Gavin Newsom dismantles dams to protect salmon, destroys their spawning beds in the process

[rangerrebew]

AMERICAN NEWS Feb 28, 2024
Gavin Newsom dismantles dams to protect salmon, destroys their spawning beds in the process
The Klamath River is now full of destroyed salmon spawning beds and pollution including decomposed algae, organic deposition, chemicals, and fine silt which is killing its ecosystem.
 
Katie Daviscourt
Seattle WA
Feb 28, 2024
 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom backed the controversial proposal to remove four Klamath River hydroelectric dams along the California-Oregon border. Now, the same fish he swore to protect could be killed in the process.

The dams had been breached on claims that it would help salmon migrate, but the Klamath River is now full of destroyed spawning salmon beds and pollution including decomposed algae, organic deposition, chemicals, and fine silt which is killing its ecosystem, according to a report from the California Globe.


Additionally, dead endangered steelhead trout and other species have been rising to the surface of the Klamath River, and the river's conditions have made it unlikely for any juvenile salmon to survive.

Environmental organizations and tribal groups had been putting increasing pressure on Gov. Newsom to act to "save the salmon." Newsom caved to the pressure and devised a plan to tear down the dams that keep salmon from migrating back to streams to lay eggs. Activists blame the four dams as a cause of drastic declines in the fish population, specifically salmon that travel upstream to rivers to spawn.

https://thepostmillennial.com/gavin-newsom-dismantles-dams-to-protect-salmon-destroys-their-spawning-beds-in-the-process

[PeteS in CA]

There's a huge problem with the "Gavin Newsom dismantles dams" narrative. It's anachronistic, by 8 or 9 years. The Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement was negotiated in 2008 and signed in 2010 by Arnold Schwarzenegger, not Gavin Newsom. In between Ahnold the RINO and Goobernor Noisome was the Moonbeam 2.0 maladministration.

In other words, as tantalizing a target as Goobernor Noisome is, Ahnold the RINO is to blame for this enviro-disaster.

As to supposed salmon spawning restoration, even if the silting and other damage is cleared out in 3 or 5 years, most of those dams were built in the 1920s, with a couple having been built in the 1960s. After 6 or 10 decades of being dammed up, will any currently alive salmon have the imprint (or whatever the proper term is) of spawning in the Klamath River (and not the Smith River, Little River, Mad River, and a dozen more rivers plus even more creeks along CA's north coast?)?

[roamer_1]

[...] will any currently alive salmon have the imprint (or whatever the proper term is) of spawning in the Klamath River (and not the Smith River, Little River, Mad River, and a dozen more rivers plus even more creeks along CA's north coast?)?

Yes. The eggs can be factory fertiilized and planted at the headwaters. They can set factory pens right at the headwaters, for that matter. Thriving new populations would happen in a decade.

[DefiantMassRINO]

They'll also need time for vegetation to establish and stabilize soil to mitigate muddy run-off from rain and melting snow.

That river will need a decade or two to establish a new environmental equilibrium.

[roamer_1]

They'll also need time for vegetation to establish and stabilize soil to mitigate muddy run-off from rain and melting snow.

That river will need a decade or two to establish a new environmental equilibrium.

Mountain rivers have a pretty good tendency to clean out after one or two good winters - All that silt can be gone in no time. Rivers are a powerful thing. And silt won't last long. Remember, the whole reservoir is not the riverbed. The river will find it's way damn fast. And sure there will be mudslides for a while... Some time to adjust, no doubt.

But look at the devestation from the St. Helens eruption for a pretty good rule of thumb. within a few years quite a bit of it was right back to normal.