
How Long Before These Salmon Are Gone? ‘Maybe 20 Years’ - digital55
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/16/science/chinook-salmon-columbia.html
======
guardiangod
Up here in British Columbia, Canada, the salmon situation this year has been
dire. The government was expecting 5 million salmons returning to spawn. We
got 600,000.

[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/sockeye-
retu...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/sockeye-returns-
plunge-in-b-c-official-calls-2019-extremely-challenging-1.5256443)

 _In one of the most dramatic shifts, the federal Department of Fisheries has
adjusted the estimated number of returning Fraser River sockeye to slightly
more than 600,000, down from an earlier projection of nearly five million._

------
atourgates
I live in one of the Idaho communities that would be most greatly affected by
the removal of the Snake River dams.

If you're interested in the counter-argument, take a look at the Washington
Grain Commission's fact sheet:

[http://wagrains.org/snake-river-dams-facts/](http://wagrains.org/snake-river-
dams-facts/)

I think the most productive thing that could be done for the debate (assuming
you believe that removing the Snake River dams would be a net-positive, as I
do), is to focus on solutions that allow farmers to get their grain to major
ports, cost-effectively without relying on the dams.

Take a look at this fact sheet on the ratio of barges, to trucks and trains
required to move the same amount of grain:

[https://www.pnwa.net/factsheets/CSRS.pdf](https://www.pnwa.net/factsheets/CSRS.pdf)

A single barge-load of wheat going down the Snake would take 538 trucks.
Nobody (besides perhaps trucking companies) wants to put that many additional
trucks on the road. However, a train car with 140 cars could take the
equivalent of a 4-barge run down the Snake.

The latest comprehensive economic impact study performed on the issue is this
one:
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TDDHFUn5eNoQyH251rscHiKvfRS...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TDDHFUn5eNoQyH251rscHiKvfRSNSjn3/view)
\- which broadly concluded that dam removal would be a net positive economic
impact for the region, but would (as with any major shift) have winners and
losers. As long as grain farmers are among the losers, I expect that lower
Snake River damn removal will be a non-starter from a standpoint of local
support.

~~~
bb88
I also live in Idaho, but the nasty effect of dams was characterized by
Lonesome Larry, the only sockeye salmon to return to redfish lake in 1992.

Redfish lake was named for the teems of brightly colored red sockeye salmon
that once populated it.

As of two years ago, the last time I was up there, it was still mostly devoid
of salmon.

In effect dams and the subsequent fish farming efforts to save the salmon end
up being a subsidy for the farmers.

In all fairness I would rather just give farmers a subsidy to transport their
grain rather than to try to outsmart nature.

In the end we would ask ourselves if the economics of transporting grain from
remote areas is worth it economically, and we can leave the environmental
issue out of the equation.

~~~
cronix
> In effect dams and the subsequent fish farming efforts to save the salmon
> end up being a subsidy for the farmers.

And everyone else in the region who uses electricity generated from the dams,
which is quite a bit.

~~~
bb88
Absolutely correct, but OP only talked about issues related to agriculture.

EDIT:. Maybe not as bad as some might think. The 4 lower Snake River damns
provide only 4% apparently of the regions power.

[https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2018/apr/08/replacing-
powe...](https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2018/apr/08/replacing-power-
produced-by-four-snake-river-dams-/)

So while yes the hydropower would need to be replaced it may not be a huge
cost to do it.

------
melling
We’re overfishing everywhere. China has gone all the way to West Africa:

[https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-47698314/is-
china-s...](https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-47698314/is-china-s-
fishing-fleet-taking-all-of-west-africa-s-fish)

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/03/opinion/china-wants-
fish-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/03/opinion/china-wants-fish-so-
africa-goes-hungry.html)

~~~
cgh
Sure, but the article isn't about overfishing. It's about dams and climate
change.

~~~
ew6082
The point is that it's pretty clear that overfishing plays a larger role in
salmon decline than dams. Tearing out dams isn't going to stop China and Japan
from decimating the fisheries, and they will continue to decline. Dams are
just more visible to us.

------
dvdbloc
Tangentially related to salmon habitat destruction, if you live in Seattle
know that there is an asphalt plant proposed along the Cedar river in Renton
that is still in the permitting phase. It has some local environmentalists
worried. I personally worry because sure, everything could be okay but it
could also be a disaster for the habitats. Write the King County council a
letter and tell them what you think.
[https://www.savethecedarriver.org/](https://www.savethecedarriver.org/)

------
cabaalis
> The National Marine Fisheries Service is considering a proposal to kill
> 1,100 sea lions annually along the Columbia River, because they eat salmon
> as they gather to spawn.

It seems like by not removing the dams, we'll lose the salmon, the orcas will
starve, and we'll litter the ground with dead sea lions trying to keep Idaho
wheat cheap. Slow clap. Good job, guys.

------
thoughtpalette
Anecdotally, after fishing in the Big Manistee River in Northwest MI for about
20 years. The salmon population has definitely dwindled from my experience
during our last few annual fishing trips. We tend to go right around the time
of the "Run", where the fish come into the river when lake Michigan gets cold.

I've only caught maybe 1 the last 3 years I've been where usually it's 4-12 a
trip (1 week).

All anecdotal but the zebra mussel issue in the river has gotten insanely bad.
The entire riverbed feels like dead shells and they're starving the river of
nutrients.

It's been a huge loss and I've stopped contributing to Manistee's tourism as a
result. Huge bummer.

------
rdiddly
A tiny bit irksome somehow, that in the well-intentioned effort to make people
care about salmon, they can't stop talking about the _precious, precious
orcas!_ Like salmon aren't valuable and awesome in their own right.

Also annoying on a totally different level is how _actual policy_ has been to
try to counter one blithe, destructive intervention (dams that hinder salmon)
with another (killing sea lions which supposedly helps salmon). Just
arbitrary, stupid stuff. Why not kill whales to help salmon then? "Well
because salmon exist to support the precious precious orcas." But don't they
exist to support sea lions too? "Yes but those are bad."

------
rectangletangle
Oddly enough this year was excellent for King Salmon in California, one of our
best years ever in fact (going back 50+ years). We suspect it was primarily
due to the drought tapering off, so the rivers/lakes were more full than
usual. Salmon are r selected, so large fluctuations in the population are
expected. In contrast the drought years were really really poor.

------
bluedino
I know little about fishing. I'm guessing that most of our fishing is done
with a half-day trip of the coast.

Do people fish out in the middle of the oceans? As vast as they are, wouldn't
there be an unlimited supply of fish in the middle of the Pacific? Or are
there not as many fish as compared to near the shores.

~~~
adrianN
The middle of the oceans are the deserts of the marine ecosystem. Nutrients
are washed into the sea via rivers, so coastal waters are rich in nutrients
and support complex food webs. The middle of the oceans are poor in nutrients
(and shelter for fish!), and don't have many fish.

------
sunstone
These salmon may be ending up in huge drag nets in the North Pacific.

------
mudil
Another doom and gloom from the media. I am an avid fisherman in Oregon, and
yes our numbers are down for chinook and steelhead, but coho numbers are doing
well this year.

In CA chinook went up nicely this year.

[https://www.latimes.com/world-
nation/story/2019-08-22/califo...](https://www.latimes.com/world-
nation/story/2019-08-22/california-king-salmon-rebounds-after-drought)

PS Our shad numbers were crazy good with 7+ millions crossing the Boneville
dam on Columbia.

[http://www.fpc.org/currentdaily/HistFishTwo_7day-
ytd_Adults....](http://www.fpc.org/currentdaily/HistFishTwo_7day-
ytd_Adults.htm)

~~~
danaur
I'm not educated in this area to be able to make conclusions, but one thing I
wonder is if in N years if all the disaster dates pass and much less or
nothing happens. How will we convince people of risks of climate change if
there is a history of it being misrepresented.

My concern is that people are willing to be too extreme at a potential expense
of the public's perception of science/climate change. I think it's important
to be precise and measured with this stuff.

~~~
aldoushuxley001
Couldn't agree more. I think climate change is taking too much of the
political oxygen out of the room, leaving no awareness for the plethora of
other environmental problems that we can actually all agree on and solve.

EDIT: Unfortunately there's little room for nuance and discussion when talking
about environmental problems in today's political climate. People are just
downvoting me because I implied not everyone agrees on climate change, which
shouldn't be a controversial fact to state, but alas it is. I would appreciate
if the people downvoting me would provide a substantive reply though, because
otherwise the downvotes without replies seems to simply just prove that people
are unwilling/unable to have a nuanced discussion about environmental
problems.

~~~
agar
I don't know who downvoted you or why (not me), but I find your point to be a
bit nonsensical.

Someone is pouring gasoline in our house and you're suggesting that we talk
less about a catastrophic house fire and more about how they're ruining the
carpet. How does that help?

Besides, what are these "environmental problems that we can actually all agree
on"?

We should have clean water? No, the same people denying climate change have
overturned basic protections.

Protection of endangered species? Also overturned.

Protection of national parks? Nope, acreage removed from the park system and
existing reserves opened for drilling.

Increasing fuel economy standards? No.

Common sense reductions in coal usage, which is now more expensive than solar
and wind (not even including carbon externalities)? No.

Both sides have extremists. But right now, an "economic growth at all costs"
extremist regime is making policy. That is undeniable.

If a left-wing "criminalize eating meat, eliminate fossil fuel overnight,
outlaw corporate farming and force people to live in yurts" extremist sat in
the White House, do you think we should not talk about the risk of global
economic collapse?

~~~
aldoushuxley001
There's always going to be some people who agree and some people who disagree
on anything, but I'd argue that there's less polarization on a couple of the
things you mentioned.

E.g. clean drinking water, I'd argue that we can all very much agree this is a
priorty. I'm not sure what basic protections you're talking about which were
overturned, but atleast here in Canada we have towns and reserves that still
don't have access to clean drinking water.

also yes, protection of endangered species, but even more broadly just
biodiversity in general (often we focus only on saving the cute ones, which is
also a bit of a travesty). This topic is more polarized than clean drinking
water but arguably less polarized than climate change and has much more
realistic and attainable solutions.

The problem being that we're in the midst of the sixth mass extinction event
and it's caused by humans (not human-induced climate change, though that may
be a contributor, but it started much earlier than the industrial revolution).
Much of the problem is that we destroy habitats e.g. through mass
deforestation, pollution, etc.

We're currently in the midst of a massive insect apocalypse which is the
result of the aforementioned deforestation and pollution, largely insecticides
herbicides, etc. from bad agricultural practices.

I would much rather we focus on reforming forestry, fishing and agricultural
practices using less destructive to the environment methods, which are very
attainable, than focusing on mitigating climate change, which is largely out
of our hands or would require such unattainable changes to society.

I think we are by and large wasting our time and effort on dubious climate
change efforts which would be much better focused on real environmental
problems that we can actually solve, like e.g. ovefishing, mass deforestation
and habitat loss, mass pollution in water and terrestrial ecosystems. That's
my point.

I do believe human-induced climate change is happening, but also not neaarrlly
to the degree that alarmists and doom and gloomers would have people beleive.
It's a question of how much are humans contributing to climate change change
not if, but there's too many extremists that claim the apocolypse on very
dubious grounds. I honestly believe the extreme alarmists are being incredibly
harmful to science in general because people are liable to dismiss all science
when inevitably a too-extreme climate model is proven wrong yet again.

So yeah, my point is that there's many more attainable solutions to
environmental problems we can mostly all agree on that we should be going
after, rather than focusing our efforts on just fighting climate change which
is an extremely polarizing topic and has largely unattainable solutions.

~~~
agar
I think your posts are being downvoted because it's just simpler to downvote
than try to correct someone with such fundamental errors of fact. Too many
people who say things similar to you (e.g., pointing to incorrect climate
models, questioning the degree of climate change, pointing to "unattainable
changes to society" and so on) don't actually want to be corrected; they
simply hold onto their beliefs regardless of contrary evidence. This is the
difference between "denialism", which leads to futile argumentation, vs.
"skepticism", which is a healthy part of science. Engagement with denialists
is thus simply a waste of time, fatiguing, and frustrating.

I'll throw a few things out there: climate models. Watch this video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJoMp-
k_H3w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJoMp-k_H3w) for a comparison of
predictions of major climate models vs. measured temperatures. Many, many
articles and peer-reviewed research has covered this.

Overfishing being an "environmental problem that we can actually solve": this
massively complex problem involves international policing of illegal fishing,
national sovereignty, ecological protections vs. starving populations,
increasing economic success leading to increasing consumption (see China's
insatiable and growing appetite for fish), cultural issues, and on and on.

Worse, climate and agricultural impacts such as ocean acidification,
temperature rise, algae blooms, and nitrogen run-off all contribute to
dramatic declines in aquatic populations that lower yields and require ever-
more aggressive fishing practices that further destroy the ecosystem.

Regarding the contribution of humans to climate change: there is no doubt that
carbon dioxide warms the atmosphere. There is no doubt that CO2's overall
contribution to warming exceeds that of other factors (including solar maxima
and other denialist theories). There is also no doubt that humans emit more
CO2 than any other source. See [https://www.climate.gov/news-
features/understanding-climate/...](https://www.climate.gov/news-
features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide) for
a good overview. Without a science-based rebuttal to these issues, saying
human contribution is "not neaarrlly to the degree that alarmists and doom and
gloomers would have people believe" is a belief based on nothing.

You use strawmen like "too many extremists that claim the apocolypse on very
dubious grounds." What does this mean? We have 411 ppm of CO2 in the
atmosphere now, and it continues to grow - at an accelerating rate. This leads
to stronger and more frequent extreme weather events like droughts
(atmospheric warming) and hurricanes (ocean warming).

So what is this apocalypse the extremists discuss? Apocalypse like having a
city burned to the ground (see California)? Like hurricanes devastating
coastal communities (see Bahamas)? Like 500 year weather events occurring
almost annually? How many of these must happen before they strain the
economies of even the richest countries? And that's not even talking about
massive flooding from sea-level rise.

Blaming "extreme alarmists" for being "harmful to science" is so disingenuous
it makes me angry. You really believe they're more harmful to science than
those who lie about, cherry-pick, obfuscate, and bury data (see Exxon) to
create the illusion of controversy to protect their trillion dollar businesses
or political power? The only reason climate change is polarizing is _because
their efforts to undermine the science have worked._ The only reason you think
the solutions are unattainable is because they have convinced you that is so
for 40 years. And now, perhaps, they are unattainable. Congrats to them, I
guess.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcr-x-
xPPFE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcr-x-xPPFE)

