Dams

24 Stories

Seattle to sign agreement concerning Skagit River dams

Seattle City Light is set to spend millions on fish passage, habitat restoration, and compensation to tribes in the coming decades after the city’s leaders greenlit a massive agreement concerning its dams on the upper Skagit River on Tuesday, April 7.
- Sophia Gates / Cascadia Daily News
Dam siren blares false alarm to Skagit Valley town

Some residents of the Skagit Valley got a scare early Monday morning: An evacuation siren went off at 6:53 a.m. near the town of Hamilton.
- John Ryan
Multiple false alarms warning of a dam failure have Carnation residents on edge

If the Tolt River Dam failed, it would be catastrophic for the roughly 2000 people that live in Carnation. Fortunately, the city has an alarm system that would alert residents of a dam failure so they could evacuate. Unfortunately, residents have unexpectedly and pointlessly heard that sound eight times in the last four years.
- Hans Anderson
Okanagan River salmon eyed for endangered-species protection

A fisheries agency is asking for public input on whether to list a salmon from the Columbia River Basin as an endangered species.
- John Ryan
NW tribes push for removal of Snake River dams
- Lauren Paterson
While this year’s lamprey numbers look good, tribes say more needs to be done

Fish counters are seeing thousands of lamprey going past Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River. But tribal biologists say these toothy, eel-like fish have a long way to go before they’re in the clear.
- Courtney Flatt
Feds announce millions in funding to bring salmon back to the Upper Columbia River

In a historic agreement, the federal government announced Thursday it will fund tribal efforts to bring salmon back to the Upper Columbia River. Two massive dams have blocked salmon from that part of the river for close to a century.
- Courtney Flatt
Remembering the music that put Grand Coulee on the map

80 years ago Washington state was forever changed by the Grand Coulee Dam. The Dam still provides tons of hydropower today, and created a reservoir for farmers to divert and use as the breadbasket of the state today. When it was finally completed in January of 1943, US Government officials enlisted folk music legend Woody Guthrie to write a series of 26 songs about the dam. It’s a quirky moment in US and music’s history – but it produced instant classics that many will recognize, like “Roll on Columbia.”
- Libby Denkmann
Getting fish passage over Skagit dams will take decades

After years of drama with Tribes who say the dams are getting in the way of the salmon. If successful, it’ll be introducing fish into a region it hasn’t been in for 50 or even more years.
- Gustavo Sagrero Álvarez
For tribes, welcoming salmon to the Upper Columbia is a reminder of ‘lifelong work’

Each Spring, Northwest tribes celebrate the first foods of the season. At a Colville ceremony marking the return of migrating salmon, ecological challenges were top of mind.
- Courtney Flatt

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Dams

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