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Dams Have to Go by Joe Paliani The Daily News, January 2, 2019

Regarding The Daily News, Friday Dec. 21, and Tuesday, Dec. 25, 2018 editorial, "Agreement Worth a Try," and your Christmas news article, "Feds, tribe agree to dam deal," -- I think the compromise in your editorial supporting the dams does not go far enough, and the news article simply reinforces your errant position that critics of the dams should now go away, and that the salmon are going to be hunky dory because of the "extra water spillage over the dams," the latter intended to reduce smolts’ mortalities.

The smolts that are not killed by the turbines may now face death from falling several hundred feet over the dams, emerging in at best a dazed condition, more susceptible to predators, and subject to death by excess nitrogen in the river due to entrainment of dissolved gas in the water spilling over the dams. These conditions caused by the dams have killed millions of juvenile salmon in the Columbia and Snake Rivers every year, as they have attempted to migrate down to the sea. Only five native sockeye salmon successfully migrated from the ocean to their native Snake River last year due to the dams on that river. The reservoirs created by the hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River create habitats for squawfish that savage the juvenile salmon, decimating large numbers of baby salmon. The turbines grind thousands of salmon to death as the juvenile salmon attempt to go through them to migrate out to sea. No, the dams have to go, period.

The dams must be destroyed to ensure the survival of one of God’s most blessed gifts to humankind. Get rid of all the dams now. Your children and your grandchildren will thank you.