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One of my friends used to work for the state of Oregon as an economist doing analysis related to these dam demolitions. They are a good thing for the environme

One of my friends used to work for the state of Oregon as an economist doing analysis related to these dam demolitions. They are a good thing for the environment, full stop. The loss of hydro with these smaller damns is not material. Their impact on hundreds of miles of habitat is. And for those who only want to think in terms of material wealth, there's real money in restoring salmon populations. So please don't do the hackernews reflexive contrarian thing and be all "well look at those idiots don't they see we need every bit of green hydro power that exists?" because the real analysis being doing is years worth of sophisticated measurement and modeling. You haven't somehow outsmarted that with your off the cuff observation. Edit: I guess I can mention a bit more without too much risk to my friend's privacy. During the years he was working as a part of this we were on vacation together at one point, and we ended up pairing on some problems he was having getting his R model working with ArcGIS. The task he was working on was modeling the changes in large herbivore populations that would result from various changes to the rivers. There are tons of these downstream effects that depend on the river. Losing the power generation is just one concern among 100s. So yeah, they thought very deeply about the implications and tradeoffs here.

dsfyu404ed 4y ago
>So please don't do the hackernews reflexive contrarian thing and be all "well look at those idiots don't they see we need every bit of green hydro power that exists?" because the real analysis being doing is years worth of sophisticated measurement and modeling. You haven't somehow outsmarted that with your off the cuff observation. You can't fight religion with logical analysis.
steve_adams_86 4y ago
I’ve been making this case here in BC since the BC Hydro company began pushing hard for a new large dam in Northern BC. It’s remarkable how well hydro was greenwashed. People think I’m an idiot when I saw we should generate power another way. They’re incredulous. How could a dam even cause environmental damage? It’s such a limited scope. We have ways of allowing fish to spawn past the dam. No big deal. Here we have environmentalists who are pro hydro and anti-nuclear. It’s surreal.
- AdamN 4y ago
  It's depressing that a modern country like Canada would even consider building a major dam anymore :-(
  - mjhay 4y ago
    If you think that's bad, wait until you here about what the Canadian government wants to do with the vast taiga forests. My (unscientific) observation is that some Canadians get stuck in a frontier mentality, kind of thinking that the resources and resilience of their huge and sparsely populated landmass is inexhaustible. Especially with forestry, they do stuff all the time that would never fly in the US.
    - steve_adams_86 4y ago
      Forestry is a disaster here. Especially when you consider how integral those forests are to our water cycle. Deforestation has direct and significant impacts on local and global cycles. As models become more detailed we only discover more ways this matters. It’s unsettling to see here in western Canada. Knowing we’re doing things like cutting trees to turn into pellet stock to get burned in the UK… and we justify it as “it’s not like those trees were valuable as timber”. No, they were valuable for capturing moisture, encouraging rain, and keeping our watersheds working. What’s the plan for the taiga? Another thing I’ve been considering is that we take this position because the bleak reality is that our rate of resource extraction is not scalable, but it’s the only thing that has ever allowed Canada to become relatively wealthy. We are not good at producing things of value. We do it, but not nearly as much as we should. If we pull back on extraction, we can expect to live poorer lives unless we can participate in the global economy in a way in which we create things of value rather than just mine, deforest, frack, drill, and so on at huge scales.
- soperj 4y ago
  The major dam in Northern BC kind of makes sense in the sense that they've already got 2 major dams on that river already, but it poisons everything. It's not just salmon, it's methylmercury accumulation in the fish in all the rivers in the surrounding area, it's high levels of methane release as trees decay for a hundred plus years in anaerobic environments because they didn't clear the forest before flooding the area that's not Williston lake. Blocking of sedimentation makes it so the rest of the river is less actually habitable for spawning fish as well, so double whammy on that front, since not only is the sediment blocked, the water is still flowing, eroding what's left.
jeffbee 4y ago
I think it's pretty clear from the comments that the hackernewses are simply assigning zero value to the fish. Which ironically aligns them with the big wealthy interests of decades long past: the rich farmers who advocated for building these dams.
- MSFT_Edging 4y ago
  Its the brainworms asking, "What do I get out of this?". Folks have been tricked into thinking that things can/should only exist if they serve some productive force.
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    I guess that is a point of view, but even from that perspective you can eat the fish.
    - bobthepanda 4y ago
      Right, fisheries is one of the big industries in the US, not to mention that HN also whinges about overfishing in other articles
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  > Which ironically aligns them with the big wealthy interests What is ironic about that do you ever read comments on this site?
munificent 4y ago
I was reading about a dam demolition in Washington a while back and the bit that really helped me wrap my head around it was this: Salmon are one of the primary pipelines to transfer calories from the ocean inland. Those calories—by that I mean a shorthand for "nutrition"—naturally get washed from land out to sea by stuff dying in rivers, rainfall, etc. Without some engine that cycles that material back into inland areas, you don't have a functioning cyclic sustainable ecosystem. Salmon get eaten by bears whose poop feeds plants that are eaten by herbivores. An incredible amount of the natural world in salmon areas depends on this pipeline running. When you stop the salmon, you stop the entire circulatory system.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
  That’s an impressive fact. I would have guessed birds would do most of that work.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    The birds probably help a lot too, particularly eating/spreading the salmon scraps the bears leave behind.
- EdwardDiego 4y ago
  IIRC there's entire forest ecosystems that evolved to be fertilized by hunted salmon. https://web.uvic.ca/~reimlab/salmonforest.html https://web.uvic.ca/~reimlab/salmonforest.html
- raintrees 4y ago
  Salmon are also the mainstay protein for the Yurok tribe. No salmon, no tribe, was their recent statement on the matter. Edit: Sorry, wrong tribal name, it's the Yurok here at the mouth of the Klamath.
daniel-cussen 4y ago
Every downstream effect depends on a river.
- cercatrova 4y ago
  Just FYI, you are shadowbanned, Daniel. Most of your comments show up as dead.
davidw 4y ago
Oregon hires some cool economists. Josh Lehner, here in Bend is just full of interesting information about the state. The Oregon econ blog is good reading and not technical or anything https://oregoneconomicanalysis.com/ https://oregoneconomicanalysis.com/

dsfyu404ed 4y ago

>So please don't do the hackernews reflexive contrarian thing and be all "well look at those idiots don't they see we need every bit of green hydro power that exists?" because the real analysis being doing is years worth of sophisticated measurement and modeling. You haven't somehow outsmarted that with your off the cuff observation. You can't fight religion with logical analysis.

steve_adams_86 4y ago

I’ve been making this case here in BC since the BC Hydro company began pushing hard for a new large dam in Northern BC. It’s remarkable how well hydro was greenwashed. People think I’m an idiot when I saw we should generate power another way. They’re incredulous. How could a dam even cause environmental damage? It’s such a limited scope. We have ways of allowing fish to spawn past the dam. No big deal. Here we have environmentalists who are pro hydro and anti-nuclear. It’s surreal.

AdamN 4y ago
It's depressing that a modern country like Canada would even consider building a major dam anymore :-(
- mjhay 4y ago
  If you think that's bad, wait until you here about what the Canadian government wants to do with the vast taiga forests. My (unscientific) observation is that some Canadians get stuck in a frontier mentality, kind of thinking that the resources and resilience of their huge and sparsely populated landmass is inexhaustible. Especially with forestry, they do stuff all the time that would never fly in the US.
  - steve_adams_86 4y ago
    Forestry is a disaster here. Especially when you consider how integral those forests are to our water cycle. Deforestation has direct and significant impacts on local and global cycles. As models become more detailed we only discover more ways this matters. It’s unsettling to see here in western Canada. Knowing we’re doing things like cutting trees to turn into pellet stock to get burned in the UK… and we justify it as “it’s not like those trees were valuable as timber”. No, they were valuable for capturing moisture, encouraging rain, and keeping our watersheds working. What’s the plan for the taiga? Another thing I’ve been considering is that we take this position because the bleak reality is that our rate of resource extraction is not scalable, but it’s the only thing that has ever allowed Canada to become relatively wealthy. We are not good at producing things of value. We do it, but not nearly as much as we should. If we pull back on extraction, we can expect to live poorer lives unless we can participate in the global economy in a way in which we create things of value rather than just mine, deforest, frack, drill, and so on at huge scales.
soperj 4y ago
The major dam in Northern BC kind of makes sense in the sense that they've already got 2 major dams on that river already, but it poisons everything. It's not just salmon, it's methylmercury accumulation in the fish in all the rivers in the surrounding area, it's high levels of methane release as trees decay for a hundred plus years in anaerobic environments because they didn't clear the forest before flooding the area that's not Williston lake. Blocking of sedimentation makes it so the rest of the river is less actually habitable for spawning fish as well, so double whammy on that front, since not only is the sediment blocked, the water is still flowing, eroding what's left.

jeffbee 4y ago

I think it's pretty clear from the comments that the hackernewses are simply assigning zero value to the fish. Which ironically aligns them with the big wealthy interests of decades long past: the rich farmers who advocated for building these dams.

MSFT_Edging 4y ago
Its the brainworms asking, "What do I get out of this?". Folks have been tricked into thinking that things can/should only exist if they serve some productive force.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  I guess that is a point of view, but even from that perspective you can eat the fish.
  - bobthepanda 4y ago
    Right, fisheries is one of the big industries in the US, not to mention that HN also whinges about overfishing in other articles
giraffe_lady 4y ago
> Which ironically aligns them with the big wealthy interests What is ironic about that do you ever read comments on this site?

munificent 4y ago

I was reading about a dam demolition in Washington a while back and the bit that really helped me wrap my head around it was this: Salmon are one of the primary pipelines to transfer calories from the ocean inland. Those calories—by that I mean a shorthand for "nutrition"—naturally get washed from land out to sea by stuff dying in rivers, rainfall, etc. Without some engine that cycles that material back into inland areas, you don't have a functioning cyclic sustainable ecosystem. Salmon get eaten by bears whose poop feeds plants that are eaten by herbivores. An incredible amount of the natural world in salmon areas depends on this pipeline running. When you stop the salmon, you stop the entire circulatory system.

fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
That’s an impressive fact. I would have guessed birds would do most of that work.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  The birds probably help a lot too, particularly eating/spreading the salmon scraps the bears leave behind.
EdwardDiego 4y ago
IIRC there's entire forest ecosystems that evolved to be fertilized by hunted salmon. https://web.uvic.ca/~reimlab/salmonforest.html https://web.uvic.ca/~reimlab/salmonforest.html
raintrees 4y ago
Salmon are also the mainstay protein for the Yurok tribe. No salmon, no tribe, was their recent statement on the matter. Edit: Sorry, wrong tribal name, it's the Yurok here at the mouth of the Klamath.

daniel-cussen 4y ago

Every downstream effect depends on a river.

cercatrova 4y ago
Just FYI, you are shadowbanned, Daniel. Most of your comments show up as dead.

davidw 4y ago

Oregon hires some cool economists. Josh Lehner, here in Bend is just full of interesting information about the state. The Oregon econ blog is good reading and not technical or anything https://oregoneconomicanalysis.com/ https://oregoneconomicanalysis.com/