Let the River Run Wild.

[elleng]

Last edited Mon Sep 8, 2014, 11:58 AM - Edit history (1)

IF the Chesapeake Bay is America’s Estuary, then its largest tributary, the Susquehanna River, could arguably be called America’s River. But we certainly don’t treat it as a national treasure: This once magnificent watercourse, which runs through New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland toward the coast, is today an ecological disaster — largely thanks to four hydroelectric dams, built along its lower reaches between 1904 and 1931.

An impending license renewal by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for two of these dams will lock in another half-century of measures woefully inadequate to remediating the dams’ environmental consequences. Instead, all four should be removed. . .

The destruction of enormous fish migrations is bad enough. But it gets worse. Because the sprawling Susquehanna drainage is unusually sediment-laden, the reservoirs behind each dam have been filling with voluminous quantities of sand and muck; three of them have reached their sediment-holding capacity and the fourth, the Conowingo Reservoir, is quickly approaching it. If nothing is done soon, the sediment will no longer be trapped and will travel past the dams into the Chesapeake Bay.

This would mean ecological devastation for the bay, which is already overenriched and would choke on the nutrient-packed sediment suddenly thrust on it. The only other answer is expensive, continuing dredging — and blind hope against an erosive storm or hurricane that would overload the dams and release the sediment.

With all this in mind, policy makers need to take the only responsible step and remove the dams. True, they produce valuable electricity that would be tough to replace. But there are alternatives. By our calculations, a solar park built on the drained floor of the empty Conowingo Reservoir could allow the river to run beside it and replace the 575 megawatts the dam generates. And low-head hydropower arrays — devices that pull energy from the river without impeding it — could add even more.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/08/opinion/let-the-susquehanna-river-run-wild.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region

[NYC_SKP]

1. So sad. Many don't know that the mighty Colorado River no longer reaches the sea.

Is this the future for other rivers?

On a related note, in California large hydro projects are not allowed to be considered "renewable" sources of energy generation.

K/R

[elleng]

2. Yes its sad, SKP,

and I live near it and the Bay, and knew nothing about it until I saw this story.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. "take the only responsible step"...

How many times has that happened?

With all the powerful parties battling over what to do, how to do it, or whether to do it at all, we have enough trouble solving small, easy problems. I fear this one will sit in reports for years until it becomes a crisis. Then we waste time arguing some more.

I hope I'm wrong.

[elleng]

4. I hope you're wrong too, TreasonousBastard,

but you're right about the history. Lots of 'movers and shakers' live and travel in this territory, so its possible the problem gets the right attention.

A friend used to work at FERC, and dams were his 'territory.' He's retired now, but I'll ask him, when he returns from some of his excursions, what he thinks about this.