Today’s New York Times carries an editorial entitled Ten Years, 430 Dams, Jul. 4, 2009, at p. A18, calling for more dismantling of dams for the sake of improving salmon runs. From it we learn that in the past ten years some 430 dams have been removed, something of which the Times heartily approves, and wants to see more of. Now, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is in on the gag, and is working with the Penobscot River Restoration Trust and — get this — PPL, a power company, to remove two dams in Maine. Why a power company would want to remove dams which are producing saleable, clean and sustainable hydroelectric power, would seem to be a mystery, until you remember our post of last November ( https://gideonstrumpet.info/?p=138 ) describing how power companies can be coerced by the government into doing that.
So next time you hear lamentations about how global warming is being caused by carbon dioxide emissions, and how we must reduce them in order for the planet to survive, remember that these lamentations are coming from the kind of people who are also demanding destruction of hydroelectric dams that produce the cleanest and most sustainable power available. It’s sort of like the government subsidizing the production of sugar, and then urging one and all to reduce its consumption because consuming it will make you fat and cause your teeth to rot.
The bottom line of it all is that those dams were originally built for a reason: water supplies, irrigation, flood control and electrical power generation. So if you tear them down you will necessarily be affecting these things negatively and that, like everything else in life, will exact a cost that society may or may not be willing to pay. And to make that decision rationally, one has to understand both the benefits and the burdens that flow from tearing down those dams. But if you read the New York Times, you won’t find much information about the cost of this caper. All you will find is that the fish would like it, and that some Indian tribes that understandably enjoy their traditional fishing rights would like it too. That may be a good enough reason, though we doubt it. But it’s not a valid reason unless we understand the cost of eliminating those dams. And that is being kept from us. Whatever happened to the familiar journalistic slogan that the public has a right to know?