not to fund the libraries cuz who needs those damn books anyway?

For years, rural Oregonians have fought against dam removal on the Rogue River, on the Umpqua River, and almost everywhere else (I know, I was part of these struggles).

We've really turned a corner away from the days when removing a damn was considered un-American.

And to make the whole thing seem like an epidemic, the McKenzie River is also being freed of some salmon-killing dams.

Maybe we weren't wasting our time when we tried to start this trend!

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Damning the West with dams

What do you think about building big new dams? Scary threats to rivers? Or sweet renewable energy? The answer is both, and we have to figure out how to do the balance sheet.

Green energy is everyone's big new thing. Let's build a green economy, using renewable energy, save the planet, and create jobs. Cool, I'm on board.

What is renewable energy anyway? The closer we look at supposedly renewable energy like hydropower dams, the more we see resources being consumed. Hydropower dams are not completely renewable energy, they consume river ecosystems. But is it more important to protect river ecosystems or to avoid CO2 production?

These big, scary questions need answers.

Because the pressure for new dams is very current and very real. Lacking a smart plan, we'll just go ahead and do it piecemeal. And that's a move we'll regret. Just like we're reconsidering the dam-building frenzy of the early to mid-1900s.

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Drugs dumped into water

Yet another story about pills and medicines that get dumped into our rivers, lakes, and oceans. The medicines go right through sewage treatment after being flushed.

Today's article focuses on institutional drug disposal, including hospitals and long-term care facilities, from sources such as unused pills prescribed to patients that die, expired drugs, and over-prescribed drugs.

Drugs in our waters are bad for fish, and we need a solution. Check out Smart Disposal for an interesting campaign to solve the problem.

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And the dam came tumbling down...another one

Dams are falling everywhere, this time it's the Merrimack Dam in New Hampshire. This is an old dam, originally built in the 1730s to power industry, including a sawmill, gristmill, and bridge. Now in disrepair and unused, it's a river-harming anachronism and it's gotta go!

Thankfully, it will go. Click here for a live dam cam, and watch the action.

Removal of this dam is good news brought to you by the awesome people at American Rivers, and I don't just say that because they hired me for a few jobs in the mid-90's.

I'm glad to offer some success stories to you pessimists out there. I hope you notice that some things do get better, like rivers that improve when bad old dams are removed. Note that I'm not saying all dams should come out. These dam removal projects are the win-win scenarios that are leading the way for productive removal of harmful dams, and replacement of dam benefits where some benefits remain.

Check out the Milltown Dam in Montana, the Marmot Dam in Oregon, and others including the grandaddy dam removal project for the US, the Elwha Dam in Washington now set to come out in 2009. I can hardly wait.

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Grand Canyon flood good for fish?

Open the taps and flood the Grand Canyon with a great torrent of water. What a great deal for fish, if only it happened more often.

It's like brushing the Grand Canyon's teeth, it's a good idea, and it's necessary for river health. If it happened more often, and was combined with the other flow patterns the river needs, then we'd be doing ecosystem-based management.

But as a one-off, this flood is more like a photo opportunity...er make that a video opportunity (who is that guy turning on the flood), and the Department of the Interior gets to claim credit for managing the river like a river. That's making some environmentalists hopping mad.

But hey, one flood is a good start, assuming it doesn't do more harm than good as some critics predict. It is nice to see the feds realizing that they have to at least pretend to do a good job running the faucets at the big dams.

So far, we know the fake flood created some new sandbars, which is good news.

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Mercury from fish to spiders to songbirds

OK this is just too weird. Songbirds are contaminated with mercury near a river in Virgina where the fish are too mercury-contaminated to eat. But the birds don't eat from the river. What gives?

Oh, it's the spiders. The mercury-laden songbirds are getting it from mercury-contaminated spiders. Nobody knows yet how how the spiders are getting the mercury. Unless the spiders are eating the mercury-contaminated fish. What a tangled web of pollution, and the first known instance of mercury from fish infiltrating a purely land-based ecosystem (spiders and songbirds).

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Missing salmon, where have they gone?

There's no mystery in this year's salmon collapse. We killed our salmon many years ago, and we just failed to notice.

Why do others see a mystery? Because they weren't paying attention.

This year's salmon crash was inevitable, now that we've reduced our salmon portfolio to just a few stocks. Lacking a diverse portfolio, a bad year for one stock is a very bad year overall.

Think of this like a financial investment porfolio that consists of only one stock. If that company does well, you win. But if that company goes bankrupt, you lose. Who would be stupid enough to invest their life's savings in just one stock?

But that's what we've done with salmon. After a century of salmon abuse, we've reduced the diversity of our salmon portfolio to just a few stocks. And diversity is important for salmon, it's the foundation of productivity. It's no surprise that we finally had a bad couple of years. It was bound to happen, since we failed to put a value on diveristy.

Oops.

And for those naysayers who want to blame water withdrawals in the Sacramento River delta...

This year's crash isn't just in California, things are bad in Oregon rivers too. So the crash can't just be caused by water diversion in California rivers. There is very clear evidence that ocean conditions played a major role in the salmon collapse. For a glimpse of the role of diversity in productivity, check out this description of how some Columbia salmon are doing fairly well, compared to others that are in trouble. Even now, we can see the value of diversity. But will we pay attention?

Will we begin to protect diversity and resilience, the foundations of salmon productivity? Or will we count noses and hope for the best?

Go ahead, put your retirement money in Enron stock.

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First-in-a-century fish success

Who says we can't undo damage done to the environment? Here's a success story.

A 13 inch rainbow trout made history last week. It swam upstream to spawn in the Clark Fork River, past the former site of the Milltown Dam. This is quick success for the restoration project, and it should give hope to everyone that ecosystem restoration can work.

Blogfish brought you the news of the Milltown Dam coming down, and now I'm very pleased to tell you that fish are moving past the old dam site. Go Fish! They're tougher and more resilient than many people think.

image: Fish Eye Guy, one of his amazing collection of photos

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Milltown Dam removal in Montana

As I visit Montana, I'm happy to bring you news and video of the latest big dam removal. Milltown Dam is now gone, and the Clark Fork and Blackfoot Rivers now flow free. Here's video from American Whitewater (posted below--4 minute time lapse of the dam's demise) and a link to the Clark Fork Coalition's Milltown Dam cam.

While you're on rivers, swing by the excellent American Rivers Blog, for all the best in river news, quotes, and more.

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Salmon doom and gloom

If you live on the west coast, kiss your favorite salmon goodbye. You probably won't be eating it this year. And nobody knows what'll happen next year.

Salmon doom and gloom strikes California and Oregon, and threatens Washington. And don't get too giddy, Alaska, because you could be next. It's happened before in Alaska, and it can happen again.

For the first time, we're facing a total closure of salmon fishing off California and Oregon. Washington may escape the ax for now, but that doesn't mean everything is fine here.

Does this matter? Are salmon important? Yes, salmon are a symbol of what many of us like best about the northwest. They're a common cultural icon (see photo at left), and an economic power in the northwest. The health of slamon is also a good measure of the health of our natural ecosystems, since salmon need healthy rivers, creeks, watersheds, and oceans.

What comes next? Angst and pain, and maybe a renewed commitment to right the wrongs caused by a century of salmon abuse. One can always hope.

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Nitrogen waste cleaned up by healthy streams

The best way to fight disease is robust good health, and that applies to rivers and bays as well as people. Healthy rivers can shrug off nitrogen pollution, and avoid the dread of eutrophication and resulting dead zones.

Nitrogen runoff kills rivers and bays, creating dead zones by over-fertilizing and using up oxygen. But now there's a new option on the table for solving the problem, healthy rivers. A big new study says healthy rivers can suck up nitrogen and use it as fertilizer for healthy growth of plants and animals, instead of the unhealthy overgrowth of eutrophication. Go healthy rivers!!

This isn't to say that healthy rivers can use up any amount of nitrogen we throw at them. There are limits to how much nitrogen can be consumed even by healthy rivers. But this new finding is important because the value of healthy rivers is largely ignored in efforts to control eutrophication and eliminate dead zones. Instead, the dominant emphasis is on controlling nitrogen runoff, which is important but so far hasn't solved the problem.

Nitrogen waste from fertilizers and sewage is a big problem. The famous Gulf of Mexico dead zone comes from excess fertilizer runoff in the farm belt. The nitrogen fertilizes algae blooms and the algae rot and use up oxygen, killing oysters, fish and most underwater animals.

A gigantic study of rivers and streams from around the US has brought clear consensus on an urgent message: We need healthy stream ecosystems to clean up nitrogen waste.

Healthy stream and river ecosystems consume nitrogen and convert some to animal bodies, while some goes into the atmosphere in bacterial magic called denitrification.

It would be interesting to do a cost/benefit analysis, and I assume that'll be a next step for these scientists. How much does it cost to stop nitrogen runoff at the source, compared to maintaining healthy rivers and consuming the nitrogen in streams and rivers?

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New dams in the western US? Really?

Yes we need water, but dams come with a cost. We've learned many painful lesssons from the great dam-building era in the American west. Nevertheless, Western states are now out in the hills looking for new dam sites.

Killing salmon is one of the major results of dams in the northwest. Dams block habitat, kill fish directly, and make rivers a poor home for salmon.

We've learned these lessons, and even begun to remove dams from rivers when salmon restoration costs more than the dams are worth.

With this knowledge, it's a harsh bit of news to read that new dams are being considered. But we're in a tough situation. Just like proposals to generate electricity from ocean wind, tides, and waves, it's probably not right to just say not in my backyard (NIMBY) to all proposals for construction in rivers and the ocean.

Can we do dams right, knowing what we know now? Certainly not if we rely on the kind of planning we had in the last round of dam-building. We need to choose carefully where we build new large natural resource projects, and some important places should be strictly off limits. We need to talk openly and clearly about the tradeoffs and what's lost when we build. And people who care need to have a voice.

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Montana dam demolition

Another dam is coming down to help fish, this one in Montana. This one's not only about fish, however, it's for people too.

The Milltown dam will be demolished and the Milltown Reservoir will disappear. As part of the project, the Milltown Reservoir superfund site will be cleaned up. Hopefully, all of this work will allow native fish to repopulate the confluence of the Clark Fork and Blackfoot Rivers, and it will reduce arsenic contamination in drinking water near the reservoir area.

It's a fascinating story, the history of the dam and the problems in the reservoir. Mining waste flowed downstream and contaminated sediments in the reservoir, leading to poisoned wells. The solution, remove the dam, cleanup the reservoir, and restore a natural river with native fish. Expensive, but it's great to see that we're fixing this type of problem. We broke it, and now we're fixing it.

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Diverse interests agree on removing Klamath River dams for salmon

Almost everyone concerned with the Klamath River mess now agrees that removing the four fish-killing dams is in everyone's best interests.

The only holdout is PacifiCorp, the dams owner. And the only thing they're want is money. Strange position, since the company has to build fish ladders if they keep the dams, and the fish ladders and related costs are more than tearing out the dams.

This sounds like a negotiating tactic to get a big fat check from the federal governments, and maybe that's what's needed since the federal government helped get everyone into this mess. Even in the last few years, federal meddling and muddling has created and worsened the problems.

It's going to be hard to fix the Klamath River, and costly, but it's time to get moving. Bring down the dams!

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Any port in a storm--salmon in urban streams

Nasty urban streams can be vital salmon habitat, at least during stormy weather.

Overturning conventional wisdom, baby salmon were found living in streams once thought to be too ruined by development in Ashland, Oregon. The trick for salmon is to use these streams selectively, as shelter from the rushing water of winter storms.

When the water is raging, juvenile salmon look for shelter wherever they can find it, and that can include tiny garbage-strewn streams that you could step across, flowing next to a big highway. A few days of shelter during winter floods can make a life-or-death difference for a salmon.

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Sandy River runs free, after dammed century

Well folks, it happened last Friday. High flows blew out the last remaing earthworks of the old Marmot Dam, and the Sandy River now runs free once again.

The undamming era took a new step forward; this dam is now GONE. Not huge at 47 feet tall, but significant as it once produced enough power for 12,000 homes. The biggest dam yet removed in Oregon.

We knew this was going to happen, it was all planned. I invite you to take a moment and celebrate un-development for the sake of fish. It CAN and DOES happen. Click here for video of the blessed event.

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