Good On Them

[HungLikeJesus]

So does this mean that Northwestern Lake will disappear also?

[Lamplighter]

Yes, I think pretty much so.
Some of the home owners in the area are somewhat pissed.

But this actually was the decision of a power corporation.
If they did not demolish the dam, they would have to spend a lot more $ building adequate fish passages.

[BigV]

Yep!!

As for seeing it, I recommend this link:

http://www.yakima-herald.com/stories...ls-from-condit

[HungLikeJesus]

The removal is expected to open up stretches of the upper White Salmon closed off for nearly a century to endangered salmon, steelhead and lamprey. Officials estimate close to 3,000 salmon returning as the river grows healthy and more than 500 steelhead.

"It's such a huge deal for these fish to be able to return to their spawning grounds," says U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Lou Ellyn Jones. "I can't even hardly say how important it is."

But if it's been closed for 100 years, will the fish still consider it to be their spawning grounds? Or will they just be confused?

[Lamplighter]

Before the breach, ~ 700 salmon were carried up above the dam to start breeding the next generations.

[glatt]

Dams are a trade off. Sure, they hurt the salmon, but they help prevent flooding, they hold water to fight back drought, and they generate carbon free electricity.

You shut down a power producing damn, and you just increased air pollution and global warming because you have to burn oil or coal to replace that power.

[HungLikeJesus]

Originally Posted by glatt

Dams are a trade off. Sure, they hurt the salmon, but they help prevent flooding, they hold water to fight back drought, and they generate carbon free electricity.

You shut down a power producing damn, and you just increased air pollution and global warming because you have to burn oil or coal to replace that power.

It's not quite that simple. See, for example, Hydroelectric Power's Dirty Secret:

Hydroelectric dams produce significant amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, and in some cases produce more of these greenhouse gases than power plants running on fossil fuels. Carbon emissions vary from dam to dam, says Philip Fearnside from Brazil's National Institute for Research in the Amazon in Manaus. "But we do know that there are enough emissions to worry about."
In a study to be published in Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Fearnside estimates that in 1990 the greenhouse effect of emissions from the Curuá-Una dam in Pará, Brazil, was more than three-and-a-half times what would have been produced by generating the same amount of electricity from oil.
This is because large amounts of carbon tied up in trees and other plants are released when the reservoir is initially flooded and the plants rot. Then after this first pulse of decay, plant matter settling on the reservoir's bottom decomposes without oxygen, resulting in a build-up of dissolved methane. This is released into the atmosphere when water passes through the dam's turbines.

I think they need to find a way to capture the methane and burn it in a gas turbine.

[glatt]

OK, rotting plants release methane and CO2, but there are going to be more plants in the rainforests of Brazil than in the American West. I'll even grant you that manufacturing all that concrete is terrible for the environment.

All that carbon is associated with building the dam, not running the dam. It's an argument for not building new dams. It doesn't support the idea of tearing down existing ones. The pollution has already happened with this dam. Why not get some more energy out of it?

[Lamplighter]

I think UT's proposal to burn off excess gas would be workable
with a low-head dam situated about here on the Potomac River:
.

[HungLikeJesus]

The point was that the methane is released from rotting plant matter. From the same article:

Seasonal changes in water depth mean there is a continuous supply of decaying material. In the dry season plants colonise the banks of the reservoir only to be engulfed when the water level rises. For shallow-shelving reservoirs these "drawdown" regions can account for several thousand square kilometres.

In effect man-made reservoirs convert carbon dioxide in the atmosphere into methane. This is significant because methane's effect on global warming is 21 times stronger than carbon dioxide's.

[glatt]

Ah. Seasonal changes. Got it. CO2 being converted to Methane. That would be bad.

[classicman]

is bad ... IS.

[Lamplighter]

I like the title of this thread... it gives a chance for other kinds of news.

CNN
Girls given equal rights to British throne under law changes
By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 8:44 AM EST, Fri October 28, 2011

London (CNN) -- Sons and daughters of British monarchs will have
an equal right to the throne under changes to the United Kingdom's succession laws
agreed to Friday, British Prime Minister David Cameron said.

The constitutional changes would mean a first-born girl
has precedence over a younger brother.
They also mean that a future British monarch would be allowed to marry a Catholic.

.

[HungLikeJesus]

A Catholic? That's good?

[Lamplighter]

HLJ, there's more discussion in the link.
That part may soothe some problems in Ireland