[alpo]

Do you think he will use the fish ladder or go for it and go over the top with all the water they are spilling to flush little salmon downstream?

For those out of the area, the 13 dams on the Columbia dump about 1/3 of the annual flow over the spillways each year instead of making electricity with it on the theory that it helps little salmon get to the ocean. It does kill adult fish in the river by increasing the dissolved nitrogen in the water and the fish get bubbles under their skin that rupture and infection sets in.

State law says hydropower in not renewable so our hills are littered with turbines to meet the mandate of 20% renewable power sometime in the future.

[factoryrat]

I've seen all of the wind turbines littering the landscape. Half the time, they're not turning, and the other half they have be idled because of wind gusts. People don't realize that hydro-electric power is one of the most efficient forms of collecting solar energy available. It's also one of the few energy sources where we can store energy for later use.

As for the salmon, are there more salmon in the river now? Or were there more before the dams were built? The corp of engineers seem to be putting an awful lot of effort into making the dams “transparent” to fish migration.