NOAA, Conservation Groups Team Up To Focus On The Little Things

By Eric Wagner

Dams are a leading reason for the decline of the Pacific Northwest's salmon runs. Dramatic examples of the damage that can be caused by dams are found on rivers like the Elwha, Columbia, and Snake.

Immobile and metaphysically intimidating, dams humiliate nature, as writer John McPhee has written, and render long stretches of river impassable for fish that would use them.

But salmon also face other threats: the bevy of tidegates, agricultural diversions, and culverts that block a couple of miles of stream here and there. While not visually sensational like hydropower dams, they are in many ways as crucial to salmon recovery.

Now, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and American Rivers, a non-profit organization, are working to get rid of these smaller barriers. Last October, NOAA awarded a $700,000 grant to American Rivers to help restore migratory fish to coastal streams and rivers around the country. The grant continues a partnership that began in 2001, but expands into the Pacific Northwest for the first time.

The crux of the grant is community involvement, says Aja Sae-Kung, a NOAA public affairs official in Washington, D.C. "It's community-level habitat restoration: you're there, you're doing hands-on, and we'll help you.” Individual grants typically range between $5000 and $20,000.

Four new projects will be funded, and will clear blockages on tributaries to the Columbia, John Day, Stillaguamish, and Yakima rivers.

"What we see [in the Northwest] is that since many groups have been working towards salmon recovery for a while, most of the easiest and most rewarding projects are done.” says Ross Freeman, conservation policy advocate for the Northwest Regional Office of American Rivers in Seattle, Wash. "The main function of this grant is to provide seed money to start a project, or give a capstone to something that's almost done. We want to help people deal with the incremental problems.”

The two organizations have already distributed some $1.7 million to remove unneeded dams and other blockages, primarily in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions and California.

Program expansion to the Northwest doesn't imply a change in mission so much as a desire to address a backlog of small restoration projects in the region, says Freeman. Each area of the country has a profile peculiar to it, and each project a particular nature. In the Northeast, for example, many of the dams are over one hundred years old, forgotten artifacts whose removal is rarely controversial. Such is not the case in the Pacific Northwest, where questions about water rights are often contentious.

However, the requisite community component means that proposed projects must have local backing. Often, says Freeman, volunteers and school groups maintain the areas once restoration efforts are finished.

"There's lots of activity in Puget Sound,” says Freeman, "and we're trying to get more rural areas where there are still fish passage issues.” The benefits of habitat repair extend beyond a project's completion. "When a community restores a waterway, it also restores its connection to it. That's always a good thing.”

Eric Wagner is a graduate student in biology at the University of Washington.

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Rivers like the Elwha in Washington State, shown here, are important habitat for Pacific salmon species. Photo courtesy of Scott Church