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<p class=MsoNormal><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/"><span style='font-family:
"Georgia","serif";color:#004276;text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=152
height=23 id=NYTLogo src="cid:image001.gif@01C9FC93.5774BC30"
alt="New York Times"></span></a><span style='font-family:"Georgia","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;vertical-align:baseline'><b><span
style='font-size:22.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'><a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/index.html"><span style='color:black;
text-decoration:none'>Opinion</span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><a name=articleBodyLink></a><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black;text-transform:uppercase'>Editorial<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:7.5pt'><span style='font-size:22.0pt;
font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:black'>10 Years, 430 Dams <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:9.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
color:gray'>Published: July 3, 2009 <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Ten
years have gone by since a modest but important moment in American
environmental history: the dismantling of the 917-foot-wide Edwards Dam on Maine’s
Kennebec River. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>The
Edwards Dam was the first privately owned hydroelectric dam torn down for
environmental reasons (and against the owner’s wishes) by the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission. Bruce Babbitt, the interior secretary at the
time, showed up at the demolition ceremony to promote what had become a
personal crusade against obsolete dams. The publicity generated a national
discussion about dams and the potential environmental benefits — to water
quality and fish species — of removing them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>It
certainly helped the Kennebec and its fish, and dams have been falling ever
since. According to American Rivers, an advocacy group and a major player in
the Edwards Dam campaign, about 430 outdated dams (some of them small
hydropower dams like Edwards) have been removed with both public and private
funding. In one case, the removal of a small, 50-foot dam on Oregon’s
Sandy River was paid for entirely by the electric utility that owned it in
order to improve salmon runs.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>More
lies ahead. Three dams that have severely damaged salmon runs in Washington
State are scheduled to come down in 2011. <span style='background:yellow;
mso-highlight:yellow'>A tentative agreement has been reached among farmers,
native tribes and a power company to remove dams on California’s Klamath
River, the site of a huge fish kill several years ago attributed mainly to low
water flows caused by dams.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Maine,
where this all began, will be the site of a spectacular restoration project.
Under an agreement involving the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, a coalition called the Penobscot River Restoration Trust and
PPL, a power company, two dams will be removed and a fish ladder built at a
third to open up 1,000 miles of the Penobscot River and its tributaries so that
fish can return to their traditional spawning grounds. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>A
half-dozen species should benefit, including endangered Atlantic salmon. The
federal government has now imposed “critical habitat” protections
in nine Maine rivers where the salmon return to spawn.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
line-height:18.0pt'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>NOAA’s
heightened interest in Atlantic salmon has raised hopes that it may now take
aggressive — if politically risky — steps to protect salmon on the
West Coast by ordering the removal of four big dams on the Lower Snake River.
This page has recommended such a move, which two previous administrations have
ducked. It seems now within the realm of possibility. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>Byron
Leydecker, JcT</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>Chair, Friends
of Trinity River</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>PO Box 2327</span></i><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>Mill Valley, CA
94942-2327</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>415 383 4810
land</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>415 519 4810
cell</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'><a
href="mailto:bwl3@comcast.net"><span style='color:blue'>bwl3@comcast.net</span></a></span></i></b><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'><a
href="mailto:bleydecker@stanfordalumni.org"><span style='color:blue'>bleydecker@stanfordalumni.org</span></a>
</span></i></b><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>(secondary)</span></i><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'><a
href="http://fotr.org/"><span style='color:blue'>http://www.fotr.org</span></a>
</span></i></b><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
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