This year, Patagonia’s environmental campaign, Our Common Waters, spotlights the need to balance human water consumption with that of animals and plants.
During the next few months, we turn to what we call Broken Rivers - the impact of dams and diversions. While projects like these can benefit society, they also cause considerable harm to rivers. Dams have depleted fisheries, degraded river ecosystems, and diminished recreational opportunities on nearly all of the nation’s rivers. Many dams are old, unsafe or no longer serve their intended purpose. Diversions drain water levels in many rivers, reducing fish and wildlife habitat and damaging human communities dependent on healthy rivers.
Here is what Patagonia’s owner, Yvon Chouinard, has to say about dams and wild rivers.
Dammed If We Don’t
By Yvon Chouinard
Environmentalist David Brower was once asked, “Why are you conservationists always against things?” He replied, “If you are against something, you are always for something. If you are against a dam, you are for a river.”
I’m also a lover of wild rivers. That’s why our company has been involved in trying to take out obsolete and damaging dams since 1993. We’ve had some success helping take down the Edwards Dam on Maine’s Kennebec River in 1999, and the Savage Rapids Dam on Oregon’s Rogue River in 2009. As I write this, three large dams are slated to come down on Washington’s Elwha and White Salmon Rivers. The United States has more than 82,000 dams in its inventory and researchers estimate there may be at least two million dams of various sizes. So far, at least 836 dams have come down, but 26,000 “hazardous” dams (according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) remain. Many of these dams were built by local irrigation districts, private power companies and local, state and federal governments. When they become obsolete safety hazards, like mines, the owners just walk away and leave the cleanup and restoration to the taxpayers.
When I was 18, I used to go down to the Sea of Cortez to spearfish. Within 15 or 20 minutes, I would spot a 30- to 40-pound grouper. It was like a fishbowl. And now, many of the bottom fish are gone, the shrimp are almost gone, and fishermen are left to eke out a living fishing for low-value skate wings in the winter.
