Travis Rummel stands on a beautifully preserved old growth cedar stump that was revealed after being submerged nearly a century under Washington's 'Lake' Aldwell. The Elwha River has now re-‐carved its course through the drained reservoir in a scene from DAMNATION. Photo: Ben Knight
Groups Oppose Trapping and Hauling Fish Around Dams
The following letter outlines concerns and opposition to a May 7, 2015 announcement by the Yuba Salmon Partnership Initiative (YSPI), which aims to create a first of its kind trap and haul program in California. As outlined in the letter, we believe that the existing and proposed trap and haul projects around dams runs contrary to sound, wild fisheries recovery science, the intentions and requirements of the Endangered Species Act and many state fisheries management plans. Diverting limited resources and attention to such projects is a serious threat to future investment in effective river restoration efforts like full dam removal and achieving self-sustaining fisheries recovery nationwide.
DAMNATION DELIVERS 70,000 SIGNATURES TO THE WHITE HOUSE
The DamNation filmmakers have delivered the petition with 70,000 signatures for the Obama administration to crack down on deadbeat dams. As we look back on the incredible impact the film has had so far, we're also asking ourselves, what's next? Keep sharing and supporting the petition, but also let your local elected officials know that you want change.
WASHINGTON STATE RESIDENTS
Ask Senators Cantwell and Murray to help remove four deadbeat dams on the lower Snake River.
More than 70,000 people from all over the world signed the petition asking President Obama to remove the dams. But the feds want to see support from the leadership of Washington state.
A phone call from you to Senators Cantwell (206-220-6400) and Murray (206-553-5545) is the most powerful way to get that support.
DAMNATION TO SCREEN IN GERMANY, AUSTRIA AND SWITZERLAND WITH THE BANFF TOUR
Starting February 20th, 2015, DamNation will be having 50+ screenings across Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as a part of the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour. Kicking off in Munich on the 20th and hitting Berlin, Zurich, Salzburg and many more, DamNation wraps up at the end of April.
Starting today, December 4th, DamNation is available to watch anywhere in the world from Vimeo On Demand. Just select your language from the CC dropdown menu in the player window.
This powerful film odyssey across America explores the sea change in our national attitude from pride in big dams as engineering wonders to the growing awareness that our own future is bound to the life and health of our rivers. Dam removal has moved beyond the fictional Monkey Wrench Gang to go mainstream. Where obsolete dams come down, rivers bound back to life, giving salmon and other wild fish the right of return to primeval spawning grounds, after decades without access. DamNation’s majestic cinematography and unexpected discoveries move through rivers and landscapes altered by dams, but also through a metamorphosis in values, from conquest of the natural world to knowing ourselves as part of nature.
Below is a complete list of platforms, territories and languages we're available in.
DAMNATION RECEIVES BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE AWARD AT THE 2014 DESTINY CITY FILM FESTIVAL!
We also got a great review from The Benshi's Randy Olson. Here are some of the highlights:
Last year I scoffed at the biased mess that was “Gasland.” I wish “DamNation” had been out so I could have pointed to it to say this is how you present an issue you have strong opinions about without having the audience feel like they’re being conned...It’s a wonderful film filled with amazing sequences of inspiring protest efforts, beautiful scenery, and a heart-warming if sad jackpot of old movie footage of a trip down the Colorado River that will make you want to cry for the destruction dams have wrought. It’s great and a role model for how to make a solid environmental documentary that addresses a controversial issue in a level headed and dignified way. More movies like it are needed.
...
I really can’t say enough good things about this movie. It’s both nostalgic and contemporary. It’s hip and cool enough to feel like it’s for a younger demographic, yet dignified and even reverential at times to play to the older crowd. It has great visuals, but not at the expense of substance. It also captures the broad sweep of the past century to feel like the voice of the very best of the American environmental movement.
...
People squawk at me often, “Well, what is your idea of a good documentary?” This film is my answer, plain and simple. It’s a role model for all aspiring environmental filmmakers. It doesn’t have perfect narrative structure, it has a few minor shortcomings (would have liked a little more explicit addressing of the bottom line on the “jobs vs. environment” divide when it comes to dam removal), but a movie can only do so much in addressing an issue—it’s not the same as a book.
The movie does its job incredibly well. AND … it’s fun!
Award-winning film continues to generate momentum around the need to restore rivers to health by removing low value, high cost dams
Ventura, Calif. (July 8, 2014) – Patagonia today launched the award-winning documentary film DamNation oniTunesand through several On Demand services. DamNationis a film odyssey that explores the sea change in our national attitude from pride in big dams as engineering wonders to the growing awareness that our own future is bound to the life and health of our rivers.
The film will be available through iTunes rental for $3.99/$4.99 (SD/HD) or purchase for $7.99/$9.99 (SD/HD). Viewers can also watch it on demand via Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, Bright House, Verizon, Charter, Suddenlink, AT&T, Google Play, VUDU, Amazon, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Through its festival tour, DamNation has grabbed the attention of audiences and several major awards, including:
SXSW Audience Choice Award 2014
Documentary Award for Environmental Advocacy 2014, Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital
MountainFilm Audience Choice Award 2014
Best Conservation Film 2014, International Wildlife Film Festival
Grand Jury Prize and Audience Choice 2014, Environmental Film Festival at Yale
Best of Festival, 5Point Film Festival
Nigel Moore Award, DOXA
People’s Choice and Best Feature Film 2014, Green Film Festival in Seoul
Best Feature Award 2014, San Francisco Green Film Festival
On June 5, Patagonia presented free screenings of DamNation in 23 cities to audiences totaling more than 6,400 nationwide. Twenty-six thousand people have already signed Patagonia’s online petitionurging President Obama to authorize studies on removing four problematic lower dams on the Snake River – and thousands more have signed petition postcards.
DamNation is a film odyssey across America that explores the sea change in our national attitude from pride in big dams as engineering wonders to the growing awareness that our own future is bound to the life and health of our rivers. Dam removal has moved beyond the fictional Monkey Wrench Gang to go mainstream. Where obsolete dams come down, rivers bound back to life, giving salmon and other wild fish the right of return to primeval spawning grounds, after decades without access. DamNation’s majestic cinematography and unexpected discoveries move through rivers and landscapes altered by dams, but also through a metamorphosis in values, from conquest of the natural world to knowing ourselves as part of nature.
Patagonia Founder and Owner Yvon Chouinard states, “I’m proud to have been involved. Time and again, I’ve witnessed how removing an unnecessary dam is the responsible and, eventually, celebrated choice. Ben, Matt and Travis show us why, and they’ve made a beautiful film.”
DamNation is produced by Patagonia in association with a Stoecker Ecological & Felt Soul Media Production and is set for theatrical release in select cities beginning in April.
DamNation (87 min, U.S., 2014) Directed by Ben Knight and Travis Rummel. Produced by Matt Stoecker and Travis Rummel. Editor: Ben Knight. Director of Photography: Ben Knight. Director of Underwater Photography: Matt Stoecker. Associate Producer: Beda Calhoun. Executive Producer: Yvon Chouinard. Featuring: David James Duncan, David Montgomery, Elmer Crow, Rebecca Miles Jim Waddell, Floyd Dominy, Katie Lee, Lee Spencer and Mikal Jakubal.
DamNation screening in 23 Patagonia Retail Stores 6/5
We have spent the last 3 months crisscrossing the country and DamNation has screened over 70 times at film festivals, theaters, town parks, in big cities and small towns. We have over 25,000 signatures for our Crack Down on Deadbeat Dams petition to President Obama. We have won multiple awards at festivals for 'People's Choice' and 'Best Feature Film.' Needless to say, things have been very busy and very exciting.
We are excited to launch our film online this week! OnThursday, June 5th, we screen in 23 Patagonia retail stores nationwide and onFriday, June 6th, we release the film (in the US) for digital viewing through our website, www.damnationfilm.com. The film will be $5.99 to rent and $9.99 to buy. If you have not seen the film yet, your wait is over! For all of you, please share the film with your family and friends, with your help, we can change the game for rivers in the US (and beyond!).
Thank you for all of your support! Matt, Ben, Travis, and Beda
Earlier this week, Linda Church Ciocci of the National Hydropower Association sent a letter to the editor of The New York Times arguing against Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard’s points presented in his op-edpublished May 7. Linda’s letter is available here and we wanted to take a moment to respond to her points on our blog:
DamNation Hydropower Q&A
The environmental costs of massive dams that support hydropower generation outweigh their benefits. We do not agree that hydroelectric power generation is a “low-emission” and “renewable” source of energy as more studies are showing that dams and their reservoirs are significant emitters of greenhouse gases worldwide, while also exacerbating the negative impacts of climate change.
Arguing that hydropower is “clean” completely misses the immense environmental costs of stopping up a free-flowing river, which blocks wildlife migration for keystone species like salmon, degrades water quality and stops critical sediment flows to our disappearing coastlines.
Hydropower is made possible by dams, and dams create devastating impacts on the surrounding ecosystem, which relies on fish for food and to spread nutrients. These impacts run the length of the river to the ocean, where sediments are needed to protect against rising sea levels and storm surges caused by climate change.
Patagonia, by supporting DamNation, is focusing attention on a growing national movement to remove dams where the costs (including environmental, safety and socio-cultural) outweigh the replaceable benefits (including hydropower, flood control, irrigation or recreation) – or where the dam no longer serves any useful purpose. Many dams also pose a serious safety hazard. Currently, 26,000 dams are officially labeled either “high hazard” or “significant hazard” by the federal government.
Removing the many dams that have low value but high costs, like the four problematic lower dams on the Snake River, will help restore water quality and flows for fish and wildlife, reinstate the natural sediment and nutrient flow, eliminate safety risks, create opportunities for whitewater recreation, save taxpayer money and bring our rivers back to life.
But hasn’t the hydropower industry made significant strides to mitigate its footprint? Isn’t the Pacific Northwest now seeing record fish returns?
Unfortunately, that’s not true. Contrary to repeated statements from federal agencies, and hydropower advocates, most wild Snake River salmon and steelhead returns remain at about the same levels as when they were first listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in the early 1990’s and at only a fraction of their pre-dam populations. The last couple of years have shown some minor increases in overall fish numbers – especially compared to the dismal returns we’ve seen lately – but around 80 percent of these returns are hatchery fish, not wild ones. Flooding watersheds with hatchery fish costs the taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars annually on the Columbia River alone – it does not constitute “significant strides to mitigate” dams or even recovery goals for wild fish.
The Department of Energy has identified potential areas where there is an untapped potential for hydropower generation. Shouldn’t we be expanding it?
The most viable sites have already been developed. Most of those few remaining sites have been targets of repeated permits or license applications met with multiple failures due to poor economics, impractical technology, and the high cost of environmental damage.
The bottom line is that our country has no rivers left for dam building. The Department of Energy report didn’t assess the feasibility for building dams, just the potential for electrical generation present on a stretch of river based on computer modeling.
Rather than plugging rivers with multiple hydropower dams, or modifying current dams, a cheaper and less environmentally harmful solution is to transition away from dams and towards existing, lower impact, energy efficiency and production technologies. Many dams that have been removed no longer had any beneficial use whatsoever.
But 81 percent of Americans believe that the existing hydropower fleet should be maintained, and 75 percent support expanding hydropower. Don’t communities around the country rely on dams for drinking water, irrigation, flood control, recreation and, of course, affordable, low-emission hydropower?
The hydropower industry has worked hard to draw attention to the benefits of hydropower, but they of course neglect the major costs of dams. We’ve glorified dams for decades, but our pride in building these engineering marvels has often blinded us to the environmental damage they cause.
We made DamNation to educate Americans about the downside of this mislabeled “green” energy. Rather than plugging rivers with multiple hydropower dams, a cheaper and less environmentally harmful solution is to use existing energy efficiency technologies and lower impact production sources. Flood control can often be accomplished more effectively and for less money by restoring floodplains, maintaining riparian buffers, and enabling high flow capture into off-stream basins. Updating antiquated irrigation systems and replacing inappropriate crops dramatically reduces the need for dams and reservoirs in the arid West.
Removing the many dams that have low value but high costs, like the four problematic lower dams on the Snake River, will restore water quality and flows for fish and wildlife, reinstate the natural sediment and nutrient flow, eliminate safety risks, create opportunities for whitewater recreation, save taxpayer money and bring our rivers back to life.
Does Patagonia want to take out every dam?
We believe all man-made dams create a negative impact on river ecosystems, but our efforts are focused on removing the many dams with low value and high environmental costs.
Does Patagonia use hydropower to make our products?
Yes, we do use hydropower – it’s an inseparable part of our shared electrical gird. But at every turn we are focused on reducing our energy need through efficiency measures, and gaining a higher proportion of power from truly renewable sources like solar and wind, where environmental impacts of generation do not outweigh the benefits.
There are good movies, there are bad movies, and then there are movies that matter. DamNation is a movie that matters. An eco-activist documentary with a refreshingly aggressive and law-breaking bend, this new film — made possible thanks in large part to the folks from Patagonia — introduces viewers to one of the most overlooked evildoers in the modern world’s assault on Mother Nature: dams. There’s no doubt that dams have served many important roles over the years, from preventing floods and providing power to storing drinking water and making urban growth possible in remote places. But this “progress” has also come at a very steep price. With a blend of history, face-melting nature cinematography, and a dash of Edward Abbey–style criminal mischief, DamNation lays bare this truth in a way that is educational, entertaining, and, perhaps most importantly, inspirational.
By Courtesy Photo
WATERWORLD: A barge-mounted excavator hammers away at Glines Canyon Dam in a scene from DamNation.
It is impossible to separate the story of dams from the story of America in the 20th century. Building river-arresting structures, be they public or private projects, was a critical part of our nation’s rebound from the Great Depression, as well as our domestic World War II–motivated manufacturing efforts and, in the years after, our need to meet ever-expanding energy needs. In fact, some 75,000 dams at least three feet tall exist in the U.S.today, more than 30,000 of which were built between 1950 and 1970. And, while these structures were certainly erected with the greater good in mind, they all share one inconvenient truth: They drastically change the way a river behaves. When you consider the fact that rivers are the proverbial lifeblood of our planet and that various critters call it home, this defining characteristic becomes a potentially insidious and deadly bottom line for fisheries, watersheds, ecosystems, and native ways of life.
“A damn is to a river what a coal-fired power plant is to air quality,” explains Matt Stoecker, a restoration biologist based here on the South Coast who, along with Patagonia’s patriarch Yvonne Chouinard, produced the film. A graduate of UCSB, Stoecker, who has been in the trenches of creek and steelhead-trout habitat restoration here in Santa Barbara County for the past decade and a half, came up with the idea for DamNation while attending an environmental film festival in Nevada City with Chouinard back in 2011. Both blissfully addicted fly-fishing nuts with track records of big-picture conservation/restoration efforts, the duo recognized the powerful storytelling opportunity that was setting up that year, thanks to the planned removal that year of two very large dams in the Pacific Northwest: the Glines Canyon Dam of the Elwha River and the Condit Damn on the White Salmon River. If they acted fast, not only could they record these historic restoration-motivated destruction efforts, but they could also document the radically rapid rebound that occurs in nature when a long-stifled river is set free.
By Courtesy Photo
DamNation
Filmmakers Travis Rummel and Ben Knight, the latter also providing the movie’s narration, were enlisted, and the adventure began. Anything but predictable, DamNation is an ambitious and wide-ranging film that explores the evolution of our nation’s relationship to dams and the impacts this relationship has on our natural world. Incredibly charismatic and colorful characters from the fight to protect rivers, like Mikal Jakubal and Kate Lee (the former being the dam rappelling graffiti artist responsible for giant protest murals on some of the West’s most well-known dams in the 1990s), share the screen with hydropower supporters and sweeping nature shots of rivers, rushing waters, spawning salmon, exploding dams, and landscapes both wild and conquered. The end result is a well-balanced and visually arresting call to arms that has been taking the film festival circuit by storm since premiering in March at the SXSW Film Festival and winning the coveted Audience Choice Award. As Knight puts it in the film’s opening minutes, “Knowing what I know now, it is impossible for me to look at dams the same way ever again.”
DamNation has its Central Coast premiere on Wednesday, May 21, at the Lobero Theatre (33 E. Canon Perdido St.) at 7 p.m. For tickets and info, call (805) 966-4946 or visit damnationfilm.com.
The Nigel Moore Award for Youth Programming was awarded by Youth Jury members Anna Hetherington, Jacob Saltzberg, and Steven Hawkins, to Travis Rummel, Ben Knight, and Matt Stoecker’s film DamNation. In response, the filmmakers wrote: “It means a lot to us that DamNation appealed to a younger audience. We sincerely hope that Nigel would have loved our film—from what we’ve read about him, he might have appreciated the last words in DamNation by Edward Abbey: "Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.”
Dear DOXA, and the best Nigel Moore Award youth jury of all time—
We’re insanely honored and grateful for the award, and sorry about all the bad words and illegal stuff in our film. [maybe don’t tell your parents you gave us the award] We’re super bummed out that we couldn’t be there to high five the jury, but we ran out of money for plane tickets because we make documentary films, and we’re not positive Ben is allowed in Canada anymore. It means a lot to us that DamNation appealed to a younger audience, given the fact that their generation will be growing up with a more critical eye when it comes to obsolete dams doing more harm than good to our watersheds. We sincerely hope that Nigel would have loved our film—from what we’ve read about him, he might have appreciated the last words in DamNation by Edward Abbey: "Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.”
Sincerely,
Ben, Travis, Matt and the whole DamNation crew
Here are all the incredible awards DamNation has received to date:
Kevin Yancy of the Bureau of Reclamation, among a wall of aging gauges inside the Glines Canyon Dam powerhouse.
B-corporations, or benefit corporations, operate on a for-profit basis that also considers society and the environment as essential parts of their corporate mandates, measured by shareholders right along with the financials.
One such entity, Patagonia, is a manufacturer of high-end outdoor apparel and the official outfitter of Portland, Oregon. Presumably an offshoot of its own endangered-fish-saving World Trout Initiative, Patagonia produced DamNation, a quick, smart documentary about the havoc one country can create in its native fish populations by building 75,000 dams over an 80- or 90-year span.
Inaccurately billed as "green energy," hydropower deprives shorelines and riparian zones of the vital silt washed downriver, while preventing salmon from reaching spawning zones and flooding low-lying wilderness areas.
Another unfortunate-for-salmon irony is that hydropower often produces such surpluses of electricity that nearby wind farms are rendered redundant. The film includes a public meeting in which Jim Yost, a Boss Hogg–looking member of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council who opposes wind farms, keeps saying "beanie babies" over and over while discussing how wind power is just a "fad."
Co-director and narrator Ben Knight interviews activists, officials, social jammers, and scientists, approaching the subject not with outrage, but with humor and optimism. Touching on energy, hatchery operations, Western expansionism, and native cultures,DamNation covers a lot of territory with a short runtime.
While many enviro-docs basically lower the audience into a dark well of hopelessness and then roll the credits, DamNation concludes with a triumphant fusillade of explosions, as communities across the country decommission and demolish environmentally destructive dams.
Patagonia is famous for its high-end outdoor gear, selling its 3-in-1 River Salt Jacket for $549 and a Special Edition Diamond Quilt Snap-T Pullover for $199. In the coming weeks, the luxe retailer will begin stocking a very different item on its shelves: DVDs of "DamNation," Patagonia's self-financed and award-winning environmental documentary.
Long admired as one of the most socially accountable companies in America, Patagonia in recent years has become more of an outspoken advocate for environmental and corporate responsibility, letting shoppers openly inspect its supply and manufacturing chain and even encouraging potential customers to stop buying its products and recycle, repair and reuse the clothes they already possess.
"DamNation," the first film the company has produced, takes Patagonia's activism to a higher level, and its release will be linked to a petition urging the federal government to tear down what Patagonia calls "deadbeat dams."
The movie opens in limited release theatrically May 9 in New York and Portland, Ore., debuting in Los Angeles on May 16. "DamNation" will be screened for free in and for sale at most of Patagonia's 30 retail outlets on June 5, where the DVD will be listed at $24.99 (or $29.99 for a Blu-ray version). A day later, "DamNation" will become available on the streaming site Vimeo for $9.99.
Patagonia is supporting the documentary's release with an extensive social media campaign that hopes to take advantage of the company's fervent (if not well-heeled) fans, hosting scores of word-of-mouth screenings for organizations such as the Arkansas Canoe Club, Los Padres ForestWatch and Hells Canyon Preservation Council.
"We're not going to be getting any money back on this," said Patagonia's 75-year-old founder, Yvon Chouinard, whose privately held company bankrolled the film's approximate $500,000 budget and more expensive marketing push. "It's just propaganda."
"DamNation," which suggests that the more than 80,000 American dams do far more ecological harm than good, is hardly a conservationist diatribe. Directed by Ben Knight and Travis Rummel, the thoroughly researched documentary has won top awards at the South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival and the Environmental Film Festival in Washington, D.C. Early reviews have been enthusiastic.
Made over the course of three years, "DamNation" argues contrary to popular belief that hydroelectric power isn't environmentally clean or efficient, that reservoirs formed by dams release vast amounts of harmful methane (owing to decomposing organic material underwater) and that costly fish ladders and hatcheries scarcely mitigate the damage dams cause to spawning wild salmon. Dams ostensibly built to boost recreational opportunities, furthermore, don't necessarily permit the same, as the filmmakers find out when they kayak up to one dam's navigable locks and are assumed to be domestic terrorists.
The movie's on-screen partisans, who include former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, recommend that the most responsible action is to tear down several large dams and let nature and the subsequently unstopped rivers follow their natural courses. "DamNation" chronicles how quickly Chinook salmon return after the sizable Elwha Dam in Washington is demolished.
Those who want to preserve dams say they play a critical role in flood control, maintain the water supply and benefit shipping and recreation. Supporters furthermore argue that dams not only generate necessary and relatively clean energy but also provide work for people who would become unemployed if the dams were removed.
Chouinard said he became focused on the downside of dams when Patagonia tried to reverse the ecological demise of the Ventura River, not far from the company's Southern California headquarters. Chouinard in the late 1990s used Patagonia's name and money in newspaper ads to advocate for the removal of the Edwards Dam on Maine's Kennebec River; it was torn down in 1999, and the native ecosystem gradually has been restored.
"That's the reason I'm in business," said Chouinard, an avid fly fisherman who recently returned from a fishing trip to British Columbia. "I couldn't care less about making more money or making more clothes. I want to use business to inspire solutions to the environmental crisis."
He said he was inspired to make the movie out of frustration with the political process. "You can write letters to your elected officials all day long but they don't even read them," Chouinard said.
At the 2011 Wild & Scenic Film Festival in Nevada City, Calif., Chouinard started talking with Matt Stoecker, an environmental activist committed to freeing rivers. "We were talking about the need to show the destruction caused by dams and the amazing things that happen when you remove a dam — including seeing a salmon jump up a river where a dam used to be," Stoecker said. Just like coal-fired power plants, Stoecker said, dams were an idea eclipsed by progress. "It was time to phase them out."
Chouinard and Stoecker's timing was propitious, as three large dams were about to be razed, which had the potential of turning an inherently uncinematic topic — large cement structures that simply sit there — into a visual story. But Chouinard and Stoecker, who served as one of the film's producers and directed its underwater photography, struggled to find a willing documentarian.
Knight, who with Rummel had made smaller films about fishing, had two immediate concerns: He saw no way to make the issue compelling, and he worried about becoming a Patagonia shill.
"Our first instinct was no, and we told them so," Knight said. "It was just too daunting, and it just seemed too difficult to humanize a story about dams. And it's not every day that a clothing company comes out to say it wants to make a documentary."
As they kept considering the topic, though, Knight and Rummel were drawn to the idea of following a dam's destruction, and using that event as the film's organizing principle. "We thought, at least there's a beginning and an end," said Knight, who narrates "DamNation."
They were promised editorial independence from Chouinard but then had to figure out a way to film the dams.
"We honestly had to do a lot of sneaking around," Knight said. "Dams are really unwelcoming places."
He said that even without Patagonia looking over his shoulder, he was mortified when he and Rummel showed up in their kayaks wearing matching hoodies made by the company — "We bought them," Knight said, "as they didn't send us free clothing once" — which made it look like they were promoting the clothing. "But it's not a branded movie by any stretch," Knight said.
Chouinard said "DamNation" ultimately builds on what almost every child was taught by his or her parent. "If you make a mess, you clean it up. You don't just walk away from it," he said. The time has come, he said, to tear down, rather than build, more dams.
"I hope this film leads to a revolution," Chouinard said. "A revolution about how we think about our water, and how we think about our rivers."
America’s Most Endangered Rivers 2014, Updated Tour Schedule & Recent Awards
It’s been a month since DamNation made its world premiere at SXSW in Austin, Texas. First and foremost, we would like to thank all of the people who’ve come out to see our film. Your support is greatly appreciated. Moving forward, we have a bunch of news and some important action alerts to share, so let's get to it.
America’s Most Endangered Rivers 2014
When, as a young man, DamNation co-producer Matt Stoecker witnessed migrating steelhead jump at, and bounce off, Stanford University’s Searsville Dam on San Francisquito Creek, he recognized the destructive power a single dam can have on an entire watershed and beyond. Matt is now a fish biologist, who has since spearheaded the removal of more than a dozen such barriers to migration and is actively involved in efforts to dismantle several others. When he and Patagonia founder/owner Yvon Chouinard, a long-time “dam buster” who for years has supported groups working to tear down dams, decided to capture such efforts and their healing effects on film, and share them with the world, they teamed up with Felt Soul Media’s Ben Knight and Travis Rummel, and DamNation was born.
Today, American Rivers announced their annual list of America's 10 Most Endangered Rivers and we’re happy to see San Francisquito Creek and Searsville Dam coming in at number five. San Francisquito Creek is the only nominee with a problem dam to be recognized by American Rivers this year. Making the list of most endangered rivers certainly isn’t a cause for celebration, but it’s a big deal in the river community and should bring national and local attention to the efforts that are underway to remove Searsville Dam.
[Above: Searsville Dam on San Francisquito Creek, California. Stanford releases no flows downstream for fish and wildlife and the stagnant creek dries out and becomes lethal to the threatened steelhead that are blocked at the base of the concrete wall. Photo: Matt Stoecker]
Unfortunately, it remains unclear whether Stanford University will remove their unneeded Searsville Dam and upgrade to a more reliable, sustainable and safer water system. The university is studying alternatives, including dam removal, and has promised to make a decision by the end of the year. Numerous examples throughout the country have proven that when a dam is removed, migratory fish quickly reestablish themselves above the barrier, often within weeks. Invasive species populations from the reservoirs are significantly reduced and water quality and habitat improve. Communities are made safer and the liability risk for dam owners is eliminated.
Aerial view of Searsville Dam and reservoir. Photo: Matt Stoecker
A pair of wild steelhead spawn below the impassable Searsville Dam in 2013. Multiple adult steelhead and their eggs died as upstream diversions and lack of access to perennial streams above the dam contributed to trapping these federally threatened fish in a dewatered creek. Watch a video of these two fish spawning. Photo: Doug Rundle
Streams merge in the headwaters of San Francisquito Creek where open space preserves have protected much of the watershed and provide ideal habitat conditions for steelhead and other native species to return to if only Stanford University would let them. Photo: Matt Stoecker
Running through downtown Palo Alto and Menlo Park, San Francisquito Creek harbors one of the last wild steelhead runs in the San Francisco Bay. However, Stanford's Searsville Dam blocks them from reaching critical year round streams, leaving the next generation to wonder who is responsible for the deaths of threatened steelhead in the creek. Photo: Mike Lanza
As a business member of the Beyond Searsvile Dam coalition, who is leading the charge, we urge Stanford to show leadership as environmental stewards and choose an alternative that will remove Searsville Dam, restoring this ecologically significant creek while protecting local residents from flooding and safety concerns.
A redesigned version of DamNationFilm.com was launched recently, and with it comes a full list of upcoming screenings. Newport, Rhode Island; Missoula, Montana; Portland, Oregon and Carbondale, Colorado will round out our film festival screenings in April. Looking ahead, the film will have its theatrical release on May 9 in New York at the IFC Center, followed by a release on May 16 in Los Angeles at the Laemmle NoHo 7. The theatrical release is coupled with a nine-city tour of one-night film premieres in select markets in April and May, and a nationwide screening event at all U.S. Patagonia retail stores on June 5.
DamNation is proud to be partnering with Vimeo On Demand to bring our film to your computer, laptop, tablet and smartphone. Preorders are being accepted now for DamNation’s digital release on June 6, 2014. And if you like DamNation, you’ll want to check out the Patagonia Collection at Vimeo On Demand. Curated by Patagonia and Vimeo, this collection of online films showcases Earth’s elegance, strength and fragility.
Visit Vimeo on Demand to see the Patagonia Collection and preorder your digital copy of DamNation.
Two Film Festivals, Two Awards for DamNation
We’re thrilled to announce that DamNation won the SXSW Film 2014 Audience Award in the Documentary Spotlight category, and the Documentary Award for Environmental Advocacy (and a $10,000 cash prize), at the 2014 Environmental Film Festival in Washington, D.C. The filmmakers express their gratitude to festivalgoers for the positive reception, celebrating the news as a sign that the urgent issue of dam removal is resonating and will continue to build momentum as the film tours across the country.
“Premiering DamNation at SXSW was a dream come true for Travis and I, and a dream come true for the film,” said co-director Ben Knight. “I honestly can't even wrap my head around the fact that we won the audience award yet, it feels very surreal. I could feel an energy build during the film at our screenings in Austin; our audiences were just amazing.”
“After pouring ourselves into DamNation, it is incredible to see the film resonate so deeply with our audiences,” said co-director Travis Rummel. “We’re so appreciative to Patagonia for trusting us with the creative freedom needed to bring this critical story to life.”
“The health of our rivers impacts all of us, and we have too many degraded rivers with unnecessary and obsolete dams,” said co-producer Matt Stoecker. “It’s so encouraging to see audiences connect with our film and help us build momentum to free our rivers.”
Yvon Chouinard and DamNation filmmakers on the SXSW red carpet. Photo: Nate Ptacek
Waiting in line for the world premiere at SXSW. Photo: Kasey Kersnowski
Patagonia employees Ron Hunter and Brooks Scott tabled outside the Vimeo Theater at SXSW. Photo: Nate Ptacek
Q&A session at SXSW with Nancy Schafer (moderator), Yvon Chouinard (Patagonia), Joy Howard (Patagonia), Travis Rummel (DamNation) and Jeremy Boxer (Vimeo). Photo: Nate Ptacek
Window detail and a peek inside Patagonia Austin. Photo: Jared Tennant
Party at Patagonia Austin after the world premiere screening. Photo: Jared Tennant
DamNation filmmakers and the Patagonia Austin staff. Thanks to the entire store staff for their effort and hospitality. Photo: Nate Ptacek
We had a packed house at the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital, productive meetings with top policymakers and government officials about our Crack Down on Deadbeat Dams petition, and we won the Environmental Advocacy Award. Washington D.C. was good to us. Photo: Ben Knight
March 15, 2014, New York, NY – DamNationhas won the SXSW Film 2014 Audience Award in the Documentary Spotlight category, the festival announced today, following the film’s world premiere at SXSW on March 10.
The filmmakers expressed their gratitude to festivalgoers for the positive reception, celebrating the news as a sign that the urgent issue of dam removal is resonating and will continue to build momentum as the film tours across the country.
DamNation is a film odyssey across America that explores the sea change in our national attitude from pride in big dams as engineering wonders to the growing awareness that our own future is bound to the life and health of our rivers. The film is produced by Patagonia in association with Stoecker Ecological & Felt Soul Media.
“Premiering DamNation at SXSW was a dream come true for Travis and I, and a dream come true for the film,” said Co-Director Ben Knight. “I honestly can't even wrap my head around the fact that we won the audience award yet, it feels very surreal. I could feel an energy build during the film at our screenings in Austin, our audiences were just amazing.”
“After pouring ourselves into DamNation, it is incredible to see the film resonate so deeply with our audiences,” said Co-Director Travis Rummel. “We’re so appreciative to Patagonia for trusting us with the creative freedom needed to bring this critical story to life.”
“The health of our rivers impacts all of us, and we have too many degraded rivers with unnecessary and obsolete dams,” said Ecologist and Producer Matt Stoecker. “I’m thrilled to see audiences connect with our film and help us build momentum to free our rivers.”
The film will open in theatrical release on May 9 in New York at the IFC Center, followed by a release on May 16 in Los Angeles at the Laemmle NoHo 7. The theatrical release is coupled with a nine-city tour of one-night film premieres in select markets in April and May, and a nationwide screening event at all U.S. Patagonia retail stores on June 5.
DamNation will also play for one week in Portland, Oregon on April 17 upon its premiere as the opening night film of the Portland EcoFilm Festival.Additionally, the film will receive the Environmental Advocacy Award at the DC Environmental Film Festival on March 30.
The film will be available for pre-buy on the DamNation website through Vimeo On Demand in March, and will be released on Vimeo, along with iTunes and a number of other digital platforms in June, after the theatrical release. To view or embed the trailer on Vimeo, visit: vimeo.com/49700244
About the Film
DamNation is a film odyssey across America that explores the sea change in our national attitude from pride in big dams as engineering wonders to the growing awareness that our own future is bound to the life and health of our rivers. Dam removal has moved beyond the fictional Monkey Wrench Gang to go mainstream. Where obsolete dams come down, rivers bound back to life, giving salmon and other wild fish the right of return to primeval spawning grounds, after decades without access. DamNation’s majestic cinematography and unexpected discoveries move through rivers and landscapes altered by dams, but also through a metamorphosis in values, from conquest of the natural world to knowing ourselves as part of nature.
DamNation, 87 min, U.S., 2014. Directed by Ben Knight and Travis Rummel. Produced by Matt Stoecker and Travis Rummel. Editor: Ben Knight. Director of Photography: Ben Knight. Director of Underwater Photography: Matt Stoecker. Associate Producer: Beda Calhoun. Executive Producer: Yvon Chouinard. Featuring: David James Duncan, David Montgomery, Elmer Crow, Rebecca Miles Jim Waddell, Floyd Dominy, Katie Lee, Lee Spencer and Mikal Jakubal.
10, 9, 8… the DamNation premiere countdown has begun! After three years of planning, researching, shooting and editing, the film is finally complete. And we’re thrilled to announce the world premiere ofDamNation will be at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas on Monday, March 10, 2014.
It has been a huge team effort. To all of you who have been helping and following our progress, thank you for your patience, support and energy throughout the process. We are humbled by the continued interest and excitement around DamNation.
Making this film has been one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of our lives. To premiere DamNation at SXSW is an absolute dream come true. Our goal, since day one, has been to reach a broad audience with the film and we are confident that the size, location and diversity of events at SXSW will launch DamNationon an incredible journey.
For Everyone in Austin and Those Attending SXSW
Come to the premiere! We would love to see you there. The premiere screening on March 10 will be followed by a Q&A with Executive Producer Yvon Chouinard, Co-Directors Ben Knight and Travis Rummel, and Producer Matt Stoecker. There will be additional screenings on March 11, 13 and 14 in Austin. Details are on the SXSW Film page. Follow us on Facebook or Twitter for updates.
For Everyone Else Who Would Like to See the Film
Premiering the film is just the first step. DamNation will be screening at film festivals nationally and internationally throughout 2014. Sign on to our e-mail list to receive updates.
An Elwha River chinook comes to rest below the now removed Elwha Dam on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula (fall 2011). Photo by Ben Knight
Beyond film festivals, DamNation is set for U.S. theatrical release in New York and select markets in April/May, coupled with a nine-city U.S. tour of regional film premieres, and we are partnering with non-profit groups across the country to host screenings of the film in a town near you. The U.S. tour will be coming to Seattle, Portland (OR), San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, Denver, Washington DC, New York City and Portland (ME). Please join us at one of the tour stops – the whole film crew and some of the starring characters will be there, along with local non-profit groups who are working on river restoration projects in your area.
If you would like the film to come to your town, ask your local river restoration or recreation group, club, church or school to e-mail us. We are making it easy to show DamNation locally and will provide critical tools to help make your event a success. Non-profit and educational screenings begin May 1, 2014; our goal is to have over 500 screenings in 2014.
The film will be available for pre-buy on the DamNation website through Vimeo On Demand in March, and will be released on Vimeo, along with iTunes and a number of other digital platforms in June. As the distribution of DamNation evolves we will keep you posted. Stay tuned to DamNationFilm.com, Facebook and Twitter for the latest news, action alerts and updates.
We’re ready to blow this film up and we can’t wait for the premiere. As the explosives expert says before blasting an old dam, “Fire in the hole!”
A little over a year ago, a 125-foot-tall dam stood in Washington’s White Salmon River, a concrete plug with a serene reservoir at its back and a trickle of river spilling out downstream.
But it’s hard to tell that today.
The Condit Hydroelectric Dam, which was built in the early 1900s to harness the energy of the White Salmon for local industry, was blasted into the history books in October 2011 with 700 pounds of carefully placed dynamite.
The explosion, part of a phased project orchestrated by dam operator Pacificorp as an alternative to building costly fish passages, released the White Salmon River in a torrent of muddy water, debris and sediment, draining Northwestern Lake in less than two hours and freeing the river for the first time in almost a century.
Since that time, demolition crews have completed the removal of some 35,000 cubic yards of concrete, as well as logjams and other debris in the river.
And when public-access restrictions were lifted in early November, a group of boaters, river activists, biologists, rafting guides and kayakers converged for a historic float.
About 30 people — including individuals who had followed the dam-removal project since day one — piled into two rafts and 13 kayaks to float a section of river that had been reborn. The boaters paddled about five miles of class II and III rapids that wound through what used to be the reservoir and dam site.
“It was beyond fun,” said Tom O’Keefe of American Whitewater, a longtime proponent of the dam removal who helped organize the float. “This is a day that I’ve been waiting for for over a decade.”
Though it came together as kind of a spontaneous outing, what commenced was a jubilant and sincere celebration of a river’s revival.
Washington’s White Salmon river was officially opened to boaters this month after the removal of the Condit Dam, and spawning salmon have already been spotted upstream for the first time in a century. Photos by Ben Knight/DamNation
“We realized it was going to be the first official float down the river and it quickly turned into this great celebration,” said Amy Kober of American Rivers. “It was an incredibly meaningful experience to be there together, to float through the old dam site.”
The river was running clear — a huge contrast to the sediment-laden waters of a year ago — and on this characteristically drizzly fall day, it carried the boaters through deep canyons and past basalt outcroppings. Salmon passed the boats on their way up river; herons and ducks were spotted near the banks.
And compared to a year ago, when the water was chocolate-milk muddy and the landscape raw-looking from the release, signs of revitalization were everywhere.
“It was gorgeous,” Kober said. “You think back a year ago to when the blast happened, when all that sediment was let loose. Just a year later, the salmon are spawning in the lower river. It’s incredible how resilient the river and the salmon are. It’s a new river, and it’s still evolving so much.”
The Condit Hydroelectric Project was located a little more than three miles upstream from the confluence of the White Salmon and Columbia rivers. The section of the river above the reservoir, which is home to fantastic sections of whitewater, has long been popular with boaters. But it had an anticlimactic ending, Kober said.
“You would have this amazing run and then the takeout was at the reservoir. You would kind of emerge into this big flat water,” she said. “Now you can paddle it for miles and miles toward the Columbia.”
But freeing up a recreational use was only one reason advocates pushed for the dam to come down. They were also driven by a desire to see fish habitats and river ecology restored.
“It’s not just the recreational experience, it’s that whole experience of connecting with that river and everything that makes a healthy ecosystem,” O’Keefe said.
The group paddled through the former reservoir site, looking high above them to see the bathtub ring that once was a lake’s edge. They passed pillow basalts and waterfalls spilling into the river, before they came to where the dam once stood.
“You can hardly tell where the dam was, they did such a good job of cleaning it up,” O’Keefe said.
Passing the dam site, they pulled off onto a gravel bank to celebrate.
“We all sort of took in the moment, passed a bottle of champagne around. There were lots of hugs and cheering,” O’Keefe said. “I was thinking, all those years working on this project, that it’s not the Endangered Species Act, Federal Power Act … the economics, it wasn’t any of those things that ultimately made this happen. It was the people who cared about this river. It was that passion and excitement that made this happen. Seeing that was pretty fulfilling.”
Ben Knight, a filmmaker with Felt Soul Media who was there to document the event for Patagonia’s documentary project, DamNation, said people these days have become almost desensitized to seeing wild places developed or manipulated.
“But it’s incredibly rare to see things go back to the way they were before,” he said. “So seeing something returned back to its natural state is an awfully powerful thing to witness.” After the champagne toast, the group continued downstream, where they were able to run the new version of Steelhead Falls. The dam had previously diverted water around it, but now the class IV rapid was bouncy, dynamic and powerful – just what you would expect from a free-flowing river.
By Katie Klingsporn
About the Author Katie Klingsporn is a writer and editor of the Telluride Daily Planet in southwestern Colorado. Look for more of her posts highlighting issues featured in DamNation, a documentary film being produced by Patagonia and Stoecker Ecological in conjunction with the Colorado-based filmmaking team Felt Soul Media.
The Susitna is a huge glacial river that drains the indomitable Alaska Range. Denali looms on the horizon. One of America’s last great, wild, undammed rivers, it is home to large numbers of king, sockeye, pink, coho and chum salmon, which push through its heavy currents to spawn in its clear-water tributaries. The “Su” sees the fourth largest king salmon run in Alaska, producing hundreds of thousands of them each year.
Not only would a 42 mile reservoir have dire impacts to the 5 species of salmon and prime caribou and moose habitat on the Susitna River. It would flood 20,000 acres of pristine forest. Photo by Travis Rummel
The state of Alaska wants to build a 735-foot-high dam on the Susitna to generate electricity. It would be the nation’s second tallest. It’s not the first time the Su has been looked to as a potential source of hydropower. Studies done in the 1950s and ‘80s both explored the feasibility of damming the river. Both agreed that it didn’t make financial sense.
Today is no exception. There are no private investors currently interested in partnering with the state to build the dam. This says a lot about the economics of the project, which would cost an estimated $5.19 billion dollars – more than $7,000 per Alaskan and more than the state’s annual budget. The dam would have an estimated capacity of 300 megawatts of electricity (the Grand Coulee Dam can generate 7,000).
Old growth forests and the confluence of Kosina Creek and the Susitna River would be submerged under the proposed reservoir. Photo by Matt Stoecker
The dam would neither bring down the cost of customer’s electricity, nor help with Alaska’s critical heating needs. Its environmental impacts would be far worse than those of using natural gas, which exists in abundance and is currently used to power turbines and heat homes. Tidal, wind and geothermal power offer possible future substitutes.
Just above the proposed Susitna-Watana dam site, the clear, fast moving Deadman creek meets the main stem of the Susitna River. Photo by Travis Rummel
Wanting to float the 42 miles of river that might one day be destroyed by the dam’s reservoir, we traveled to Alaska to visit the dam site and document what would be submerged and buried under glacial sediment. The Susitna flows through Alaska-sized country—as cliché as it sounds. Nothing is small.
The lower river is accessible by jet boat, and the upper river is crossed just once by the Denali Highway. It is the remote in-between zone where the dam would be built. This was the target of our trip.
Every day of our float trip through the proposed reservoir zone we encountered hundreds of caribou. Photo by Travis Rummel
We floated five days from the McLaren River confluence to the mouth of Devil’s Canyon, where the normally broad river squeezes through a bedrock gorge to produce some of the largest and most challenging whitewater in North America. Covering more than a hundred river miles by boat, we saw groups of caribou, sometimes hundreds of them, around almost every bend. There were signs of wolves and bears along the banks, but not a single person; that is outside of the daily storm of helicopters hovering overhead that had been employed to study the proposed dam.
Upstream from Devil’s Canyon and the proposed dam site, we explored crystal-clear tributaries with world-class grayling fisheries, 200-foot waterfalls and river-side cliffs with falcons. We found hundreds more caribou along the extensive floodplain and thickly forested riparian zone. One huge gravel bar within the dam site’s proposed reservoir appeared to be a caribou proving ground. Half a dozen huge males jousted, their massive antlers colliding, while a hundred females circled and watched the display.
Another stout Susitna king salmon powers up one of the many clear spawning tributaries. Photo by Matt Stoecker
At one of our campsites near the mouth of Kosina Creek, we sipped whiskey while watching group after group of caribou come down the opposite river bank, swim the frigid 1/2 mile-wide-river and land on both sides of us under a fading pink and purple sky. We’d read studies and heard reports of tenacious chinook salmon spawning in this beautiful tributary after powering through Devil’s Canyon – undoubtedly one of the hardest salmon migrations in North America.
Trying to tame the mighty Susitna seems foolish, particularly since the river is entombed in ice much of the year. That any “scientist” being paid to study the proposed dam would call this place a “biological desert,” as we’d heard, or any government proposing to destroy it in the name of “green energy,” seems too ridiculous to fathom. But this is what’s said and what’s planned.
A pod of pink salmon emerge from the Susitna’s silty currents and hug the bank as they continue upstream. Photo by Matt Stoecker
The state of Alaska has authorized expenditures of $165 million to push the project through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s expedited permitting process. As farcical as it might sound, the project is very real.
“It’s like finding out that your best friend has been diagnosed with terminal cancer,” said Mike Wood, who lives on the bank of the river with his wife.
By Matt Stoecker and Travis Rummel
Just a few miles upstream of the proposed dam site, this entire scene would be drowned under a stagnant reservoir. Photo by Matt Stoecker
Check out this footage from one of the first whitewater descents of Devil’s Canyon:
In July of 2011, Felt Soul Media filmmakers, Ben Knight and Travis Rummel, packed camera gear, computers and a few changes of clothing into a borrowed Sportsmobile van, braced themselves for a whole lot of time together and hit the road.
It was the beginning of a 9,000-mile journey across the U.S. and beyond to research, chronicle and wrap their heads around a growing movement to tear down obsolete dams.
Co-director Travis Rummel in the field during the filming of DamNation.
Over the next year and a half, Knight and Rummel — often joined by biologist, river advocate and cameraman Matt Stoecker — traveled from Maine to California to document some of the issues surrounding America’s 80,000 dams. They interviewed a spitfire folk-singing nonagenarian who has been railing against the Glen Canyon Dam for more than 50 years, joined a group of boaters on a historic trip down a Washington river that was free-flowing for the first time in nearly a century and witnessed the removals of the 100-year-old Elwha and Glines Canyon dams on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula – the biggest dams to fall in U.S. history. They talked to biologists and writers, monkey wrenchers, politicians, archeologists and fishermen. They met a man who spends his days holding vigil over endangered steelhead, and another who had lost his job because the dam he had worked at for years shut down. They launched a failed kayaking mission down the dammed lower Snake River, filmed underwater scenes in cold rivers, hid in the woods a few times and learned that it’s illegal to film at many U.S. dams. And they shared in the hope of the lower Elwha Klallam tribe that the salmon that once thrived in that river’s pre-dammed waters will now return.
Since both started out knowing relatively little about dams, it was, as Knight puts it, “one hell of a crash course.”
The material they gathered with Stoecker — 51 interviews and 10 terabytes of footage — is now being shaped into a feature-length documentary called DamNation. Knight has been holed up in his tiny editing office in Telluride, Colorado, for the better part of the year, stitching together a compelling and beautifully shot story about how the time has come for America to rethink its dams.
Matt Stoecker, co-producer, getting a camera into position the day before explosives blasted a hole into the Condit Dam in Washington.
The documentary is being created in partnership with producers Patagonia and Stoecker Ecological, who pitched the movie to Felt Soul Media in late 2010. Initially, Rummel and Knight — who built their grassroots film company on the success of a handful of films about fly-fishing and watersheds — were reluctant. Dam issues are incredibly complex, and can, Knight says, be pretty dull. But once they dug into the subject, they realized that many of the dams that shaped this country also wiped out salmon, destroyed towns, altered rivers and, in many instances, long ago outlived their usefulness.
“It’s been transformative for us as filmmakers to understand how much our environment has been impacted by dams,” Rummel said.
Both admit that the scope and complexity of the issue makes this the biggest challenge they’ve ever taken on. To open people’s minds to the idea of dam removal, they are telling the story through the lives, historic events and rivers that have been shaped by the building of dams.
“I don’t want anyone to feel like they’ve been force-fed information, or worse … an opinion,” Knight said. “I want to get it right.”
“We’re not advocating taking out every dam,” Rummel added. “We’re advocating thinking about dams in a different way.”
DamNation editor Ben Knight at his office in Telluride, CO.
Knight has spent many nights hunched in front of his computer screens editing into the wee hours, fueled by Red Bull and cookies from the bakery down the alley. He jokes that his new office chair has a bedpan built in, and Patagonia has hired a registered nurse to check on his IV and feeding tube from time to time. But really, he says, he’s trying to tell an accurate story. It’s too important not to.
“Just knowing that we’re making an incredibly important film for a group of people and a company that we deeply respect is personally the biggest honor I could imagine,” Knight said. “If people see DamNation and feel inspired to ask questions about the impacts of dams in their backyards, I think we’ve done our job.”
The film is more than half way there — Felt Soul is hoping to have it finished by early fall.
Until then, Knight will be living at his editing desk. And both he and Rummel are happy that van life is over, for now.
By Katie Klingsporn
About the Author Katie Klingsporn is a writer and editor of the Telluride Daily Planet in southwestern Colorado. Look for more of her posts highlighting issues featured in “DamNation” a documentary being produced by Patagonia and Stoecker Ecological in conjunction with the Colorado-based filmmaking team Felt Soul Media.
The one and only Katie Lee, outside her home in Jerome, Arizona after her interview for DamNation this fall. Photo by Ben Knight
Folk-singer, desert goddess, rabble-rouser and all-out spitfire Katie Lee has been raging against Glen Canyon Dam and its reservoir, Lake Powell, for more than 50 years.
And she’s not slowing down.
Lee, who is featured in “DamNation,” a documentary film produced by Patagonia and Stoecker Ecological in conjunction with Felt Soul Media, has penned protest songs and authored books about Glen Canyon, the dam and the Southwest over the years. Just now wrapping up her latest project, “Dandy Crossing,” she tells the story of the handful of people who once lived at Hite, a river crossing that was drowned by Lake Powell, and what happened to them after they were forced from their homes.
Lee, who is in her 90s, also serves on the advisory board of the Glen Canyon Institute, an environmental group that advocates the draining of Lake Powell and the restoration of the Colorado River. She still performs and speaks for educational and non-profit organizations, as well.
“I haven’t quit, I’m still moaning and groaning about it,” she said recently from her home in Jerome, Arizona. “What else am I going to do? I know who I am, I know what I’m supposed to do and I do it. And until I drop, that’s what I’ll do.”
It was nearly 60 years ago when Lee first floated into the red-rock labyrinth of Glen Canyon, but her memory of that place hasn’t faded a bit. She recalls a desert Eden of soaring Wingate walls, ancient ruins, maidenhair fern, canyon wrens and little arches everywhere.
“It took me by the throat and it’s had me ever since,” Lee said. “There’s no way to describe it, it was just absolutely heaven. I mean, it was another world.”
Lee, then a petite starlet and luminous folk-singer, who entertained raft trips with songs, fell headlong for Glen Canyon. Over the next couple years, she rafted and floated the Colorado and San Juan rivers dozens of times, exploring and naming the mazelike system of side-canyons, swimming in the canyon’s pools, running the rapids and becoming one of the most enduring characters of Colorado River lore.
It was nearly 60 years ago when Katie Lee first explored the red rock labyrinth of Glen Canyon. Now 93, her memory of that place, which was drowned by the construction of Glen Canyon Dam, hasn’t faded a bit. Photo courtesy of the Katie Lee Collection
She and her friends mostly ignored early rumblings that a dam was coming, she said, because it seemed too implausible, too stupid to happen. And despite their fervent, forceful protests later on, construction commenced in 1956. The 710-foot-high concrete arch dam was completed in 1963, 15 miles upstream of Lee’s Ferry. In what has become a well-told narrative, the dam, which was built to create hydroelectricity, store water and provide flow regulation, then inundated one of the most breathtaking canyon systems in the country, leaving Lee both deeply broken-hearted and spitting mad.
In the six decades since, Lee has emerged as one of the most colorful, vocal and sharp-tongued advocates for preservation of wild places in the Southwest. She is outrageous, mischievous, feisty, graceful, fearless and determined. Not afraid to call a shithead a shithead, sing an incendiary protest song or ride her bicycle naked through town, she calls Lake Powell “Rez Foul,” and has openly insulted U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) officials. And she’s not shy about her dreams for the future of Glen Canyon Dam.
“I would like the dam to blow up completely all in one fell swoop, clean out the grand canyon, get rid of all that crap that’s in there now and be a river again,” said Lee.
The dam has drastically changed the Colorado River watershed by decreasing sediment loads, threatening native fish, taming a wild river and drowning a world of grottoes, spires, canyons and cliffs under the second largest manmade reservoir in the United States. Lake Powell, which sits beneath breathtaking red-rock walls, has a storage capacity of 27 million acre-feet and stretches 186 miles when it is full.
The Glen Canyon Institute, which was founded in 1996, has for years worked to restore Glen Canyon. Its scientific studies of the dam’s impacts helped win a lawsuit forcing the Bureau of Reclamation to re-evaluate how dam operations affect endangered species.
But right now, there are no plans to decommission the dam and drain the reservoir. And that’s good news to many people. The hugely popular recreation area draws roughly 3 million boaters, water-skiers, campers and fishermen to its shores each year, according to the USBR.
To Lee, the dam is an ugly reminder of one of America’s biggest mistakes. And though it may not happen in her lifetime, she is confident that if people don’t get rid of it, Mother Nature will, with time.
With recent large-scale dam-removal projects unfolding in places like the Northwest, Lee says the awareness is starting to grow about the harm that can be caused by dams. But her advice for people goes beyond dams: Protect what you love, or you may lose it.
“You better get off your butts and get out and protect what you love, because if you don’t make a noise, people won’t know what’s there, and if you make too much noise you’ll ruin it too,” she said. “I was so lucky to see [Glen Canyon], just so fortunate. That’s a gift that I will never be able to repay.
By Katie Klingsporn
About the Author Katie Klingsporn is a writer and editor of the Telluride Daily Planet in southwestern Colorado. Look for more of her posts highlighting issues featured in “DamNation” a documentary being produced by Patagonia and Stoecker Ecological in conjunction with the Colorado-based filmmaking team Felt Soul Media.
Hidden behind the fences of Stanford’s Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, Searsville Dam creates a stagnant reservoir where algae and non-native species thrive while steelhead and other threatened species are trapped downstream.
Matt Stoecker spent his childhood tromping around in the creeks of the San Franciquito watershed where he grew up, hunting for frogs, fishing and exploring.
One day in the mid-90s, he found himself below the 65-foot-tall Searsville Dam on the Corte Madera Creek when he experienced a seminal moment: He saw a 30-inch steelhead jump out of the water and smash itself against the dam.
He had never seen a fish that size in the creek, and he was struck at the power and futility he witnessed.
Stoecker soon began volunteering with the San Francisquito Watershed Council, then started a steelhead task force and has been working to remove small dams and other fish barriers in the watershed ever since.
But all along, he said, “Searsville Dam was the biggest limiting factor.”
The dam, which is owned by Stanford University, was recently pushed into the spotlight because of a major sedimentation problem in the reservoir, a large-scale study of the dam, a federal investigation into possible violations of the Endangered Species Act and a lawsuit against Stanford.
While university officials argue that dismantling the dam could jeopardize the reservoir’s riparian ecosystems and threaten downstream communities, Stoecker and other environmentalists say it’s been blocking fish passage for too long and it’s time for the dam to come down.
“It’s an antiquated, environmentally harmful reservoir that’s at the end of its useful life,” Stoecker said.
Searsville Dam and Reservoir sit amid the oak stands and serpentine grasslands of the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, a 1,189-acre outdoor laboratory used by Stanford University for research and education. The reservoir, which was created by the damming of Corte Madera Creek in 1892, was acquired by Stanford in 1919. Today it serves to store non-potable water for landscape irrigation at the school.
San Francisquito Creek contains one of the last wild steelhead runs in the South San Francisco Bay, but Searsville Dam directly blocks their annual migration upstream to approximately 20 miles of former spawning and rearing habitat.
But over the years, the reservoir has filled with an estimated 1.5 million cubic yards of silts, gravels and woody debris that have cost it more than 90 percent of its original capacity. Some experts estimate that the reservoir could fill entirely within a decade. Along with loss of the reservoir, sedimentation behind the dam threatens surrounding communities with possible flooding.
The sedimentation issue helped prompt Stanford to form a 12-person steering committee in 2011 to study its options. The study is examining such things as Stanford’s long-term water needs, fish passage, flood risks, the costs of dredging and the impact on university research programs.
According to Stanford, expert consultants are studying a number of options, including dredging, allowing the reservoir to continue to fill and transition to a marsh, modifying the dam and removing the dam altogether.
“From my perspective, the overall goal is to figure out what is the best, most responsible way to manage this watershed,” said Chris Field, faculty director of Jasper Ridge and professor of biology and of environmental Earth system science, who co-chairs the steering committee. “It’s a lot to learn and, at least for me, it’s important that we do a really good, thorough job … My feeling is that these issues are ones that have taken decades to build up, and we want to make sure any course of action we recommend is thought through deeply and also recognizes all the stakeholders.”
Complicating the issue is the role the reservoir plays in the preserve.
The reservoir, Field said, is home to beautiful open water and wetland habitats used by a large number of nesting and migratory birds. It sustains habitats for diverse plants and animals, including bats, salamanders and fish. It has also served the university as a living classroom for many years.
Despite that, Field said, the university “doesn’t have a preset goal of preserving the lake.”
Stanford anticipates completing the initial set of studies and recommendations in 2014. Its president and provost will ultimately decide how to act on them.
Stoecker, who is now a biologist, had been pushing for a deeper look at Searsville Dam long before the school initiated its study.
In 1999 he helped start a steelhead task force for the San Francisquito Watershed Council, which identified Searsville as the biggest barrier to migrating steelhead in the watershed, a primary source of non-native species and a principle contributor to the degradation of habitat. In 2001, along with Stanford and others, he helped form the Searsville Dam Working Group. It got the California Department of Water Resources to offer to fund an analysis of options for the dam — an offer Stanford declined.
“Since then, every time we tried to bring up finding a Searsville solution that worked for everyone, folks from Stanford didn’t want to talk about it,” Stoecker said.
In 2008, Stoecker formed Beyond Searsville Dam in partnership with American Rivers to push for a serious consideration of dam removal.
Searsville Dam was built by the Spring Valley Water Company to supply drinking water to residents of the San Francisco Peninsula, but it never did. Instead, Stoecker said, for more than a century it has impeded fish passage to historic habitat, dewatered downstream creeks and blocked the transport of gravels, woody debris and sediment that is vital to a healthy river system and the San Francisco Bay. The reservoir flooded and buried a valley where several streams once merged among wetlands and riparian forests, and has created an artificial habitat for non-native and invasive species.
Native rainbow trout (descendants of sea-run steelhead) persist in creeks upstream of Searsville, but are at risk of being wiped out due to inbreeding caused by the impassable dam and lack of returning steelhead to maintain genetic diversity.
“Each year as it fills in more and more, it becomes less useful, more problematic and more expensive to fix,” Stoecker said, adding that Searsville provides a small amount of water to the university, which has plenty of options for water storage that do not imperil wildlife.
“There are definitely better and less harmful ways of getting water and eliminating the need for this dam,” he said. “Based on other projects that have happened or are under way, and on studies from our nation’s top scientists, dam removal and low-impact water supply upgrades are preferable in terms of benefit to the ecosystem, surrounding communities and Stanford.”
Steve Rothert, California director of American Rivers, who also grew up upstream of the dam, said Stanford has “time and again missed opportunities to take initiative and take a leadership role in this.
“I think Stanford has a phenomenal opportunity to create another broad set of studies that would be associated with the changes that would take place with removal of the dam and recovery of the natural ecosystem,” he said.
Rothert said he is encouraged by Stanford’s current study, and thinks the committee consists of capable and committed people. But, he said, the fate of the reservoir is ultimately up to university officials, not steering committee members, and the university has appeared reluctant to open up the process.
For Rothert, the study would ideally lead to a project that provides fish with unhindered access to the upper basin, the safe transport of sediment and wood and water downstream, and provides Stanford with the opportunity “to regain a principled posture on this issue that is consistent with its image as a leader in science.”
In January, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) announced it is investigating whether Stanford is violating the Endangered Species Act (ESA) through its operation of Searsville Dam. Steelhead in this watershed are considered “threatened,” and as such, have been protected since 1997 under the ESA. (A “take” is an action that kills, harms or harasses a threatened or endangered species.)
Following that news, two environmental groups — Our Children’s Earth Foundation and the Ecological Rights Foundation — filed a suit against the university alleging it is violating the ESA for harming steelhead trout.
Stanford officials have expressed confidence that the school has not violated the act.
“The university believes that it is in full compliance with the Endangered Species Act and all local, state and federal laws in its operations of Searsville Dam and Reservoir,” states a FAQ put together by Stanford.
But Stoecker and Rothert, along with their legal team, disagree.
“There are clear impacts on the fish from blocked passage to dewatered habitat that we think constitute a violation of the ESA,” Rothert said. “We think the situation definitely warrants an investigation.”
By Katie Klingsporn
About the Author Katie Klingsporn is a writer and editor of the Telluride Daily Planet in southwestern Colorado. Look for more of her posts highlighting issues featured in DamNation a documentary film being produced by Patagonia and Stoecker Productions in conjunction with the Colorado-based filmmaking team Felt Soul Media.
The 210 foot Glines Canyon Dam in Olympic National Park has illegally blocked spawning habitat for an extraordinary chinook salmon run since 1927. Photo by Ben Knight/DamNation
In September of 2011, machines began chipping away at the Elwha Dam in Washington’s lush Olympic Peninsula, kicking off the largest dam-removal project in United States history.
The dam has since been completely removed from the section of the Elwha River it had occupied since 1913. Another dam upstream, the Glines Canyon Dam, located in Olympic National Park, is partially dismantled and expected to be a thing of the past by early next summer, freeing the river for the first time in 100 years.
The landmark project is the culmination of a costly, multi-year river-recovery effort put together by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and a coalition of state and federal entities. The idea is to reconnect a severed river, one in which the hundreds of thousands of adult salmon that used to spawn each year have dwindled to a few thousand.
But while it represents an impressive set of partnerships and a noble cause, it is also a grand experiment. Dam removal of this scale has never been done in the U.S. And with a staggering 24 million cubic yards of sediment being released into the river, there were some doubts about the project’s success.
So far, though, it’s been a promising story of recovery.
Within weeks of the Elwha coming down, fish were observed moving beyond the site of the former dam. Recolonizing adult coho salmon and wild winter steelhead reached well beyond within seven months. And in August, adult chinook salmon were seen in the park — the first observed salmon to naturally migrate into the watershed.
“So far it’s been good,” George Pess, a scientist with NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center who has been working on the Elwha for years, said this fall. “I think things have worked out pretty well. The fish have responded favorably.”
Biologists this winter have been keeping a close eye on the coho and chum salmon expected to migrate upstream to spawn during the fish window of November and December. Although turbidity is high in the river — due in part to increased rainfall — up to 5,000 coho and chum could make their way upstream, according to the Park Service.
Meanwhile, the high stream-flow and heavy turbidity have been transporting a great deal of sediment down the river, which is causing dramatic changes as it fills in pools, creates new beaches and reshapes the river.
Recovery isn’t limited to the river channel. Biologists have been replanting a forest of new vegetation along the banks of the river and at the sites of the two reservoirs that once sat above the dams. And the transportation of nutrients that salmon bring to an ecosystem has begun.
As the Elwha Dam was removed its reservoir receded, revealing beautifully preserved old growth cedar stumps and sites of cultural signifigance to the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. Photo by Ben Knight/DamNation
Another noteworthy piece of the project, said Barb Maynes, a public affairs officer for Olympic National Park, is cultural recovery. In August, members of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe gathered at their people’s sacred creation site — long buried by the waters of one of the reservoirs — for the first time in 100 years.
“It’s been a really exciting year since dam removal started,” Maynes said. Dylan Tomine, a Patagonia fly-fishing ambassador, author and Wild Steelhead Coalition trustee, noted that the Elwha provides an excellent opportunity to test post-dam river recovery because it’s in pristine habitat.
“I think it’s really just an incredibly interesting laboratory to see how nature responds to this kind of thing,” Tomine said.
Right now, Tomine said, the Elwha’s not the prettiest place in the world. The water is loaded with sediment and what once were reservoirs are now dry lakebeds.
“But it’s been very encouraging,” he added. “To be able to see the river carving its own path again, without sounding too sappy, it’s a pretty moving thing.” The only fly in the ointment for Tomine is the presence of a hatchery on the river; he would rather see fish returning naturally. But overall, he says it holds a great deal of promise, demonstrating what can happen if people are committed enough to a cause.
“The fact that we seem to be in an age of actually removing dams is pretty amazing,” Tomine said.
Workers are removing the Glines Canyon Dam gradually to allow the river to flush out sediment over time. Downward notching is on hold until January for the winter fish window.
Before the dams were built — the Elwha in 1913, and the Glines Canyon in 1927 — an estimated 400,000 adult salmon swam up the Elwha River each year to spawn, including monster Chinook that weighed up to 100 pounds. Steelhead and trout populations were also robust.
Annual salmon populations have dwindled to just a few thousand, but the Park Service is hoping their numbers return to historic proportions in the coming decades.
Tomine is optimistic.
“I think we’re going to see the project being completed and the river returning to its natural state. It’s really an example of people working together and really sticking to it,” he said.
By Katie Klingsporn
About the Author Katie Klingsporn is a writer and editor of the Telluride Daily Planet in southwestern Colorado. Look for more of her posts highlighting issues featured in DamNation a documentary film being produced by Patagonia and Stoecker Productions in conjunction with the Colorado-based filmmaking team Felt Soul Media.
Executive Producer of DamNation and Patagonia founder, Yvon Chouinard, has long been an advocate of dam busting and protecting free flowing rivers. Photo by Tim Davis.
Despite their imposing numbers and size, most people never give dams a second thought.
Patagonia founder and owner Yvon Chouinard is not one of those people.
When he sees dams, he sees broken waterways, an antiquated way of thinking and a means of generating energy that is far from green. He also sees the potential to mend the damage by taking down dams.
“I’m a fisherman, and I want to see fish come back to these rivers,” Chouinard said. “I want to establish that when you put in a dam or when you dig an open-pit mine or scrape down a mountain, that you have to restore it. There’s a public trust there and you have to restore it.”
Chouinard [...] and biologist Matt Stoecker, are at the forefront of a growing movement to decommission dams in America. The best way to do that, they figure, is by raising public awareness and support. And they believe the public will only support dam removal if they understand the complexities.
That’s the idea behind DamNation, a feature documentary produced by Patagonia and Stoecker Ecological in conjunction with the Colorado-based filmmaking team Felt Soul Media.
The film, which will be released in spring 2013, explores successful dam-removals, looks at dams that are subject of current removal fights and shines a light on others eyed for future dismantling. It paints the history of dam building in America, and chronicles the evolution of dam-busters from the radical monkey-wrenchers of yore to the tie-wearing coalition-builders of today. It focuses on some of the pivotal figures on either side of the dam issue.
Shooting began last summer, with filmmakers Ben Knight, Travis Rummel and Stoecker gathering footage from Maine to California.
Matt Stoecker, DamNation’s co-producer and underwater cinematographer, takes a break above water while filming below the Elwha Dam before its removal. Photo by Ben Knight
Though Chouinard and Stoecker aren’t shy about their position on taking down dams,DamNation seeks to explore the issue fairly. The filmmakers interview the farmers who rely on dams to irrigate their fields, Native people whose cultures’ depend on the salmon that dams have destroyed, and legislators who view dam opponents as environmental extremists. They speak with scientists, dam employees and others.
“Our goal is to let the audience make up their own minds by giving them all sides of the issue,” Rummel said. “I don’t think it’s a black and white issue where it’s take out every dam.”
Despite their usefulness, dams have hugely impacted the rivers they were built in, and many have outlasted their purpose.
“I think the public is unaware of this,” said Chouinard. “I don’t think they realize that there’s a lifespan for these things.”
Chouinard has been working for two decades to take out dams, and he has discovered a pattern. Efforts typically begin with a small grassroots group that faces a steep uphill battle. Opponents are powerful, red tape is plentiful and many who are involved are resistant to change. If the group does manage to make it through the bureaucratic and permitting thickets and gain funding, support and success, it’s only through years of really hard work.
“But then the dam comes down and the river begins to almost instantaneously heal,” Chouinard said. “And then there’s not one person who says, ‘gee that was a mistake.’”
The impetus for DamNation came from the desire to mainstream dam removal by showing the many benefits that result. Stoecker, who worked to successfully remove his first dam 10 years ago, noted that while dam-busting used to be a fringe idea, it’s now one routinely considered by governments and dam owners, as well as environmentalists.
“Now we’ve got less harmful alternatives,” said Stoecker. “There’s been a total shift in thinking.”
A good example of this new mindset, he said, can be found on the Elwha River in Washington, where a coalition of Native tribes, environmental groups and government officials worked together to take out the biggest dams in U.S history — the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams in and near Olympic National Park (a project featured in the film).
“There are wild steelhead and salmon returning to the river above the Elwha Dam site before the project’s even done,” Stoecker said.
Chouinard hopes DamNation will open people’s eyes.
“I just hope it gets around to a lot of people and changes their way of thinking about dams,” he said. “I’d like to see a few more dams come down in my lifetime.”
By Katie Klingsporn
Katie Klingsporn is a writer and editor of the Telluride Daily Planet in southwestern Colorado. Look for more of her posts highlighting both the development of “DamNation” and the issues surrounding the complex topic of dam removal in America.
We’ve heard of a non-profit raising money to save something, but have you ever heard of buying something to destroy it? Well, that’s the idea Laura Rose Day [left], executive director of the Penobscot River Restoration Trust put into action.
In December 2010, a group of organizations working together as the Penobscot River Restoration Trust officially took possession of the Veazie, Great Works and Howland dams from Pennsylvania Power and Light in a historic deal worth $24 million.
From Kevin Miller at the Bangor Daily News: Under an agreement brokered in 2004, PPL agreed to sell the three dams to the trust for roughly $25 million. PPL, in return, gained authorization to increase power generation at six other dams along the river, entirely offsetting the generation losses incurred when the Veazie, Howland and Great Works dams are decommissioned.
“This landmark partnership has proven that business, government and interested citizens can reach mutually agreeable solutions that benefit the community, the economy and the environment,” Dennis Murphy, a vice president and chief operating officer at PPL, said in a statement Monday.
Once complete, the project will have reopened nearly 1,000 miles of river and streams within the Penobscot watershed to endangered Atlantic salmon, sturgeon, American shad, alewives and seven other species of migratory, sea-run fish. In turn, those species help support other commercially important species, such as cod and lobster.
“This may well turn out to be the most important day for Atlantic salmon in the past 200 years,” Bill Taylor, president of the Atlantic Salmon Federation, said in a statement Monday. “The Penobscot project is our best — and perhaps last — chance of restoring a major run of wild Atlantic salmon in the United States.”
But supporters insist fish and other wildlife won’t be the only beneficiaries. They also predict that fishermen and tourists will be drawn to the freer-flowing river. The Penobscot endeavor has been hailed internationally as a model river restoration project. [Kevin Miller, Bangor Daily News]
Demolition of the Great Works Dam [pictured above with Laura Rose Day] is slated to begin in the summer of 2012. There’s a damn good chance it’ll be the biggest party Bangor Maine has ever thrown.
DamNation Q&A featured on Outside Magazine’s Adventure Ethics Blog
Outside Magazine’s Adventure Ethics blog featured a Q&A with our producers Matt Stoecker and Travis Rummel. Huge thanks to Mary Catherine O’Conner for the thoughtful questions.
Ok, two things: the above photo of Washington’s lower Elwha Dam was taken about six months ago. It is now GONE. Secondly, I had to look up the word “synopsis” which is probably a bad sign when you’re writing a synopsis. Oh well, don’t judge.
Ninety-nine years after Olympic National Park’s Elwha River was illegally dammed, wild Chinook salmon still instinctively gather at the foot of the lower dam as if they sense a change in the current. Upstream, the usual low rumble of antique turbines generating electricity has faded, and the piercing sound of an excavator-mounted jackhammer reverberates off the 210-foot tall Glines Canyon Dam. De-construction crews have begun the painstaking process of chipping away at its mossy, con-caved facade. This moment marks the beginning of the largest dam removal in US history, unveiling the best opportunity for wild salmon recovery in the country.
Dam removal is no longer the work of a fictional Monkey Wrench Gang. It’s real, upon us, a cornerstone of the modern environmental and cultural movements. The benefits from dams, including hydropower, urban water supply, irrigation, and flood protection have played a critical role in the development of the United States—but river ecosystems and Native American heritage suffered greatly. Now, many of these antiquated relics of the industrial revolution are classified as public safety hazards by the Army Corps of Engineers.
The short-sighted development of a bygone era is growing more prevalent—In many cases, the high cost of retrofitting an aging dam, and meeting current environmental standards has led to a surprising shift in thinking: Dam owners, impacted communities, and politicians are now reevaluating the usefulness of certain dams and often advocating for decommissioning and removal. Some call it a movement, others call it a generational shift in values. Regardless of what it’s dubbed, an undeniable momentum behind river restoration has begun.
DamNation is a collection of empassioned voices and spirited stories from the people entrenched on both sides of this devisive issue. Examining the history and controversy behind current and proposed dam removal projects, DamNation presents a dynamic perspective on Man’s attempt to harness and control the power of water at the expense of nature. Nothing lasts forever, not even the concrete monoliths that have impounded America’s free flowing rivers in the name of “progress” for ages.
A huge scissors and a dotted line appear on a dam near Ojai. The message: Tear it down.
If life imitated art, it would be a simple matter to follow the dotted line and snip a 200-foot dam near Ojai off the face of the earth. For years, an alliance of environmentalists, fishermen, surfers and officials from every level of government has called for demolishing the obsolete structure. Now, an anonymous band of artists has weighed in, apparently rappelling down the dam’s face to paint a huge pair of scissors and a long dotted line. The carefully planned work popped up last week and is, no doubt, Ventura County’s most environmentally correct graffiti by a dam site.
“Everyone I’ve talked to has really enjoyed it,” said Jeff Pratt, Ventura County’s public works director. “It sends a good message.” That message? Tear the thing down already.
Matilija Dam was built in 1947 for flood control and water storage. But officials say it was flawed from the outset. For decades, it’s been holding back silt as much as water, depriving beaches 17 miles downstream of the sand they need to replenish themselves.It’s also been deemed a huge obstacle for steelhead trout, an endangered species that was once a trophy fish luring anglers from across the country.
Officials say they don’t know who painted the shears, and they’re careful to note that such acts — even in the name of art — are illegal and dangerous. The dam is challenging enough that rescue squads use it for climbing practice, pounding in metal anchors that may have aided the scissors hands. But even if the painting is no more legal than garden-variety graffiti, some say it speaks to the takedown’s glacial pace.
“We’ve studied this to death and talked about it forever,” said Paul Jenkin of the Matilija Coalition, an alliance of community groups pushing for the dam’s removal. “There’s very strong support from the community, and that’s part of what we’re seeing with the graffiti.”
Coincidentally, environmentalists, county officials, the Army Corps of Engineers and others concerned about Matilija met on Wednesday — the morning a story about the mystery shears appeared on the front page of the Ventura County Star. The group is facing obstacles comparable to those of the steelhead trout: six million cubic yards of silt, an earthquake fault, and costs estimated at more than $140 million. In better times, federal funding seemed close at hand — but now, not so much. The current plan is ambitious enough: Take pressure off the aging structure by chopping 20 feet off the top and allowing more sediment to wash downstream. Meanwhile, the artwork will stay in place. ”It’s certainly raised awareness,” Pratt said. [Steve Chawkins, LA Times, Sept. 19, 2011]
Thanks to a bit of inspiration from author Steven Hawley, we paid our respects to Idaho’s Sunbeam Dam on the Salmon River. Constructed in 1910 to provide power to a near-by mining operation, little thought was given to the fact that it blocked fish passage—most importantly to the Idaho sockeye. Today, about two thirds of the original structure remains—but the details of how it was breached in 1934 are surprisingly foggy. Idaho Fish and Game supposedly had a line item on the budget for demolition of the dam in 1930, but Hawley says it went unpaid. What’s left of the Sunbeam tombstone may be our earliest example of river restoration done right: blow the son-of-a-bitch up, and the river will take care of the rest.
DamNation producer and career restoration ecologist Matt Stoecker emerges from the deep, cold, creepy currents of Elwha Dam’s river right spillway. We lent Matt our underwater housing and he’s been taking care of all our aquatic wildlife needs. The Chinook were a bit timid that day, but he was able to sneak up on a couple pinks doing unmentionable acts of fish love just a dozen yards downstream. Take a gander at this hot profile Chris Malloy and Jason Baffa put together on Matt for Patagonia’s “PreOCCUPATIONS” series:
A photo of a trap and haul truck, taken by Matt Stoecker
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