Shad, here on the other coast. And the already extinct native trout, of course.
Some local hippies helped remove the Milltown Dam in Montana. They were wrong?
I donāt want to commit to any such opinion based on a cursory reading of a wikipedia article; that would be exactly the kind of soft-headed rush to judgement that Iām complaining about.
Nearly all the dam dynamiters around here are impervious to science, history or reason; they are crusaders and dams are their devil. If you want to replace a dangerous, environmentally harmful dam with a dam that would provably benefit both the local human community and the remaining native species, theyāll fight you tooth and nail.
3 Likes
So about supporting beaver.
I live in a highly suburban area, and there are beaver around. Hell I have seen one in an artificial pond by an office building in Schaumburg, IL
If you can support beaver repopulation in your area thatās awesome! (Make sure you have good drinking water filters, though.)
So I spoke to a fluvial geomorphologist about dams.
They have a design problem. Silt build up. It happens to every one of them.
Did you find a solution to that one?
1 Like
I actually know a professional fluvial geomorphologist too! Melinda Daniels, out at the Stroud Center, who studies the influence of large woody debris (i.e. fallen trees) on watercourses.
Anyway, silt building up is a feature, in the case of beaver dams; the native species of North America have evolved with it. The dams become heavily forested, the stream reaches the new level, the beavers move on, and the rich new bottomland becomes a field or woods. Sedimentation is a problem for most human-built dams, though - you can find a great many scholarly papers about it.
In very old, very obstructive dams that are still working, I think they generally do periodic releases from gates at the bottom of the dam to flush out sediments before they pack down too much. Iāve seen it done in West Virginia that way. But research is ongoing towards more sustainable, less destructive silt managment. Itās not simply a dichotomy of ālet it silt upā or ācreate a sluice that sends everything to the sea to become a major problem thereā. We can and should do more and better science, instead of just blowing up everything without regard for local conditions.
Hey, @hello_friends, the more I read about it the more I think the removal of the Milltown Dam was probably the best available option. But I keep getting dragged off into the fascinating history of Anaconda Copperā¦ I knew the copper barons were pretty nasty, but man, it was even worse than I thought.
Edit: did the people of Opportunity ever get a new water supply, or are they going to be the next Flint since thousands of tons of toxic waste from the Milltown Dam and other sites has been dumped in their laps?
So beyond silt, what are the dam designs you are talking about that are better for the environment?
ā¦and gun safety.
Well, what I want is more better designs! But there are already lots of designs that are notably better than most of the stuff people are so hot to blow up. Are you familiar with hydropower at all? Turbines are mostly fish shredders, but there are flexible vane flow-through designs now, and fish ladders are a thing, and the Poncelet wheel has a tremendous unrealized potential (it was basically not exploited because it was a stepping stone to turbines like the Francis). And as far as dam safety is concerned, just building them with sloped faces on the back side (instead of like walls) is a huge improvement.
The important idea is that dams are a vital part of my local environment that everything here has been adapting to for millions of years. Killing all the beaver and putting in concrete wall dams was a terrible environmental disaster. Removing all the (admittedly bad) dams will be even worse, and thatās easily shown - weāve already made three related species almost completely extinct, that were the basis of the entire local stream ecosystem, which is currently mostly dead (and I speak as a person who has the cleanest known stream in the state flowing through my property - itās mostly dead, too shallow and hot to support native trout, shad, or the critically important Margaritifera freshwater bivalves). My stream was once a thriving fishery and the native stone walls of my basement contain shell fragments from Margaritifera; the destruction of the natural impoundments occurred in very recent history, and still might be reversed if we stop with the addiction to overly simplistic solutions - like blowing up all dams - that will only make things worse. There are books that contain eyewitness accounts of what my stream was like before the settlers wrecked it - it was extremely heavily impounded, with dozens of dams between my house and the main river, and it was thriving with a richness of life and diversity that amazed the Europeans.
We may be loose cannons, terrorists, but weāre aimed in your general direction!
1 Like
Worth mentioningā¦ Charlie donāt surf.
1 Like
Isnāt it fascinating? And horrifying? And about the dam removal ā Montana generally ā Iām amazed by the sorts of consensus between environmentalists, former miners, ranchers and other wild westerners on that and other issues.
Like everywhere I guess, people can be stubborn, but in Montana I think they donāt like corporations to stick them with a bill and also pretend like it was a box of chocolates or something.
Good question about Opportunity. My life companera and cohabiting environmentalist doesnāt know off the top of her head. Do I think you do believe in doing the homework. 
2 Likes
FYP.
1 Like
I would actually put it as in the Chicago Loop. We have a few overhead train locations, but Chicago is a lot easier to get to and shoot this kind of thing, as itās next to a lot of their other locations.
1 Like
Wait, didnāt all those jobs he mention mostly involve union members who put Obama in the Oval Office? Steelworkers, miners, loggers, cops?
And, since heāll never stoop to the level to bring it up, isnāt Barack Obama the badass motherfucker who was in charge of actually sending in people to actually kill off Osama Bin Laden? How is that a flower child? All those drone strikes and targeted list of American citizens? If he didnāt have a D by his name the NRA would slobber all over him.
2 Likes
Letās make one!
Thatās what I thought too when I saw it. The lines are right. However, itās been cunningly shot in such a way that there are no identifying buildings (no buildings at all, in fact) to make it seem much more like a symbol of ā spit, spit ā any urban jungle, since theyāre all interchangeably evil anyway.
1 Like
Yeah, but those stairs are just soā¦ Loop. New York stairs rarely have the jog in them at a landing like that because the stations are only as wide as the street, the Loop has what, four tracks in it? Much wider than the street.
