Comments on: The Fuss Over Fish

Lesley Stahl Reports On The Debate On What To Do To Protect Endangered Salmon

[touchet2]

It seems as though everyone talks about the four lower Snake River Dams, but the real problem lies with Idaho and the dams Idaho Power Company built on the Snake River and Clearwater.: Read On:

*** Canyon Dam
Maintained by Idaho Power Company
Height 330 ft (100 m)
Opening date 1967

*** Canyon Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the Snake River (river mile 247) in *** Canyon on the Idaho-Oregon border. The dam impounds the Snake River in *** Canyon Reservoir; its spillway elevation is 1680 feet (512 m) above sea level.

It is the third and final hydroelectric dam of the *** Canyon Project, which includes Brownlee Dam (1959) and Oxbow Dam (1961), all built and operated by Idaho Power Company. The contractor for the *** Canyon Dam was Morrison-Knudsen.

The *** Canyon Dam powerhouse contains three generating units, with a total nameplate capacity of 391 megawatts. Power generation began with two units in 1967, the third came on line the following year.

Lacking passage for migrating salmon, the three dams of the *** Canyon Project blocked access by anadromous salmonids to a stretch of the Snake River drainage basin from *** Canyon Dam up to Shoshone Falls, which naturally prevents any upstream fish passage to the upper Snake River basin.

It was the Idaho Power Company Dams that stopped the passage of Salmon and Steelhead to spawning grounds. Look at the Idaho Dams and that is where the bigger story is! Way to go Idaho!!!!

[oregontom]

What a disappointing and biased story....60 Minutes (or should I say National Enquirer) you should be embarrassed! Lesley, your mind was made up before you ever started the story. Hydroelectric power is one of the cleanest energies we have today. That is not important as it did not fit your predetermined conclusions. Maybe we should burn more coal? More natural gas? We are having record runs of fish on the Columbia this year, but managed to down play that fact. Instead, you take the whining of one person and make himm sound like the hero. Do you remember why you got into journalism? I thought it was to report facts, not editorialize. You have conviced me it is time to give up on 60 Minutes!

[jaypaul7]

Leslie,

Please provide more research before airing a piece like this.

First, there are documented articles and programs that prove Salmon populations are decimated by seals and sea lions. One seal can destroy hundreds of pounds of salmon in one day. The mouth of the Colombia River has been littered with salmon carcases that seals and sea lions have ruined. The seals and sea lions gorge themselves on the belly fat of the salmon ripping out the stomach area, and leave the majority of the fish wasting on the bottom.

The seals and sea lion populations on the Oregon and California coasts have skyrocketed. They are major contributors to the declining salmon population.

2. The International fishing industry, Japanese and Russians are supposed to only harvest so many tons of Salmon per fishing trawler. What is not being reported is that those fishing trawlers are violating the fishing restrictions right outside of U.S. waters. Each trawler is illegally taking tons of U.S. west coast salmon without consequence.

Maybe the dams have to go. However, first, focus on other areas that can have an immediate impact to improve salmon populations.

1. Govern and enforce international waters where foreignors are committing salmon fishing violations.

2. Immediately implement a plan to reduce the exceedingly high seal and sea lion populations that feed primarily on salmon and have adversely impacted salmon populations.

[rdog91x]

We now have proof the system in place will not ever work. Money has been and is now being spent to overcompensate for poor design and planning. Nature and people once again pay the ultimate price.

[miltoes58]

You failed to mention the fact that the same problem exists on rivers without dams.

[eldiemer]

Thank you for having one woman on 60 Minutes, but there should be more. Leslie Stahl is excellent, but why show her knees at the beginning? What man thought that up?

[hawkinsjd]

Ask the people who want to remove the dams this:
"Why are there rivers in Canada that do not have a dam anywhere near them let alone on them, that are getting very small salmon runs?" If they can answer that, then maybe we should consider listening to them. You stated that the dams kill approximately 50% of the fish, very wrong. Check that statistic again, you will find it might be 1 - 3%. If it were 50%, we wouldn''t have any runs now. The state of Idaho in the 1920-1930''s killed and blocked the breeding grounds of the Coho. Check out the story of "Red Lake" in Idaho.

We are making decisions based on our understanding of part of the picture. We do not know or understand what happens to the salmon when they are in the ocean. Without this knowledge we cannot be to make sound decisions. It is like saying we know the beach by only knowing about one grain of the sand.

[fisherwoman6]

I wanted to respond to Justruffin--dude, have you seen the native gillnets spread across the Columbia? I am glad 60 minutes had the guts to address this. We have seen, every year, the nets set out across the river so that NO salmon could get by, unless they were swimming quite deep, creeping along the bottom of the river. There really should be some restrictions, like leaving at least one opening for the salmon to get by. The dams also do their damage on the fish, but we do get electricity out of the deal. We gillnet in Alaska, the largest salmon run in the world, but are on serious restrictions by the fish and game who let us fish only when they have their escapement up the river. What is going to ruin the Alaska run though is the proposed Pebble Mine....no electricity out of that, only gold and copper for a foreign company with a lot of toxic runoff to kill off the salmon. Maybe 60 minutes could do an article on the pebble mine before it gets off the ground....maybe some preventative medicine..

[formoto]

Read the papers, we are having a record run of salmon on the Columbia!

[fotobill-2009]

Building the dams was a huge mistake, wiping out the heroic salmon which have been there for millennia.

The industries profiting from the dam care about only making money, and if the salmon are gone, why would they care?

The aluminum industry can manage without the subsidized cheap energy, and the loggers can move their trees by road. The time for the removal of some dams is here. Let the tourism and sport fishing businesses thrive.

BILL

[kivinen1]

Leslie,

You loose ALL credibility on this one. The Coho are not extinct. I quit listening after that STUPID comment.

Do a little homework ok? Otherwise, retire and let someone that knows do the job.

[amber627]

It seems to me like the problem here is that the fish are born one one side of the dams, lets call this point A, then they go and grow up on the other side of the dams, lets call this point B, but then they need to return to point A to spawn. Perhaps I''m over simplifying this, but instead of building pipe systems and bussing fish all over the place, why don''t they just make an adjustment to point A? Take the eggs (from a hatchery or whatever) and put them somewhere else, where the salmon don''t have to go through the dams to get out of or return to.

[justruffin]

Fish Story (2)

What is right? RIGHT, not expedient. YES, and we owe it to ourselves to serve interests other than our own gratification.

I agree with others that Ms. Stahl''s whole attitude of seeing waste everywhere she looked serves no one well and every one ill. Frankly the writing for the whole piece seemed to be aimed at ratings by appealing to the largest portion of the viewing public, not serving public good. I too find that offensive, though hardly surprising.

Native interests, especially, were treated ill (I agree) by the piece, to a most offensive degree, and really done so just to serve the "gee whiz" effect rather than to serve ANYONE''s interest or illuminate anyone''s perspective.

Can the world do without salmon and/or Native Americans? Let''s just say the world could do a lot better without the rest of us. Do we owe it to the world and to ourselves, for the sake of rightness and morality, to do whatever it takes to save what did so well without us? What do you think is right? Do we do that, or follow the lead of this fish story and just throw up our hands at everything and criticize?

When are we finally going to accept that ALL the major problems of the world ... things dying and things in short supply ... have one origin: a huge, shameful, wasteful, overblown, overdone, unnecessary, out of control glut of ..... US ? Education on THAT subject is key to them all. Want to cover the reason for dying salmon? Cover the glut of US and what can be done about it.

[justruffin]

Fish Story (1)

I''m sorry, but I disapprove of the whole attitude of this piece, which seemed to be that every penny of government money spent on salmon survival is a "boondoggle", no matter what.

What the story got almost right was the complicity of the present administration, along with those of the past, on every level: federal, state, and local.

However, you missed the main point with regard to Bush: "The cause of the die-off is up for debate: the Bush administration blames warmer temperatures in the ocean where salmon spend most of their lives, but many scientists say man is to blame."

That is no debate! In EITHER case (non-Native) man is to blame: the water temperatures (global warming) AND the dams ... and agriculture and over fishing and so on. In essence, the Bush administration is blaming (in part) itself, having ignored the best science on global warming for their 8 years. Right on for once!

You also stated that the dams were built "with good intentions". Sure ... good intentions to serve the business interests of white people, not Native Americans and certainly not the salmon or anything else. Those "good intentions" were also countered by warnings from scientists about the consequences of the dams BEFORE they were built, but of course who believes scientists?

The salmon and the Natives and everything else lived in harmony for tens of thousands of years ... until WE took over. Do we owe the fish and our Native brethren whatever it takes to solve the problem?

[Ed1930]

PLEASE KEEP THE FISH, KEEP THE DAMS,THE DAMS MAY SAVE FUTURE FLOODING IN THE AREA, AND MOST OF ALL, KEEP JOBS "IN THE USA" THIS IS ONE INDUSTRY THAT WILL NOT GET OUTSOURCED!
THANK YOU FOR THIS CHANCE TO SPEAK OUT.

[dapad]

To remove these dams after spending untold billions of hard earned American tax payers dollars is ludicris, absolute madness. At a time when we are seeking new forms of free and inexpensive energies, with the cost of oil skyrocketing, to destroy dams that provide inexpensive electrical power for this nations sustainment is total insanity. What in the world is wrong with providing water way side ramps along side each dam so the salmon can jump on their own to get past the dams for spawning and returning both ways. It''s a well known method of allowing spawning fish to continue their natural instinct for suvival. The cost would be considered peanuts in comparison to the idiocracy of taking down the dams. Furthermore, heavy duty stainless steel mesh caging with holes large enough for the turbulant water to pass through them, yet small enough to prevent the fish from passing through to fatal death, can be placed far enough behind the turbines. It''s total idiocracy to catch all these fish and trucking them every season. That''s costly too. Not to mention how much stress is placed upon the fish by doing so. Let''s all use some common sense for all parties involved with this dilema, save our salmon and our dams.

[Ed1930]

PLEASE KEEP THE FISH, KEEP THE DAMS,THE DAMS MAY SAVE FUTURE FLOODING IN THE AREA, AND MOST OF ALL, KEEP JOBS "IN THE USA" THIS IS ONE INDUSTRY THAT WILL NOT GET OUTSOURCED!
THANK YOU FOR THIS CHANCE TO SPEAK OUT.

[bernbor-2009]

If you agree, please pass on the following suggestion to the appropriate people. Why not string a very large heavy net across the river - on an angle - and divert the salmon to a new tributary that can be built AROUND the dam so that the fish can - on their own - swim up stream. That way the dam can stay, the water can continue to flow and the fish can find their way home. That would save eveybody millions upon millions of dollars and prevent the deaths of thousands of very valuable fish.
Thank you for listening. Bernie Boroson, Brooklyn, NY [phone]

[tahoegator-2009]

Aarrgghhhh!
What has happened to our priorities. Let the salmon live. *** the dams. Try to get back to nature and learn to appreciate it. Your ancestors would be ashamed. So should you.

[joanbor]

Just one more example of government waste, I want a rebate on my portion of the total bill on this project. Meanwhile the American people stuggle to keep up financially and not lose everything we have worked so hard for. We live in CT, we work until the middle of May just to pay our taxes for the year. When will politicians figure out we are not an endless source of money?
Let ALCOA pay fair market value for their electricity.