The dam facts

Is not a “fact” that the dam prevents fish from going up the (Similkameen River) 348 miles (“A dam blocking 348 miles of salmon streams hasn’t generated electricity since 1958,” Nov. 9). The river is 144 miles long and is the size of a large creek at its headwaters. Below the dam s “Coyote Falls” which historically, according to Indigenous legend, has prevented fish from going any further up the river. Having been raised at the dam, I have watched the salmon trying to jump the dam. I would be interested in knowing if the indigenous people ever fished for salmon in the river.

The dam itself offers little environmental problems as its backwaters only extend about one and a half miles behind it, then the river flows freely from thereon. Below the dam, the river once again flows free. Above the dam, a sandbar protrudes about halfway across the river and in it is a bed of fresh water clams. If the dam were breached it would decimate this colony.

In 1945 Okanogan county purchased the dam from Washington Water Power (Avista) and formed a public utility district. It invested a great deal of money in renovating the generators in the early ‘50s and in the employee housing. Not soon after a local politician got his finger in the deal and convinced then the dam was not economical.

Diane Brommer

Reardan