I’ve always found academic conversations surrounding dam removal to be rather cut-and-dry. Wrapping up my environmental studies degree at the University of Washington, I can comfortably make the assertion that many Seattle city-folk tend to simplify the complexity of this topic into a question of whether or not a river has an intrinsic right to be free-flowing. It’s not that simple.
I observed this phenomena throughout many years of assignments surrounding the Snake River Dam, where dialogue was often reduced to “remove it, or take responsibility for killing the fish and degrading the environment.” It always felt somewhat odd, making such bold assertions on policy while sitting in a classroom hundreds of miles away from the watershed in question.
These stances are inherently informed by what an undergraduate climate education has taught us to prioritize: keystone species (anadromous fish, in this case) and overall ecological health. In a degree deadset on providing an interdisciplinary environmental education, I found many classes surprisingly one-dimensional, reducing complex decisions to fit a simple rubric.
I believe this to be indicative of a failure to properly incorporate the role of different dimensions — economics, industry, culture, etc. — to cultivate holistic climate decisions that effectively engage all stakeholders, not just those already in the environmental sector.
This summer, I worked to investigate and communicate watershed health issues in the Chehalis, with few hotter topics than the Skookumchuck River Dam. The dam’s removal debate is no stranger to my aforementioned phenomenon of oversimplification; therefore, I set out to cultivate the multidimensional dialogue it deserves through interviewing citizens local to the Chehalis.
Any initial opinions I had acquired during the preliminary individual research for my script were rendered useless the moment I began conducting interviews. Diving into database archives cannot equate to hearing a person’s fear of floodwaters damaging their farmlands. A conversation with a hydrologist grants just as essential perspective as one with a property owner.
“Just take the damn dam out!” – stakeholder 1
“I don’t trust any change associated with the dam, so my first choice modification would be to not modify anything at all.” – stakeholder 2
“Removal of this waterway obstruction provides the only clear path to renewing the Skookumchuck River in its entirety. The cost to implement this plan, however, may be unrealistic.” – stakeholder 3
My interviews revealed deeply conflicting perspectives on water management, emphasizing the importance of interdisciplinary engagement for accurately understanding regional values. Many that I spoke with in the environmental sector had strong hesitations toward removing the dam, contradicting my previous understanding of general sector sentiment. Infrastructure removal would release more than water: it would release decades worth of sediment buildup. This would dramatically increase turbidity, reducing dissolved oxygen levels to create conditions associated with fish kill events.
In general, many interviewees believed that the large-scale (and high-cost) effort of removing infrastructure was an extreme measure to consider without first attempting promoting ecological health through upstream restoration. Such efforts — for instance, the repair of riparian forest cover to improve soil’s natural water absorption and release capacities — may improve upstream habitat at a fraction of both the $100 million estimated removal cost and minimum-ten-year ecological recovery period. Regardless of how the proposed plan looked, hesitation toward removal for the sake of it without first attempting a wide-scale ecological restoration project was the most common trend recorded across my interviews.
Simultaneously, some interviewees primarily operated on principles often missing from environmental conversation. For instance, some believed utilizing such a large amount of the basin’s budget for dam removal is not worth the cuts to other projects, particularly those for infrastructure and housing development. Many interviewees prioritized flood prevention, but exclusively due to a fear of property damage and possession loss, not the associated environmental risks.
The dam is not an environmental ethics question but a structure directly impacting local livelihoods, and therefore must be an accessible topic for an open forum. Those local to the Skookumchuck may not have had sovereignty over the dam’s integration a half-century ago, but should absolutely be engaged in dialogue before removal policy reaches any form of consensus.
Claire Farber
Editor’s note: Claire Farber is a senior at the University of Washington who spent this past summer as an intern for the Chehalis Basin Partnership.
