Back in 1994, Oregon Wild (then ONRC) released our 15 Damnable Dams report. The cover was emblazoned with this quote:

"Historically, questions about dams have been limited to where or whether to build them in the first place. Given what we now know, it is time to change the terms of the debate. It is time to ask whether or not existing dams should be allowed to remain."

Since publication of the Damnable Dams report, we've seen progress and stagnation in the fight to remove large dams in Oregon. In a three-year dam busting binge that would make Ed Abbey proud, Savage Rapids Dam and Gold Hill Dam on the main stem Rogue River and Elk Creek Dam on a major tributary have all been demolished. And this year, Gold Ray Dam is expected to get yanked. Once that happens, Lost Creek Dam will be the only major dam on the Rogue River allowing it to flow freely below Lost Creek for 157 miles to the ocean.

Speaking of Lost Creek Dam, like many, it was built for multiple purposes: power, flood control, irrigation, and recreation. But, as the Medford Mail Tribune reports, in an era of changing climate and reduced snowpack, large dams may be slowly losing their original functionality.

Another set of dams making news in recent weeks were also featured in the original Damnable Dams report.

Pelton Dam and Round Butte Dam on the Deschutes River made that original list for blocking salmon from reaching habitat in three rivers: the Deschutes, Crooked, and Metolius.

At the time, the salmon had no natural way to get around the dams and PGE and the Warm Springs Tribe (co-owners of the dam complex) had to truck them around. The license for the dams was renewed in 2001 after PGE agreed to develop a new juvenile fish intake system above Round Butte Dam. Here's what we said about this scheme back in 1994:

ODFW and Portland General Electric fish biologists hypothesize that construction of a new intake system at the top of Round Butte Dam could create a stronger attraction current to get smolts to enter a proposed "passage pipe" that would channel them around the dam. The scheme would provide 4,000 to 5,000 cubic feet of water per second to flow around the dam instead of the original 400 to 500 cubic feet per second. It's an elegant plan, but likely to meet with limited success, particularly when compared with dam removal. Plus, even if the downstream migration problem was solved, the issue of upstream passage remains.

Well, 15 years later, that "elegant solution" to create more current above the dam is in place. And PGE says it is working in attracting juvenile fish to the intake system. The long term success of the project is yet to be determined, but here is an interesting video from PGE going over how the intake tower works.

[This is where an embedded video would be if PGE wasn't strangely disallowing web-surfers to embed their video...instead, a link: http://www.deschutespassage.com/index.html]