Yeah.

This is a salmon cannon.

Its purpose is to shoot fish upriver.

Really cool.

But like why?

Well, because of this dams are not great for the environment around them because putting a wall up in the middle of a river tends to disrupt the ecosystem, including of course the migration of salmon.

So, is there something that we can do about it?

Yes.

And I'll give you a hit.

Yeah.

Man made dams have been around for thousands of years and some of those are still in use today.

They've helped with flood control, irrigation, drinking water and making electricity today.

Hydroelectric energy creates about 16% of the world's electricity and over 70% of the world's renewable energy, which is great, much, much better than burning coal.

But as more and more dams were built to do good in the world, more and more people started to take notice of their negative impact on the environment.

When dams were initially being created, they were really seen as modern miracles in some ways.

But as dams were constructed, we often didn't think about the impacts that can happen to the health of our rivers and to our fisheries.

And it really wasn't until we went through a very large dam construction era in the twenties thirties, forties and fifties that we began to see cumulatively the impacts that dams are having throughout California and throughout the west, when you disrupt the flow of a river, there are so many negative consequences to the surrounding ecosystem that it's just hard to fit it all into one video.

So trees rely on the flow to redistribute seeds.

If you lessen the flow of water, it increases the water temperature, which is terrible to the health of plants and animals.

If you hold water back by dams, that water becomes toxic or it'll lose oxygen, both of which are not good when that water is eventually released.

Dams also stop the flow of sediment down river, which is again a huge problem by capturing water that would normally be flowing downstream.

It changes the timing and the size of those flows and all the fish and wildlife that live in rivers has co evolved to that natural pattern and a damn changes that natural pattern.

So now the system doesn't function like it used to.

And maybe the most glaring problem with dams is that it affects fish, specifically how the fish are able to navigate their home to do something that's pretty important reproduce and the poster fish for that damn damage might just be salmon.

Salmon have evolved to survive using this same natural pattern that rivers have with their high flows in the winter and they're low flows in the summertime dams have been constructed fairly low down in a river and often end up blocking the ability of fish to move upstream and access some of that habitat that they need to reproduce.

Salmon populations have been declining for decades.

And many experts point to the installation of dams as being one of the major contributing factors to this.

So over the years, people have tried to work on solutions.

Maybe remember that salmon cannon that we started off with.

That was just one example of something to help the fish get upstream to spawn.

There's fish ladders, fish elevators and let's say that one more time again, fish cannons.

But even though they're trying to help, still not the perfect solution.

So if fish ladders and elevators and cannons aren't the answer, then what is a damn never lasts forever.

And so you have a situation where there is no longer a need for the dam and the cost of maintaining it is so high that it actually begins to make sense to take that damn out and to have a lot of the ecological benefits that would come from dam removal.

Now, how do you remove a damn?

It's not always explosions.

Even though that is the most visually appealing.

It actually takes a lot of work.

A lot of planning research permits, surveys and just taking it down in a way that doesn't harm the environment even more.

But it does happen.

It's actually happened a lot in the us alone.

Over 1200 dams have been removed and that helps restore the rivers that they were impacting.

One of the most successful dam removal projects that's occurred recently has been on the Elwha The removal of the dam has opened up so much important salmon habitat.

That's really helped populations to improve.

Prior to dam removal.

This area we're standing in was underwater.

I am from port Angeles Washington and I'm a member of the lower Elwha column tribe.

I grew up with the L.

A.

River in my backyard.

Sometimes literally before the dams were removed.

Occasionally the river would flood into our backyards.

So the removal of the Elwha Dam began in 2011.

And since that time the landscape has changed so much where the former reservoirs once were.

So you can see where it gets rocky.

That is the edge that's the water line where the lake used to be.

We now have trees growing in.

We have animals that have returned to the landscape.

The removal of the Elwha Dam is the biggest dam removal project in history.

Also one of the biggest river rehabilitation success stories and by restoring the vegetation.

We are restoring the habitat for other wildlife to move back in.

And so we know that while life play a role in the environment, we know that they can transport seeds And restructure the plant communities and also alter water flow.

The first year 2014, we saw very little beaver activity.

By 2016, the beavers had discovered both like beds and we're using both habitats.

They had figured it out.

There were efforts for 100 years by the lower Elwha tribe to have the dams removed.

So I just find L.

A dam removal to be so inspiring and I hope that it inspires others to protect the places that they love and call home.

The Elbe River is a great success story and new bigger dam removal projects are already in the works.

These projects are a great testament to the communities, tribes, scientists, and activists who have fought to restore these ecosystems.

But the truth is not every damn can be taken down.

It's unrealistic for us to get rid of all dams.

At this point we need dams in order to capture water that is needed for farms and for cities.

But we can manage our dams in ways where we operate them to maintain the physical and biological processes that are so important for fish and for wildlife, dams can provide a lot for communities, clean water, irrigation, flood protection, clean energy and even recreation.

So it's unrealistic for us to remove every single damn out there, but it is extremely realistic to make current dams more environmentally friendly and remove dams that aren't doing any good at all.

And we can use all of this knowledge to raise awareness for the thousands of proposed dam projects worldwide.

If you're interested in learning more about river health and how community activism can bring about positive change.

Check out this secret indie documentary guardians of the river about the Yurok tribes campaign to restore the Klamath River.