Promising Signs of Recovery on Undammed Elwha River

Рет қаралды 148,105

Жыл бұрын

With the planned demolition of dams on California’s Klamath River, plans for restoring that ecosystem benefit from what has been learned since dams were removed along Washington State’s Elwha River eight years ago.
Originally published at - www.voanews.com/a/promising-s...
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Пікірлер: 151

@stonew1927 Жыл бұрын

It's amazing to hear the biologist at the end explain how the salmon also enrich the forest when bears and other animals that eat them carry them into the forest or defecate them there. Just goes to the point that everything is connected and in balance in natural ecosystems.

@jujitsujew23 Жыл бұрын

It’s big reason why the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia have such rich healthy forests. If California had more salmon, bald eagles and bear their forests would be much more lush

@cjsoutdoors4412 Жыл бұрын

Hopefully there will be plenty of Bears to shit in the woods. 🌳 🐻

@elizabethhoeppner8881 Жыл бұрын

Bring in some beavers

@cjsoutdoors4412 Жыл бұрын

@@elizabethhoeppner8881 Exactly hon, cause a Wet Beaver is a Happy Beaver! 🦫

@matthewdufur5489 11 ай бұрын

The 7,500 year old trees in the Stanislaus and Inyo forests are bonsai in rocks at nine to ten thousand feet in elevation. Squirrel poop provided most of the fertilizer these amazing trees needed to survive. We should go forth and fifth generation nuke and loose all of the west coast dams. I love wild Pacific Salmon. Mmmm.

@drinny26 Жыл бұрын

I would love to see a longer documentary on this.

@mono635 Жыл бұрын

There is some interesting of stuff out there... kzfaq.info/get/bejne/aN99aNBmkpeReWQ.html or this presentation: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hqd4ddVn3ra0lIk.html

@rvuli1985 8 ай бұрын

“The Beautiful Undammed” on PBS

@marilynyoung9477 Жыл бұрын

This is so encouraging.

@andrewhansen4179 Жыл бұрын

Very nice, great work. We visited that area a number of times in the last 5 years and the changes are remarkable. Keep it up folks.

@jimlong527 Жыл бұрын

This is real progress. People and the environment must coincide.

@barrysnow6993 Жыл бұрын

Well done update! Thank you!

@stevebutler812 Жыл бұрын

Very cool. Good for the Native American tribes that fought for this.

@skypieper Жыл бұрын

Looking forward to the Klamath dam removal!

@howardagnew8471 Жыл бұрын

Klamath Falls will have falls again! The name of the town will be ironic no more.

@dundonrl Жыл бұрын

Me too, we need to remove all dams from rivers world wide, same with all other signs of human technology!

@michaelguerin56 Жыл бұрын

Good video and good news. Thank you.

@uglyfrog7263 8 ай бұрын

Great report!

@damonchampion823 Жыл бұрын

This is such great news 👏🏻

@alwaysfourfun1671 Жыл бұрын

Very good news! Hope that sustainable levels of fish will soon be the result with further enrichment for the natural environment and the native people.

@helend222 Жыл бұрын

Very positive story. Thank you.

@billcarruth8122 Жыл бұрын

Finally answers the age old question about a bear shitting in the woods.

@nelskrogh3238 Жыл бұрын

Great job!

@MrBubba311 Жыл бұрын

It's a good step in the right direction.

@TheDalen2016 Жыл бұрын

Saw this in the Damnation documentary. Thanks for the update.

@sdub300 Жыл бұрын

The healing power of nature he says.

@barbieoutabox80 Жыл бұрын

Thank you

@jackmcmichael3560 Жыл бұрын

Outstanding 👍

@Marco-fn6kg Жыл бұрын

wonderful stuff beautiful !!

@AbAb-th5qe Жыл бұрын

Cool video. Thanks

@barneymiller6204 Жыл бұрын

I would like to hear someone comment on how the sediments from the former Elwah river lakes (Mills and Aldwell) will now be again added to the rebuilding of Ediz hook.

@lavrentichudakoff2519 3 ай бұрын

Give thirty years and nobody would know the dams ever existed.

@bristleconepinus2378 Жыл бұрын

I remember fishing there in the late 70's and the steelhead were huge.

@tylergarb Жыл бұрын

Things like the Elwha being undammed and the Pebble mine being denied permits give me hope for the future. I think we need a full stop moratorium on old growth logging and development projects that impact salmon habitat in the PNW. In fact old growth logging should be banned outright across the world imo.

@wickedbird1538 Жыл бұрын

😊😊A wonderful story.

@philliplamoureux9489 Жыл бұрын

Super Cool!!

@8ferarry8 Жыл бұрын

Great news.

@williamchamberlain2263 Жыл бұрын

My question would be whether small partial flow weirs could generate decent power without taking more than 30% of the flow at any given location.

@ebbeb9827 Жыл бұрын

probably not, wind and solar is so much cheaper nowadays anyway

@Dogatemyhomework927 3 ай бұрын

How’s the dust up at the old lake bed? I know it was an issue at first. I’d love to see some pics of that now!!

@bjb7587 Жыл бұрын

So glad to see this. I live in nearby Sequim. Hope to see more salmon soon.

@josephbelisle5792 7 ай бұрын

I love these videos. A part of me soars when I learn about these restoration projects. It will be a good day when all of the river blocking damns are gone and our ecology is somewhat restored.

@josephward6422 6 ай бұрын

Yes, until the river floods

@jeffchang3362 Жыл бұрын

Definitely taking a trip 🚗 too see this looks amazing to see an environment recover and see in real time what it will be like before the damn.

@AFMR0420 Жыл бұрын

Don’t delude yourself. It is nothing like before the dam. There used to be enough salmon they say you could walk across the river on their backs. Also, wrong spelling of dam. Also, you should watch the documentary about this from the people who actually spend their time in the river counting the fish. The fish populations are still devastated.

@OutsidewithTom Жыл бұрын

Great to see things like this, thank you.

@michellegiacalone1079 8 ай бұрын

Log structures, eh? Maybe hire some beavers?

@spockspock Жыл бұрын

Now for the Klamath River.

@srandyt2 Жыл бұрын

Yay!

@reagend1841 Жыл бұрын

Great news that there are more dam removals planned this year!!

@CaptainBreny Жыл бұрын

Why? are dams a problem? As a norwegian wich have 91,5% of electricity made by dams they barely impact anything

@FlameofDemocracy Жыл бұрын

Bring back beavers, as well. Forests would of course have to be regrown.

@chrisstover2976 4 ай бұрын

Are the Beaver returning?

@thehairywoodsman5644 Жыл бұрын

3:39 CONFIRMATION ! yes , a bear does shit in the woods !!!!!!!!

@tbh9247 Жыл бұрын

Hilarious

@banmadabon Жыл бұрын

I do it too! 😁

@pjotrhof2505 Жыл бұрын

You should be proud of this achievement ❤

@barbieoutabox80 Жыл бұрын

Thank you very much yes the fish needed but so do a lot of other animals and the Earth itself once the water to go where it wants to go

@petenikolic5244 Жыл бұрын

Best thing to ever happen the removal of those darn dams

@hgodfrey Жыл бұрын

This is awesome 😊

@syncrosimon Жыл бұрын

This river reminds me of Scotlands River Spey, where salmon are struggling to flourish. Lots of lessons to be learnt between the two.

@lightningdriver81 Жыл бұрын

Excellent.

@beverlyreiner-baillargeon6205 4 ай бұрын

Leave Mother Nature alone and she can do anything. Mother Nature is amazing

@malcolmrose3361 Жыл бұрын

So lots of discussion about the benefit to local habitats, and animals but none whatsoever about alternatives - construction of fish ladders to allow the salmon to bypass the dams, and renewal of the generating equipment at the dams to provide continuing green energy to the area.

@Pipsqwak Жыл бұрын

Fish ladders were impossible to build in the steep, rugged canyon and have not proven terribly successful in any river where ladders have been used anyway. Also these dams were in serious disrepair, the reservoirs nearly completely silted up, and were no longer needed. They were strictly power sources for one single business, not for the whole community, and the community has other power sources now. The cost of revamping the dams and the negligible returns made destroying these dams a good economical decision as well as an environmental decision. The Elwha River was home to all five species of Pacific salmon before it was dammed, an incredibly rich ecosystem like no other. These two dams destroyed these unique fish runs and the local Native American tribes' entire way of life, and this is just a small bit of justice for them.

@AFMR0420 Жыл бұрын

I’ve not seen any evidence though, that removing any dam has actually helped the fish return. Justice seems like a small consolation after everything natives have been put through, if this can even be called justice or be measured as such, as only time will tell. From what I can find online, the customer you speak of was the Naval Yard of Bremerton, and they replaced the electricity generated with a natural gas burning plant, which will greatly increase air pollution in the area. People need to quit deluding themselves that the natives won this battle, it was won by the gas company.

@Pipsqwak Жыл бұрын

@@AFMR0420 The two dams provided power for a single local mill in Port Angeles, not the Bremerton Naval Yard. The salmon have already returned upstream past the location of the former dams and are spawning again. Numbers of returning fish and their species is being closely monitored. I live in the area and have for 36 years and am well aware of the history and the current situation.

@barneyrubble4293 Жыл бұрын

@@AFMR0420 They literally said in the video salmon were recorded upstream days after removal. So yes it helped fish return.

@teresaoconnell4790 Жыл бұрын

The way forward is " Back to Nature! "

@bloggalot4718 7 ай бұрын

Let’s hope other countries follow suit.

@drwisdom1 Жыл бұрын

We don't have to wait for the salmon to go up the river. We can just stock the river and the salmon will know to return. In the 1960s Michigan did that with Pacific coast Coho salmon and now Lake Michigan is a popular salmon fishing location.

@lag9765 8 ай бұрын

The river will recover, but we must understand that this human damaged river will take years to heal...

@kidmohair8151 Жыл бұрын

imagine what undaming the Colorado or the Columbia might do... other than plunging Cali and the left coast into darkness, I mean

@dundonrl Жыл бұрын

So? Who cares if untold millions of humans die, nature will be once again FREE!

@nonewherelistens1906 Жыл бұрын

If you rebuild it (habitat), they will come.

@mickeybailey1108 Жыл бұрын

I am so excited to see the Elwah one day. I watched as a barrier was removed on the Eel River that brought back different fish species. I am hoping to get time this year to watch as the Klamath River dams begin their new journey to open up the river again. It is such an inspiration to see people come together to make these dam removal projects end and free our rivers.

@TjBruce817 Жыл бұрын

It is nice to see the revitalization of destroyed Eco systems. Hopefully in the future we are smart enough to do things with the environment top of mind in any projects moving forward.

@releventhurt Жыл бұрын

Tough u want power but u don't want to decimate a natural habitat. I wish we could have a 10% dam at least

@bradcrosier1332 Жыл бұрын

The Elwha plants were very old and provided a minimal amount of power; they were marginally viable at best, and factoring in their environmental impact no longer made any sense. Additionally, they were actually illegally constructed initially BECAUSE they did not include any fish ladders - so they really shouldn’t even have existed.

@bustedford Жыл бұрын

Some people think mankind should live in caves and eat grass. Those same people will be doing just that when only the richest can afford a chinese solar panel and a used marine battery toturn on their couple led lights😂

@bradcrosier1332 Жыл бұрын

@@bustedford - Or we could use nuclear power, which we should.

@dundonrl Жыл бұрын

@@bustedford Yep.. remember, Socialism is for the people, not the socialists!

@peppertrout Жыл бұрын

3:33 Does a bear s-t in the woods? The dams that block salmon on the Columbia need to go.

@allswellinendwell6957 Жыл бұрын

Does a bear poop salmon in the woods? It does now.

@LeE-yf3cm 4 ай бұрын

I despise the taste of salmon, but this was needed

@willfriar8054 Жыл бұрын

it's going to be really interesting when the floods come this spring. massive amounts of snowpack going to melt not being held back by those nice old

@christopherhaak9824 Жыл бұрын

That's already happened in previous years, took out the road, campground, etc...If there is a lot of runoff, you have flooding, which you didn't have before.

@tapertim Жыл бұрын

Where do the salmon come from

@barrypickles6546 3 ай бұрын

Nice and concise

@tommymaroti244 Жыл бұрын

Funded by the American taxpayer, not the Govt.

@alanl.simmons9726 Жыл бұрын

You did not mention that the power produced did not cover the expense of operating the dam. The sediment was not slowly released. Hole was blown at the based of the dam and an unbridled flood of sediment laden water sped down the river.

@AFMR0420 Жыл бұрын

Honestly, this whole video is some kind of pat on the back propaganda.

@richardcox8409 Жыл бұрын

That was The White Salmon River not the Elwha that blew open the tunnel at the base........dont be hard on yourself im sure you will do better next time lol

@davebruneau6068 Жыл бұрын

@@AFMR0420 You must be new to YT. Every 2nd video starts... "I did this" & "I did that"...and half of those are by illiterate m0r0ns. And speaking of Illiterate... Propaganda : information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. Nowhere was this video "biased or misleading in nature". Nowhere was it "political" It did, however, promote & publicize a point of view. Destroying fish & wildlife habitat is detrimental to the health of the planet Earth. Hardly "Propaganda"...unless you're anti-Earth

@spacelemur7955 Жыл бұрын

I hope this positive development is coordinated with replacing the lost hydroelectricity with another sustainable supply including conservation. Dams will silt up eventually, and much faster with soil-disturbing activities such as agriculture or logging upstream. As could be seen by the photographs, the layer of sedimentation was getting so high that they damn was losing a good hydraulic head, and thus the electricity it could produce was already in advanced decline.

@rugger1009 Жыл бұрын

NPR should have the same tag -

@sarahm.5356 Жыл бұрын

No, Rugger, NPR shouldn't have the same tag because only a small percentage of their funding comes from the government. It varies among affiliates, but the average is 8.2%.

@rugger1009 Жыл бұрын

@@sarahm.5356 Exactly - it gets all its money from Jewish Foundations. It thus parrots NWO propaganda and should not receive a dime from taxpayers.

@Pierrekira Жыл бұрын

I cant wait for dams to be removed here in Quebec, for Riviere Mitis.

@billboth6572 Жыл бұрын

So I understand restoring natural habitats and all, BUT, where do we then get water for human consumption? Drinking and agricultural use? Water should NEVER be used for lawn or golf courses as that is wasteful?

@CaptainBreny Жыл бұрын

Why not make what we norweigans would call salmon stairs

@michaeldeierhoi4096 Жыл бұрын

Sometimes it is better to remove a dam then to try and modify it. This dam was a hundred years old and likely at risk of failure which would have created serious problems downstream.

@bjb7587 Жыл бұрын

It's been tried many times and was not effective. They also collected the fish and transported them by trucks past the dam. Not useful either.

@janosik150 Жыл бұрын

Wood will only last so much, it should be leaking rock damn

@davesvintageequipment5319 Жыл бұрын

I hope plans are made for replacement dams for power or water storage before current ones are destroyed, particularly in California. Without water and power, it could get rather unpleasant.

@douglasscott5623 Жыл бұрын

Just think of how many more hydro-electric dams we can remove if we relied more on clean renewable nuclear power.

@philippesails4973 Жыл бұрын

I am a European ecologist and a strong proponent of hydro-power

@bjb7587 Жыл бұрын

Dammed if you do, but I hope you don't. 😂

@kertmustapha2367 Жыл бұрын

Have you ever heard of fish ladders? Without hydroelectric how do you plan to run all the electric vehicles? More Cole, More Oil that has to be transported , all of which will raise the cost of your energy.

@dundonrl Жыл бұрын

Hush! Don't you realize that this just the beginning! Soon we'll be able to remove all human technology and once again start living in caves!

@wendyweaver8749 Жыл бұрын

Kert Mustapha - Another commentator (Pipswak) provided answers to your question and concerns. Fish ladders were impossible to build in the steep, rugged canyon and have not proven terribly successful in any river where ladders have been used anyway. Also these dams were in serious disrepair, the reservoirs nearly completely silted up, and were no longer needed. They were strictly power sources for one single business [lumber mill in Port Angeles; was also stated in the video], not for the whole community, and the company has other power sources now. The cost of revamping the dams and the negligible returns made destroying these dams a good economical decision as well as an environmental decision. The Elwha River was home to all five species of Pacific salmon before it was dammed, an incredibly rich ecosystem like no other. These two dams destroyed these unique fish runs and the local Native American tribes' entire way of life, and this is just a small bit of justice for them. NOTE: It is "coal" that is an energy source, not "Cole."

@vedrisca Жыл бұрын

While this is great news for ecological restoration, I can only imagine how much time it will take to bring fish populations back up. Perhaps it will take another flood season (12 years from now, as we should be at the tail-end of La Nina and just about ready to cycle back into El Nino) to get enough silt to expand the estuary by a substantial amount.

@davidanalyst671 Жыл бұрын

they said it took a day to get fish up the river. So it was a day. Fish populations to come back up? Fish lay millions of eggs, so it will take one spawning season. And they have to crowd out the fish that were there before, and were super successfull because the dam was built. This is the dumbest mini doc ive ever seen in my life and you took the bait, hook line and stinker.

@Osnosis Жыл бұрын

Isn’t this year a high-snow year with concomitant spring flooding?

@sarahm.5356 Жыл бұрын

David Analyst, and your expertise in this field is, what exactly?

@karstenjohansen6881 Жыл бұрын

Thank God Nature is so resistant to us Humans 😃

@Rod-bp8ow Жыл бұрын

Planted by the waters, by the word, as the waters cover the sea. KJV 1611 Preserved.

@r.guerreiro140 11 ай бұрын

Dams are planed natural disasters Just take Itaipu, which turned a land of Rainforests and fertile crop fields into a desertified lake and compare with the no go zone of Chernobyl The first done by purpose and the second by accident, about the same size and on the same time on history I'm glad you have evolved from this stupid and greed way of energy Now it's own time to evolve it too, here on the other side of the globe Any help will be more than welcome

@sgassocsg Жыл бұрын

We didn’t break anything. We logged trees for homes to be built, and we dammed for energy and protection of homes, crops and harvests….we built civilization. Let us thank then, those who came before and gave us this legacy of wealth, learning, and health. Because of them we can now afford to improve the land again, correct mistakes and excesses by eliminating the dam and engineering a return to wildness/wilderness.

@johnworthington2116 Ай бұрын

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/od-VhJSJ3NzUp2g.html

@m.halcyon5772 Жыл бұрын

The salmon are your actual power.

@scdrescher1 Жыл бұрын

Amazing how Mother Nature can fix what we break and how quickly she does it. When the pandemic hit the Bay Area and shut it down and no one was driving every day our skies up here in Tahoe never looked so blue (in my lifetime). Perhaps Thanos was right.

@donchonealyotheoneal5456 Жыл бұрын

Thank you Democrats and other people that love the Earth

@charlespierce3647 Жыл бұрын

It was just fine with the dam. No recovery possible.

@bjb7587 Жыл бұрын

Whut? Did you not watch the video?

@triedzidono Жыл бұрын

Well, i'll be damned.

@jimmiller5600 Жыл бұрын

It took a century to mess up the environment. I hope it takes less to return these rivers to a natural state.

@kevinnashskitchen3517 9 ай бұрын

Get jobs and pay for your groceries 👍

@davidotness6199 Жыл бұрын

What will likely never come back are the 100 lb king salmon that once swam this river. The Elwha was famous for its huge king salmon. Sigh..... Better late than never, I suppose.

@Seawolfaka Жыл бұрын

meanwhile there are two rivers within 15 miles of the Elwha River that were completely destroyed by state wildlife agencies along with the Native American tribes they went up the Dungeness River just below where the Dungeness River in the Grey Wolf River me and they brought big heavy machinery down drove them through the river and destroyed at 10,000 year old steelhead and salmon spawning ground on the Sol Duc riverboat they shut down a Steelhead Fish hatchery for no reason at all and now the steelhead run in that river is doomed

@Seawolfaka Жыл бұрын

Phuck all you hippies!!!! You’re banning fishing throughout Washington state and now you’re trying to stop hunting on the whole Pacific Coast fuck off