Busting Dams

Rivers

Conservation groups including American Rivers and Trout Unlimited have issued a report, “Dam Removal Success Stories: Restoring Rivers Through Selective Removal of Dams That Don’t Make Sense.”

The report documents the removal of 465 dams in the United States and details 25 successful case studies.

Among those success stories are the Clearwater River in Idaho ad Whitestone Creek in Washington.

“When they hear how successful dam removals were, we hope more communities, dam owners and natural resource managers will consider removing dams on their local rivers as a responsible way to restore them to health and revitalize the communities along the banks,” said Margaret Bowman, director of the Rivers Unplugged campaign of American Rivers.

Fourteen spring-run Chinooks were counted at California’s Butte Creek in 1997. After four small dams and 12 unscreened water diversions were removed in 1998, 20,000 of the endangered salmon were observed making a spawning migration.

The complete report is available on the Internet at www.americanrivers.org.