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dam-l effects of decommissioning
It's a good question.
The foremost effect would be to restore river's regimes
allow restoration of productive and economocally sound
fisheries and shellfish fisheries which have collapsed
due to their being *too* many dams. Dams and diversions
interfere with fish and shellfish migration, and with fish spawning
areas, as well as harming estaurine areas.
Fish are in big trouble world-wide and need all the help they can get.
Tearing down of dams is not just an initiative proposed by
environmentalists. Conservation and restoration biologists, hydrologists,
oceanographers, as well as some hydroelectric specialists such as
Daniel Beard, the former head of the US Bureau of Reclamation
[the original dam-builders..they built the Hoover ;]
I thnk a biog par of your question centres around the question of where
will we find the energy to replace what is lost. Or perhasp where will
we find the water to replace what would be lost re: irrigation
reservoirs.
The short answer is not wasting as much energy and water as we do and
rethinking our priorities and recognizing that the natural
world has limits - limits which our human imagination and
inventiveness can work *with* instead of against.
To be clear - no one is saying building dams is out of the
question but simply that one must do so properly and part of that
is recognizing that there are many ways to address energy needs,
and that enough is enough. We have exceeded the limits already
and busted fisheries as a result.
To generate energy we are losing food and jobs and natural wealth.
What you need to understand is that all energy generation is somewhat
"dirty"... so it beocmes a matter of selecting the best way to
generate - and a large part of that is working with what is available
and NOT WASTING. SO energy efficiency becomes important.
Do most of us *need* an electric knife? Probably not.
To put it another way what is important is the wise use of what we
have - not wasting one resource to obtain another.
I hope that's some small explanation - I'v forwarded your question to the
dam-l discussion list here - Mr. Beard happens to be on this list - as is
hydro engineer Grainne Ryder and a large number of scientsts concerned
about impacts.
cheers!
-Dianne Murray
Dam-Reservoir Working Group;
Dam-Reservoir Impact and Information Archive
http://www.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca/dams