Dams Aff

Notes

Many thanks to the other staff members who shared feedback and evidence. A special
thanks to Michael Wimsatt for all of his insight and strategy.

FYI – During the first wave of research I plan to write a version of the dams affirmative
that decommissions several federal hydropower dams, including those on the lower
Snake River.

The States CP text in this file can be improved by integrating some of the mechanisms
in the States CP starter packet file. Even if the CP can’t influence every dam (ie. federal
dam or possibly those under FERC jurisdiction), the states could regulate many dams
AND institute an additional policy to address climate change and possibly solve a
sufficient internal link to the advantage(s).

There is evidence in the agriculture disad that is useful for answering the climate and
rivers advantages. Forcing a shift away from barges to a greater reliance on trucks and
rail for shipping crops and other produces will increase emissions that contribute to
climate change and climate change is one of the main threats to fish, particularly
salmon.

The agriculture disad has three different links/internal links related to dam removal –
1. Increases cost and inconvenience by forcing reliance on rail and trucks, instead of
barges, to get crops to market, 2. Compromises stable water supply for irrigation, and
3. Raises energy costs from reduced supply of hydropower. The link cards about
undercutting barges might be useful for the barges disad that was also turned out in
the starter packet.
1ac
 1ac Adv Dam Failure

Advantage ___ is Dam Collapse

Dam disasters are inevitable --- repairing just federal dams would take 50 years to
complete and cost billions
 decaying infrastructure compounded by climate change

Wei-Haas, 20 --- PhD in environmental chemistry from Ohio State University (MAY 27, 2020, MAYA
WEI-HAAS, “The problem America has neglected for too long: deteriorating dams; Aging, poorly
maintained structures put thousands at risk—and climate change is only making things worse,”
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/problem-america-neglected-too-long-
deteriorating-dams, JMP)

Aging and undermaintained infrastructure in the United States, combined with changing climate over
the coming decades, is setting the stage for more dam disasters like the one that struck Midland,
Michigan, last week.

More than 91,000 dams dot the nation—and roughly 15,500 of them could cause fatalities if they failed,
according to the National Inventory of Dams. Most of these dams were built many decades ago. By
2025, 70 percent of them will be more than a half century old, according to the American Society of Civil
Engineers.

This means many U.S. dams were built with now-outdated standards and methods, as well as for
different climate trends. What’s more, dams need continual maintenance to keep operating safely over
the decades. Valves break. Metal rusts. Concrete crumbles.

Combine this aging and outdated infrastructure with the more frequent, heavy rains that climate change
likely will generate, and the nation will face a “perfect storm” for more catastrophes , says Anne
Jefferson, a hydrogeologist at Kent State University in Ohio.
This latest dam failure came after a deluge dumped nearly five inches of water on central Michigan in
just 48 hours. As the waters rose, the nearly century-old Edenville dam collapsed and sent a torrent
downstream that overflowed the Sanford dam. Water surged across roads and into homes and
businesses. By Wednesday evening, the flood had almost completely drained one lake upstream of the
dams, leaving a vast muddy expanse in its wake.

For years, concerns had swirled about the condition of Edenville dam, which is privately owned and
operated. In 2018, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) revoked the Edenville dam’s
license to generate hydroelectricity, citing concerns that it could only withstand about 50 percent of the
Probable Maximum Flood, an estimate of the largest flood that could sweep the region. For more than
14 years before that license was pulled, the dam’s owner had failed to make the requested
improvements.

At many dams across the nation, investment hasn’t kept up with the repairs and upgrades needed to
keep these systems standing strong. On the American Society of Civil Engineers report card for U.S.
infrastructure, dams earned a "D" letter grade.

Exactly how many U.S. dams are at risk of failing is uncertain. The National Inventory of Dams lists
condition information for nearly 80 percent of high-hazard potential dams, meaning that their failure
would result in at least one death. More than 2,330 of these high-hazard dams need repairs, some 15
percent of all dams in this hazard category. But data remain spottier for dams of other hazard potentials,
such as significant or low hazard.

Information about the condition ratings of specific dams is not available to the public. A recent
investigation by the Associated Press uncovered and mapped out 1,688 of the high-hazard dams that
were in poor or unsatisfactory condition. The true number is likely higher, according to the AP report.

Repairing and upgrading dams across the United States would cost upwards of $70 billion, based on
estimates from the Association of State Dam Safety Officials. To address issues for the roughly 700 dams
owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers alone would cost more than $25 billion, by the Corps’
estimates, and would take more than 50 years to complete based on the current level of funding .

Dam ownership and operation is divided among private enterprises—about 63 percent of the U.S. total
—and state, local, and federal governments. The regulation and oversight of private and other non-
federal dams are largely on a state-by-state basis, says Martin McCann, director of Stanford University’s
National Performance of Dams Program. But that oversight varies widely: For instance, Alabama has no
dam safety regulatory program, while California has a relatively well-funded program with a technically
strong staff, McCann says. Many state dam safety programs lack resources or the regulatory authority to
effectively manage the dams, according to ASCE.

But even California’s well-funded program isn’t invincible. In 2017, the Oroville dam on California’s
Feather River failed, sparked by the crumbling of parts of the concrete spillways where excess water
flows downstream. The dam holds more than a trillion gallons of water; the collapse forced nearly
200,000 people to evacuate the area. The report from the independent forensics investigation
concluded that the incident was due to a “long-term systemic failure” of not only the California
Department of Water Resources, but also general industry-wide practices for identifying and addressing
problems.

The Edenville dam in Michigan was rated as poor on its last inspection in August of 2018 and Sanford
dam rated as fair. After years of conflict between owner Boyce Hydro and the surrounding communities,
the situation seemed to be heading toward resolution. Midland and Gladwin counties set up a group to
purchase the pair of dams and their associated lakes with the intention of repairing the systems and
overseeing continued maintenance—but the rain swept through and the region flooded before the
process was complete.

The problems with compromised dams will likely grow more severe in the years ahead. “The dawning
reality is that the dam, levee, and other infrastructure failures will be more likely to occur as global
warming intensifies,” says Shana Udvardy, a climate resilience analyst with the Union of Concerned
Scientists.

As air temperatures increase, so does the amount of moisture the atmosphere can hold; that means
more frequent and intense rain and flooding, Udvardy says. That effect may be particularly pronounced
in the Midwest, where climate models suggest that winter and spring rains could increase by up to 30
percent by the end of the century, according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment. The last few
decades have already seen more heavy downpours across the nation. The Michigan catastrophe follows
exceptional flooding across large swaths of the U.S. in 2019, which was the wettest year on record for
Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
Many of the nation's dams weren't designed with these modern or future trends in mind. “We’ve sort of
built ourselves and locked ourselves into a past climate,” Jefferson says.

For centuries, humans have strived to harness the environment to suit our needs. Dams are part of this
precarious legacy. We’ve enjoyed benefits from these systems, and now must deal with their risks.
“We’re seeing again and again,” Udvardy says, “it’s not whether they’re going to fail; it’s a matter of
when they’re going to fail.”

Despite growing risk of failure only a few have been removed

 Dam owners filing bankruptcy and taxpayers will be forced to pay

Mertens, 20 (September 8, 2020, Richard Mertens, “One solution to America’s dam-safety problem:
Remove them,” https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2020/0908/One-solution-to-America-s-dam-
safety-problem-Remove-them, JMP)

Jim Sperling was less than a mile downstream when the dam gave way. First came a siren’s wail, then
the water, rising quickly as he fled with his wife, Marge. It swept away their pontoon boat, destroyed a
shed, and filled their house, all in a muddy debris-filled surge that, in Mr. Sperling’s words, “ripped out
everything” – trees, bridges, docks, even houses.

“It was one big wave,” Mr. Sperling says. “A massive wave.”

The collapse of Michigan’s Edenville Dam May 19 sent 21.5 billion gallons of water down the
Tittabawassee River in less than two hours. The flood overwhelmed the Sanford Dam downstream and
forced the evacuation of 10,000 people in three counties. It also left communities flooded, 2,500 houses
damaged or destroyed, and, at Edenville, a shallow, sandy basin where a lake once lay.

The dam’s failure, coming after more than two days of record rainfall, also drew new attention to the
poor condition of dams, not just in Michigan but across the country. The American Society of Civil
Engineers, which periodically rates the condition of U.S. infrastructure, gave dams a “D” in its last report,
and among them are more than 15,000 whose failure would threaten lives. Indeed, federal authorities
two years before its collapse had deemed the Edenville Dam, an earthen berm built for hydropower in
1924, inadequate to handle heavy rains and in need of upgrade. Little had been done.

“We see the problem getting worse and worse,” says Larry Larson, adviser to the Association of State
Floodplain Managers, a nonprofit that he co-founded. “The dams are getting older, we’re seeing more
intense rainfall events, and people are building more in failure areas.”

Less remarked upon was an option for ailing dams that’s quietly gaining acceptance across the country:
removal. Last year, 90 dams were taken out in 26 states, the latest in a growing movement aimed at
improving public safety and restoring rivers to their natural state. That’s a small percentage of the
country’s more than 90,000 dams, but dam owners are increasingly choosing removal as an alternative
to upgrade and maintenance, especially for dams that have outlived their usefulness.

“We’ve seen a lot more,” says Mark Ogden, a technical expert at the Association of State Dam Safety
Officials. “Dam owners are more aware of their liability and the potential cost of repairs.”
A wave of removals

More than 1,700 dams have been taken out in the U.S. since 1912, according to American Rivers, an
environmental organization that has done more than any other to promote and facilitate dam removal.
Most were removed after the Edwards Dam on the Kennebec River in Augusta, Maine, was taken out in
1999, marking the beginning of the modern removal effort. Last year, dams were removed in 26 states,
the largest number of states that has ever had dams removed in a single year.

“You see a lot of variation state by state,” says Lisa Hollingsworth-Segedy, director of river restoration
for American Rivers. “A lot of states are fairly new to dam removal. A lot of states have been doing it a
long time.”

Most dams removed are small. A typical example is the Burton Lake Dam in Burton, Ohio. In 2014, heavy
late-winter rains flooded the ice and sent water pouring over the dam. No one was hurt, but the
combination of flooding and the threat to houses downstream brought the dam to the attention of state
and local authorities.

“We knew we needed to do something with it,” says Gerry Morgan, a Geauga County official. A study
concluded that current standards required the dam to be raised and an emergency spillway constructed.
The work would have cost an estimated $3.5 million.

The county looked in vain for help. “There were a lot of people that were more likely to give money to
remove it than to upgrade it,” Mr. Morgan says.

Local homeowners blamed the county for neglecting the dam over the years; others worried that the
loss of the impoundment, a shallow lake of about 30 acres, would hurt their property values. But they
declined to pay for the upgrades themselves. Finally, in 2019 the county spent $100,000, Mr. Morgan
says, to have a contractor with heavy equipment dig a notch in the dam and spread the dirt nearby. The
old lake is now a wetland.

Restore or remove?

Some removals happen more quickly. In Pennsylvania, Ms. Hollingsworth-Segedy has helped to
dismantle some 125 dams over a dozen years. She recalls many of them in vivid detail, including a dam
she and colleagues visited one March day in 2009 on Snare Run, a mountain creek that had been
dammed to supply water to a local town. When they reached the dam they saw what looked like a
frozen waterfall. They soon figured out that the water wasn’t running over the dam, but seeping
through it.

“It got really quiet,” she recalls. “You could hear tink, tink, tink. We realized those were rocks falling out
of the dam.”

The dam was 22 feet high, and there were houses downstream. It took the state less than a week, she
says, to take it out.

Experts say several factors combine to imperil U.S. dams. One is age: the average dam is 57 years old.
Often, too, new development downstream has made failure far more dangerous than when the dams
were built. Finally, climate change is producing more frequent and intense rainstorms of the kind that
doomed the Edenville Dam.
“I think the likelihood that we see the events that cause dams to fail is increasing,” says Mr. Ogden. “It’s
clear we need to invest in the upgrade and repair of dams – or removal.”

A powerful argument in favor of removal is money. Taking a dam out costs far less than fixing it up.
Plus, dam owners who agree to removal can sometimes get financial help in the name of habitat
improvement.

Otherwise, the cost is high. The Association of State Dam Safety Officials estimates that rehabilitating all
the non-federal dams in the U.S. – most dams are privately owned – would cost more than $65 billion.
Last year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency started a grant program for substandard dams,
but it hands out just $10 million a year. “It’s something but not much compared to the need,” says Mr.
Ogden.

In Michigan, Jim Sperling and many others are focused on rebuilding their homes, and their lives. There’s
been little talk of removing the Edenville Dam but much about rebuilding that, too. Thousands of people
own property around the impoundment and three others in the region, and they support reconstruction
and rehabilitation.

If it happens, it’s likely to take many years. The owner of the dams, Boyce Hydro, has filed for
bankruptcy, and lawsuits abound. An organization of property owners proposes that the local counties
take ownership of the dams and that they, the property owners, shoulder the cost of rebuilding. That’s
estimated to be as much as $400 million, most of it for the Edenville Dam.

“I don’t know how they can raise that,” Mr. Sperling says, raising the biggest question hanging over this
or any old dam’s future. “If they put it on taxpayers, a lot of people are going to be unhappy.”

Dam failure will unleash flooding that threatens nuclear power plants
Palmer, 15 (21 March 2015, Andrew Palmer, “Possible threat to US Nuclear Plants from Boone Dam
Failure,” https://www.theworldincrisis.com/possible-threat-to-us-nuclear-plants-from-boone-dam-
failure/, JMP)

There have been recent reports of problems at the Boone Dam in Tennessee, which is upstream of
seven nuclear reactors. Although the indications are that the problems will be solved, the seepage at the
dam means that the potential failure of such dams, and associated threats to nuclear facilities, should
be reexamined. The problems include the fact that dams can fail, and that seepage can be evidence of
potential failure, that excessive flooding may result from dam failure, and that downstream nuclear
plants may not be resilient in the face of such an event. There is also recent evidence, from the Mineral,
Virginia earthquake, that the Eastern United States is more vulnerable to earthquakes than has
previously been considered and that the effects of earthquakes in the region can travel for very long
distances from the epicentre. The US has a large number of inland nuclear plants, some of which are
around 40 years old. There is continuing argument as to the safety of the design of older US reactors in
the light of the failure at Fukushima Daiichi. In this article I have tried to present some of the issues for
consideration, without making judgement.

The American Society of Civil Engineers has stated that, “The average age of the 84,000 dams in the
country [USA] is 52 years old. The nation’s dams are aging and the number of high-hazard dams is on the
rise. Many of these dams were built as low-hazard dams protecting undeveloped agricultural land.
However, with an increasing population and greater development below dams, the overall number of
high-hazard dams continues to increase, to nearly 14,000 in 2012. The number of deficient dams is
estimated at more than 4,000, which includes 2,000 deficient high-hazard dams. The Association of
State Dam Safety Officials estimates that it will require an investment of $21 billion to repair these
aging, yet critical, high-hazard dams.”

A Press statement by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) stated that “On October 30, 2014,
at 1100 EDT, TVA conducted a briefing for government officials and other stakeholders regarding the
decision to accelerate the Boone Reservoir annual drawdown after discovery of a sink hole near the
base of the embankment and a small amount of water and sediment found seeping from the river below
the dam. TVA is continuously monitoring the dam and conducting an investigation to determine the
source of the water seepage. The dam is located upstream of all three TVA nuclear sites. There are
currently no nuclear plant operability or safety issues, and TVA is assessing the impacts on the plant
licensing bases.”

On the 30th October 2014 The Johnson City Press had reported: “When an Oct. 20 inspection of the dam
revealed a sink hole — a common occurrence — TVA workers repaired it quickly. Six days later, an
uncommon occurrence happened when seepage was found near the location of the sink hole at the
base of the dam.” Boone Dam is near the border with Virginia, where a M5.9 earthquake occurred in
2011. This earthquake was important because the USGS found that, the farthest landslide from the 2011
Virginia earthquake was 245 km (150 miles) from the epicenter. The USGS stated that: “This is by far the
greatest landslide distance recorded from any other earthquake of similar magnitude. Previous studies
of worldwide earthquakes indicated that landslides occurred no farther than 60 km (36 miles) from the
epicenter of a magnitude 5.8 earthquake.” Jibson and Harp stated that “The 23 August 2011 Mineral,
Virginia, earthquake (Mw 5.8) was the largest to strike the eastern U.S. since 1897 and was felt over an
extraordinarily large area.”

Randall Jibson, USGS scientist and lead author of a study published in the December 2012 issue of the
Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, said, “What makes this new study so unique is that it
provides direct observational evidence from the largest earthquake to occur in more than 100 years in
the eastern U.S. Now that we know more about the power of East Coast earthquakes, equations that
predict ground shaking might need to be revised.” The USGS said that. “It is estimated that
approximately one-third of the U.S. population could have felt last year’s earthquake in Virginia, more
than any earthquake in U.S. history. About 148,000 people reported their ground-shaking experiences
caused by the earthquake on the USGS “Did You Feel It?” website. Shaking reports came from
southeastern Canada to Florida and as far west as Texas.” They added that, “In addition to the great
landslide distances recorded, the landslides from the 2011 Virginia earthquake occurred in an area 20
times larger than expected from studies of worldwide earthquakes. Scientists plotted the landslide
locations that were farthest out and then calculated the area enclosed by those landslides. The observed
landslides from last year’s Virginia earthquake enclose an area of about 33,400 km2, while previous
studies indicated an expected area of about 1,500 km2 from an earthquake of similar magnitude.”
Edwin Harp, USGS scientist and co-author of the study said, “The landslide distances from last year’s
Virginia earthquake are remarkable compared to historical landslides across the world and represent the
largest distance limit ever recorded. There are limitations to our research, but the bottom line is that we
now have a better understanding of the power of East Coast earthquakes and potential damage
scenarios.” According to the USGS, “The difference between seismic shaking in the East versus the West
is due in part to the geologic structure and rock properties that allow seismic waves to travel farther
without weakening.”

Boone Dam was well outside the area affected by the Mineral, Virginia earthquake, it is 436 km, or 271
miles from Mineral, but the USGS report and 2012 study indicates that the risk factors associated with
East Coast earthquakes are higher than normally planned for. The concerns associated with the Boone
Dam are the possible consequences of any failure of the dam to the seven nuclear plants down-stream
of the dam.

In September 2012 Tom Zeller, Jr., writing in The Huffington Press, reported that, “Richard H. Perkins, a
reliability and risk engineer with the agency’s division of risk analysis, alleged that NRC officials falsely
invoked security concerns in redacting large portions of a report detailing the agency’s preliminary
investigation into the potential for dangerous and damaging flooding at U.S. nuclear power plants due to
upstream dam failure. Perkins, along with at least one other employee inside NRC, also an engineer,
suggested that the real motive for redacting certain information was to prevent the public from
learning the full extent of these vulnerabilities, and to obscure just how much the NRC has known
about the problem, and for how long. “What I’ve seen,” Perkins said in a phone call, “is that the NRC is
really struggling to come up with logic that allows this information to be withheld.” Another engineer,
interviewed by Zeller, added real concerns about the Oconee nuclear plant. “Among the redacted
findings in the July 2011 report — and what has been known at the NRC for years, the engineer said — is
that the Oconee facility, which is operated by Duke Energy, would suffer almost certain core damage if
the Jocassee dam were to fail. And the odds of it failing sometime over the next 20 years, the engineer
said, are far greater than the odds of a freak tsunami taking out the defenses of a nuclear plant in
Japan.”

There are currently 61 commercially operating nuclear power plants with 99 nuclear reactors in 30
states in the United States. Thirty-five of these plants have two or more reactors. The majority of US
nuclear reactors are dependent on rivers for cooling. In the light of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster there
have been growing concerns about nuclear safety, especially for older reactors, some reactors, like
Oyster Creek in New Jersey, are over forty years old.

Accordingly, it is reasonable that the possible impacts of earthquakes and floods are better understood,
as the risk of catastrophic failure of nuclear plants is one of the most serious threats our societies face
today. It is also important to understand that dams can fail, and as Patrick J. Regan said in Hydro Review
(1st June 2010), “Dam safety professionals must be ever vigilant in their efforts to assure the safety of
dams and other water retention or control structures under their charge; whether owner, regulator or
consultant, none can be complacent when it comes to dam safety. And yet, all too often complacency
creeps in when a dam has had a lengthy history of apparent successful operation. How many times have
we heard, or used the words, ‘The dam’s been OK for 50 years. Why are you worried about it now?’
During many Potential Failure Mode Analysis sessions conducted by the [US] Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission, this reasoning came up as a way to lower the categorization of a potential failure mode.
We seem to forget that dams are subject to many of the affects of aging and exposure that we are all
subject to.” Regan added, “Seepage related incidents are the most common modes of failure in the early
years of a dam’s life and continue to be an important potential failure mode over the longterm.”
Which brings us back to the seepage problems at Tennessee’s Boone Dam. There have also been
growing concerns about the poor state of repair of key infrastructure elements in the United States,
with the failure of bridges, the poor state of repair of highways, railways with speed restrictions, very
poor airports and so on. See http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org

Meltdowns cause global fallout.

Sidney D. Drell 09. Professor emeritus of theoretical physics at the SLAC National Accelerator
Laboratory at Stanford University, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a member of the
President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and Science Advisory Committee. The Nuclear
Enterprise, High-Consequence Accidents: How to Enhance Safety and Minimize Risks in Nuclear
Weapons and Reactors, pg. 1-3

We live in dangerous times for many reasons. Prominent among them is the existence of a global nuclear
enterprise made up of weapons that can cause damage of unimaginable proportions and power plants at which accidents can have

severe, essentially unpredictable consequences for human life. For all of its utility and promise, the nuclear enterprise is
unique in the enormity of the vast quantities of destructive energy that can be released through blast,
heat, and radioactivity. We addressed just this subject in a conference in October 2011 at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. The complete set
of papers prepared for the conference is reproduced in this book. The conference included experts on weapons, on power plants, on regulatory experience, and on
the development of public perceptions and the ways in which these perceptions influence policy7. The reassuring outcome of the conference was a general sense
that the U.S. nuclear enterprise currently meets very high standards in its commitment to safety and security. That has not always been the case in all aspects of the
nuclear enterprise. And the unsettling outcome of the conference was that it will not be the case globally unless governments, international organizations,
industry7, and media recognize and address the nuclear challenges and mounting risks posed by a rapidly changing world. The acceptance of the nuclear enterprise
is now being challenged by concerns about the questionable safety and security of programs primarily in countries relatively new to the nuclear enterprise, and the
potential loss of control to terrorist or criminal gangs of fissile material that exists in such abundance around the world. In a number of countries, confidence in
nuclear energy production was severely shaken in the spring of 2011 by the Fukushima nuclear reactor plant disaster. And in the military sphere, the doctrine of
deterrence that remains primarily dependent on nuclear weapons is seen in decline due to the importance of non-state actors such as al Qaeda and terrorist
When risks and consequences are unknown,
affiliates that seek destruction for destruction's sake. We have two nuclear tigers by the tail.

undervalued, or ignored, our nation and the world are dangerously vulnerable. Nowhere is this risk-
consequence equation more relevant than with respect to the nucleus of the atom. The nuclear enterprise was introduced to the world by
the shock of the devastation produced by two atomic bombs hitting Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Modern nuclear weapons are far more powerful than those early bombs, which presented their own hazards. Early research depended on a program of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons.
In the early years following World War II, the impact and the amount of radioactive fallout in the atmosphere generated by above-ground nuclear explosions was notfully appreciated. During those years, the United States and also the Soviet Union conducted several hundred tests in the
atmosphere that created fallout. The recent Stanford conference focused on a regulatory weak point from that time that exists in many places today, as the Fukushima disaster clearly indicates. The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was initially assigned conflicting responsibilities: to
create an arsenal of nuclear weapons for the United States to confront a growing nuclear-armed Soviet threat; and, at the same time, to ensure public safety from the effects of radioactive fallout. The AEC was faced with the same conundrum with regard to civilian nuclear power
generation. It was charged with promoting civilian nuclear power and simultaneously protecting the public. Progress came in 1963 with the negotiation and signing of the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) banning all nuclear explosive testing in the atmosphere (initially by the United States,
the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom). With the successful safety7 record of the U.S. nuclear weapons program, domestic anxiety about nuclear weapons receded somewhat. Meanwhile, public attitudes toward nuclear weapons reflected recognition of their key role in establishing a
more stable nuclear deterrent posture in the confrontation with the Soviet Union. The positive record on safety of the nuclear weapons enterprise in the United States—there have been accidents involving nuclear weapons, but none that led to the release of nuclear energy—was the
result of a strong effort and continuing commitment to include safety as a primary criterion in new weapons designs, as well as careful production, handling, and deployment procedures. The key to the health of today's nuclear weapons enterprise is confidence in the safety7 of its
operations and in the protection of special nuclear materials against theft. One can imagine how different the situation would be today if there had been a recognized theft of material sufficient for a bomb, or if one of the two four-megaton bombs dropped from a disabled B-52 Strategic
Air Command bomber overflying Goldsboro, North Carolina, in 1961 had detonated. In that event, just one switch in the arming sequence of one of the bombs, by remaining in its "off position" while the aircraft was disintegrating, was all that prevented a full-yield nuclear explosion. A
close call indeed! In the twenty-six years since Chernobyl, the nuclear power industry has strengthened its safety practices. Over the past decade, growing concerns about global warming and energy independence have actually strengthened support for nuclear energy in the United

the civil nuclear enterprise remains fragile . Following Fukushima, opinion polls gave stark evidence
States and many nations around the world. Yet despite these trends,

of the public's deep fears of the invisible force of nuclear radiation, shown by public opposition to the construction of new nuclear power plants in close proximity. It
is not simply a matter of getting better information to the public but of actually educating the public about the true nature of nuclear radiation and its risks. Of
course, the immediate task of the nuclear power component of the enterprise is to strive for the best possible safety record with one overriding objective: no more
Fukushimas. Another issue that must be resolved involves the continued effectiveness of a policy of deterrence that remains primarily dependent upon nuclear
weapons, and the hazards these weapons pose due to the spread of nuclear technology and material. There is growing apprehension about the determination of
terrorists to get their hands on weapons or, for that matter, on the special nuclear material—plutonium and highly enriched uranium—that fuels them in the most
challenging step toward developing a weapon. Theglobal effects of a regional war between nuclear-armed adversaries
such as India and Pakistan would also wield an enormous impact, potentially involving radioactive fallout at large
distances caused by a limited number of nuclear explosions. This is true as well for nuclear radiation
from a reactor explosion—fallout at large distances would have a serious societal impact on the nuclear enterprise.
There is little understanding of the reality and potential danger of consequences if such an event were
to occur halfway around the world. An effort should be made to prepare the public by providing information on how to respond to such an event.
Meltdowns cause extinction
Christopher Allen Slocum 15, VP @ AO&G, “A Theory for Human Extinction: Mass Coronal Ejection and
Hemispherical Nuclear Meltdown,” 07/21/15, The Hidden Costs of Alternative Energy Series,
http://azoilgas.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Theory-for-Human-Extinction-Slocum-20151003.pdf

With our intelligence we have littered the planet with massive spent nuclear fuel pools, emitting lethal radiation in over-crowded
conditions, with circulation requirements of electricity, water-supply, and neutron absorbent chemicals. The
failure of any of these conditions for any calculable or incalculable reason, will release all of a pool’s cesium into the
atmosphere, causing 188 square miles to be contaminated, 28,000 cancer deaths and $59 billion in damage. As of 2003, 49,000 tons of
SNF was stored at 131 sites with an additional 2,000-2,400 metric tons produced annually. The NRC has issued permits, and the nuclear industry
has amassed unfathomable waste on the premise that a deep geological storage facility would be available to remediate the waste. The current
chances for a deep geological storage facility look grim. The NAS has required geologic stability for 1,000,000 years. It is impossible to calculate
any certainty 1,000,000 years into the future. Humanity could not even predict the mechanical failures at Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, nor
could it predict the size of the tsunami that triggered three criticality events at Fukushima Daiichi. These irremediable crises span just
over 70 years of human history.

How can the continued production and maintenance of SNF in pools be anything but a precedent to an unprecedented
human cataclysm? The Department of Energy’s outreach website explains nuclear fission for power production, providing a timeline of
the industry. The timeline ends, as does most of the world’s reactor construction projects in the 1990s, with the removal of the FCMs from
Three Mile Island. One would think the timeline would press into the current decade, however the timeline terminates with the question, “How
can we minimize the risk? What do we do with the waste?” (The History of Nuclear Energy 12). Nearly fifteen years into the future, these
questions are no closer to an answer. The reactors at Fukushima Daiichi are still emitting radioisotopes into the atmosphere, and their condition
is unstable. TEPCO has estimated it could take forty years to recover all of the fuel material, and there are doubts as to whether the
decontamination effort can withstand that much time (Schneider 72). A detailed analysis of Chernobyl has demonstrated that nuclear
fall-
out, whether from thermonuclear explosions, spent fuel pool fires, or reactor core criticality events are deleterious to the food-
chain. Cesium and strontium are taken into the roots of plants and food crops, causing direct human and
animal contamination from ingestion, causing cancer, teratogenicity, mutagenesis and death.
Vegetation suffers mutagenesis, reproductive loss, and death. Radioactive fields and forest floors
decimate invertebrate and rodent variability and number necessary to supply nature’s food-chain and
life cycles. The flesh and bones of freshwater and oceanic biota contribute significantly to the total
radiation dose in the food-chain. Fresh water lakes, rivers and streams become radioactive. Potable
aquafers directly underlying SNFs and FCMs are penetrated by downward migration of radioisotopes . Humans
must eat to live. Humans must have water. No human can survive 5 Sv of exposure to ionizing radiation, many
cannot survive exposure to 1 Sv.

Realizing the irremediable devastation caused by one thermonuclear warhead, by one Chernobyl, by one Fukushima Daiichi, it remains to be
said that the earth can handle as many simultaneous loss of coolant failures as nature can create .
Humanity cannot. It is not good enough to lead by relegating probable human wide extinction phenomena to an appeal to lack of
evidence. Policy cannot indefinitely ignore responsibility by requiring further study. Nor can leadership idle into cataclysm by relying
on the largest known natural phenomena of the last 200 years. Permitting construction and continued operation of malefic machinery, based
on 200 years of cataclysmic experience is a protocol for calamity. Of coronal mass ejections, Hapgood warns, that we need to prepare for a
once-in-1000-year event, not just simulate infrastructure safeties by the measure of what we have seen in the past. The same is true for all
natural phenomena. The future of humanity is too precious to operate with such insouciance. The engineering is not good enough. It never will
be. Nature is too unpredictable, and nuclear power is too dangerous.
Dams around the world are also ticking time bombs that could collapse and kill
hundreds of millions --- we must develop the technology to effectively decommission
large dams
Pearce, 21 --- freelance author and journalist based in the U.K. He is a contributing writer for Yale
Environment 360 and is the author of numerous books, including The Land Grabbers, Earth Then and
Now: Amazing Images of Our Changing World, and The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth About
Global Warming (FEBRUARY 3, 2021, Fred Pearce, “Water Warning: The Looming Threat of the World’s
Aging Dams; Tens of thousands of large dams across the globe are reaching the end of their expected
lifespans, leading to a dramatic rise in failures and collapses, a new UN study finds. These deteriorating
structures pose a serious threat to hundreds of millions of people living downstream,”
https://e360.yale.edu/features/water-warning-the-looming-threat-of-the-worlds-aging-dams, JMP)

Who would want to live downstream of the 125-year-old Mullaperiyar Dam, nestled in a seismic zone of
the Western Ghats mountains in India? The 176-foot-high relic of British imperial engineering cracked
during minor earthquakes in 1979 and 2011. According to a 2009 study by seismic engineers at the
Indian Institute of Technology, it might not withstand a strong earthquake larger than 6.5 on the Richter
scale.

Three million people live downriver of the dam. But their demands for it to be emptied are held up by a
long-running legal case in the nation’s Supreme Court between Kerala, the state under threat, and Tamil
Nadu, the state upstream that operates the dam to obtain irrigation water and hydropower.

Or how about living below the Kariba Dam, built by the British on the Zambezi River in Southern Africa
62 years ago? Back then, it was seen as Africa’s equivalent of the Hoover Dam. But in 2015, engineers
found that water released through its floodgates had gouged a hole more than 260 feet deep in the river
bed, causing cracks and threatening to topple the concrete dam, which is 420 feet high and holds back
the world’s largest artificial lake.

Downstream are some 3.5 million people, as well as another giant dam, the Cahora Bassa in
Mozambique, that engineers fear would probably break if hit by floodwater from a Kariba failure.
Despite the urgency, the $300-million repair work won’t be finished until 2023 at the earliest.

Both dams exemplify the potentially dangerous mix of structural decay, escalating risk, and bureaucratic
inertia highlighted in a pioneering new study into the growing risks from the world’s aging dams,
published in January by the United Nations University (UNU), the academic and research arm of the UN.
It warns that a growing legacy of crumbling dams past their design lives is causing a dramatic increase in
dam failures, leaks, and emergency water releases that threaten hundreds of millions of people living
downstream. Meanwhile, safety inspectors cannot keep up with the workload.

The 20th century was a boom time for dam builders. The peak, particularly in Asia, was from the mid-
1950s to mid-1980s, when dams were in vogue to generate hydroelectricity and store water to irrigate
crops and keep taps flowing, as well as to smooth out river flow to prevent flooding and improve
navigation.

But the boom is over. “A few decades ago, a thousand large dams were being built each year; now it is
down to a hundred or so,” report co-author Vladimir Smakhtin of the UNU’s Institute of Water,
Environment, and Health in Hamilton, Canada told Yale Environment 360. Most sites sought by dam
engineers, such as in narrow valleys, have been plugged. Dams now barricade the majority of the
world’s rivers, and can store the equivalent of a sixth of their total annual flow. Meanwhile,
environmental and social concerns about flooding land and wrecking river ecosystems have grown, and
there are many alternatives for generating low-carbon energy, says Smakhtin.

So the world’s stock of large dams, defined as those higher than 15 meters (49 feet), is aging fast. The
World Bank estimated last year that there are already 19,000 large dams more than 50 years old, which
the UNU study concludes is the typical lifespan before it needs major repairs or removal.

Britain and Japan have the oldest dams, averaging 106 and 111 years old respectively. U.S. dams average
65 years. But China and India, the epicenters of the mid-20th century dam-building craze, are not so far
behind, with average ages of their 28,000 large dams now 46 and 42 years respectively. “By 2050, most
of humanity will live downstream of large dams built in the 20th century” that are “at increasing risk of
failure,” the UNU report says.

This burgeoning legacy of aging dams poses ever-growing safety risks, as their structures become more
fragile and climate change increases stresses on them by increasing extreme river flows, says Smakhtin.
The report finds a steep increase in the rate of dam failures since 2005. There is no global database, says
co-author Duminda Perera, also of UNU. But he found reports of more than 170 failures between 2015
and 2019, whereas prior to 2005 the average was below four per year.

Just last month, Zambia’s Kandesha Dam, built in the 1950s, collapsed in heavy rains, displacing
thousands of people. Last June, a 55-year-old irrigation dam in China’s Guangxi region gave way, after its
492-foot wall was swamped in heavy rain. A month earlier, two old dams in Michigan collapsed during
heavy rain — the 96-year-old Edenville Dam on the River Tittabawassee unleashed a flood that
demolished the 94-year-old Sanford Dam downstream.

In August 2019, one of Britain’s oldest dams almost failed. Around 1,500 inhabitants of the town of
Whaley Bridge were ordered out of their homes after the flood spillway on the 188-year-old Toddbrook
Dam, built to supply water to a canal, collapsed in heavy rains, spilling water that began to eat away at
the dam itself, raising fears that the structure would collapse and engulf the town.

In 2017, a spillway collapsed at the 50-year-old Oroville Dam in California’s Sierra Nevada foothills. It
caused the evacuation of around 180,000 people. The 770-foot dam is the highest in the U.S. and, after
repairs to the spillway, remains critical to the state’s water supply.

Dam engineers say the greatest threats for the coming decades are probably in China and India. Both
countries have in the past suffered dam failures that killed tens of thousands. In 1979, the
disintegration of the Machchhu Dam in Gujarat, India, during a flood, killed as many as 25,000 people.

Four years before, the Banqiao Dam in Henan, China, burst, sending a wave of water 7 miles wide and
20 feet high downriver at 30 miles per hour. It killed an estimated 26,000 people directly, including the
entire population of the town of Daowencheng. As many as 170,000 more died during an ensuing
famine and epidemics. The disaster has been called the deadliest structural failure in history. It was kept
a state secret for many years.

Both these disasters involved young dams, aged 20 and 23 years respectively. Still, their demise suggests
there may be many more ticking timebombs from that era.
China has around 24,000 large dams. Many date from the days of the Cultural Revolution, when Maoist
ideology trumped engineering prowess in the dash for economic development. A third of the country’s
dams were “considered to be of high-level risk because of structural obsolescence and/or lack of proper
maintenance,” a 2011 analysis by Meng Yang, now of the Huazhong University of Science and
Technology, found.

In India, the director of the Central Water Commission, Jade Harsha, warned in 2019 that the country
would have more than 4,000 large dams above the age of 50 by 2050. More than 600 are already half a
century old. Dams that India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1954 called “the temples of India,
where I worship,” are now aging edifices whose safety Harsha now sees as “blind spots in India’s water
policies.”

The World Bank agrees. Last December, it announced a $250-million loan to India for an ongoing project
to “strengthen dam safety,” with better inspections and management of the country’s large dams, which
hold back 240 million acre-feet of water — starting with 120 of the country’s aging dam fleet.

Martin Wieland, chair of the committee on seismic aspects of dam design at the Paris-based
International Commission on Large Dams, the leading body of dam professionals, told Yale e360 that
“many dams could last much longer than 50 or 100 years if well designed, well-constructed, and well-
maintained and monitored. The oldest concrete dam in Europe, the Maigrauge Dam [in Switzerland] was
completed in 1872 and is expected to reach 200 years.” But, he said, “the safety of a dam may
deteriorate very fast.” He suggested a large part of the growing risk was “not aging, but the increased
number of people downstream.”

Dams are mostly made of earth, masonry, or concrete. They can fail because of decaying concrete,
cracking, seepage, hidden fissures in surrounding rocks, or buckling under their own weight. They can
suffer lining failures, earthquakes, sabotage, or being washed away when floods breach their crests.
Regular inspections are vital, says Wieland.

But there is growing concern worldwide about a lack of inspectors capable of assessing the risk from
aging dams, leading to backlogs of inspections and hazards that are missed. An investigation after the
failure of the Oroville Dam in the United States found that past inspections had failed to spot structural
flaws. As Wieland puts it: “Not everything is visible or measurable.”

Many old dams are now being abandoned as their reservoirs fill with sediment dropped by the rivers
they barricade. An international study in 2014 headed by G. Mathias Kondolf of the University of
California, Berkeley, estimated that more than a quarter of the total sediment flow of the world’s rivers
is being trapped behind dams.

On the Yellow River in China, the world’s siltiest river, the Sanmenxia Dam filled in just two years. India’s
reservoirs are losing almost 1.6 million acre-feet of water-storage capacity each year due to sediment
build-up, according to officials.

The accumulation of sediment makes dams less useful, but sometimes also makes them more
dangerous. This is because with less reservoir space, the dams are at greater risk of being overwhelmed
during heavy rains. To save their structures, operators are more likely to make abrupt emergency
releases down spillways at the height of floods.
After Hurricane Mitch ripped through Central America in 1998, several hundred people died in their
beds in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa when a “wall of water” rushed through the city’s poor
riverside communities. Investigators from the U.S. Geological Survey concluded that the “wall” appeared
when operators of the city’s two main dams made emergency releases at the height of the flood. The
two dams were built only in the 1970s, but had lost much of their capacity to siltation.

Meanwhile, climate change, which is bringing more extreme floods to many places, and aging dams
threaten to be a lethal combination. “Old dams were designed and built on the basis of hydrological
records in a pre-climate change era,” says Smakhtin. “Now things are different, and this is worrying.”

What should be done? Some aging dams remain safe, but all will require much more rigorous inspection
as they grow older, experts say, often followed by expensive repairs. Many more will need to be
reengineered to cope with extreme river flows different from those envisaged when they were first
built.

But the UNU report points to a growing legacy of dams that cease to serve much purpose — either
because of siltation or because there are alternative sources of electricity — and are retained mostly
because removing them is expensive and technically difficult. This is both a safety threat and a tragedy
for river ecosystems that could be restored by their removal .

The U.S. is the world leader in decommissioning dams, with more than a thousand removed over the
past 30 years. But even so, its dams removed to date have mostly been small , usually less than 16 feet
in height. An exception was the 87-year-old Glines Canyon Dam in Olympic Park, Washington, removed
in 2014. At 210 feet, the dam was the largest ever taken down. The task took two decades to plan and
execute. But thousands more such removals are likely to be necessary to prevent an upsurge of dam
disasters, says Smakhtin.

“Some dams are so big it is difficult to imagine how to approach the problem,” he says. “Look at the
Kariba dam. It is absolutely huge, and by mid-century, it will be a hundred years old. Hopefully there will
by then be technology to decommission it. But right now we don’t know how to do it.”

Chinese dam collapse would kill millions, wipe out agriculture triggering major famine,
cause global economic decline, and destabilize the CCP which results in war with U.S.
or a major ally
Auslin, 20 --- Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow in Contemporary Asia at Stanford
University’s Hoover Institution (July 24, 2020 4:57 PM, Michael Auslin, “The Risks of China’s Three
Gorges Dam’s Flooding,” https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-risks-of-chinas-three-gorges-
dams-flooding/, JMP)

China has been suffering through record rains the past weeks, leading to the worst flooding in the
country in decades. There is little relief in sight, and the Yangtze River is now above flood level,
according to China’s Ministry of Water Resources. A few days ago, officials admitted that certain
“peripheral” structures of the massive Three Gorges Dam deformed due to the building water pressure.
Stunning pictures of water being released to relieve pressure are raising the specter of whether the
entire dam could fail (some good photos here). Some online satellite photos purporting to show the
buckling of the dam, however, should be viewed with skepticism.

Still, the damage that has already occurred from the record deluge is significant, with numerous cities
upriver from the dam already flooded. According to the Wall Street Journal:

Some 40 million people in more than two dozen provinces have been affected by the flooding as
of July 12, causing more than 80 billion yuan ($11.5 billion) of direct damage to the economy,
according to China’s Ministry of Emergency Management. Around 28,000 homes have collapsed,
while millions have been displaced and at least 141 people have been declared dead or missing
in the floods.

All that would be dwarfed if the Three Gorges Dam failed. The dam was built from 1994 to 2006, at a
cost of $31 billion and displacing 1.4 million people for its construction, precisely to lessen the risk of
devastating flooding along the Yangtze, a perennial problem in China since ancient times. The river’s
basin accounts for nearly half of China’s agricultural output, and it runs through major cities, such as
Wuhan, with 10 million people.

Chinese authorities have already evacuated 38 million people downriver. The dam can hold back waters
to a level of 175 meters above sea level; according to the Bureau of Hydrology of the Chanjiang
(Yangtze) Water Resources Commission, the latest (Friday) height at the dam was 158.85 meters, down
from 164 meters on Tuesday. Yet more rain is predicted, and if smaller, older dams upriver from Three
Gorges overflow or fail, then the pressure on the main dam could quickly overwhelm either its capacity
or even its structural integrity.

While an outright failure of the dam may not be the primary danger, nonetheless its geopolitical
consequences are staggering to contemplate. It would be a black swan of epic proportions, China’s
Chernobyl moment. A tsunami-like wave from a breach in the Three Gorges Dam could wipe out
millions of acres of farmland right before the autumn harvest, possibly leading to famine-like
conditions. As it is also the world’s largest hydroelectric power station , a failure would lead to huge
power outages. Low-lying cities of millions along the Yangtze’s banks cities could become uninhabitable
and the death toll could be staggering.

China’s heartland manufacturing and inland shipping along the Yangtze, which empties out into the East
China Sea at Shanghai, would be significantly affected by downriver flooding, potentially leading to
major economic disruption inside China and around the world. The political impact could be enough to
destabilize the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), in the same way that Chernobyl was the nail in the coffin
of the Soviet Communist Party. Public anger, already stoked by the draconian state response to the
coronavirus pandemic that started in Wuhan, could boil over, even if many understand that the rains are
an act of nature.

Given the social and political implications of the current flooding, and the specter of a Three Gorges
breach, it may not be a complete coincidence that Beijing last week announced its second-largest
purchase of U.S. corn ever, to the tune of 1.365 million tons, along with 320,000 tons of winter and
spring wheat. From a political perspective, the dam’s failure would be the gravest crisis faced by CCP
general secretary Xi Jinping, comparable to the Katrina hurricane that so tarnished George W. Bush’s
reputation. Unlike the weakened post-Chernobyl USSR, however, a destabilized CCP could well become
a more dangerous one, looking to divert public anger towards “enemies” such as Taiwan, Japan, and
the United States.

That Xi has not visited the dam or seemingly made it a public priority may mean that he’s been assured
by Chinese engineers and hydrologists that the dam can withstand the current deluge. A long-overdue
rebalancing in U.S.–China relations is taking place, and a hard-edged policy of reciprocity is entirely
proper in dealing with Beijing’s endemic predatory and abusive behavior. However, for humanitarian,
economic, and geopolitical reasons, the world should obviously hope the Three Gorges Dam holds. 2020
has already been enough of an annus terribilis.

Chinese economic collapse and lashout causes extinction

Tepperman '18 [Jonathan; 10/15/18; editor at large at Foreign Policy; "China’s Great Leap Backward,"
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/15/chinas-great-leap-backward-xi-jinping/]

Such predictions should worry everyone. China is the world’s largest economy by some measures, so if it melts
down, the entire planet will pay the price. But the history of other autocracies, such as Vladimir Putin’s Russia or Kim’s North
Korea, suggests that Xi’s relentless power play could produce even worse consequences. Since taking power, Xi has
charted a far more aggressive foreign policy than his predecessors, alienating virtually every neighbor
and the United States by pushing China’s claims in the South China Sea, threatening Taiwan, and using the
military to assert Beijing’s claims to disputed islands.

Should China’s economic problems worsen, Xi

could try to ratchet up tensions on any of these fronts in order to
distract his citizens from the crisis at home. That temptation will prove especially strong if U.S. President Donald Trump keeps
poking China by intensifying the trade war and publicly denouncing it.

And things could get scarier still, Pei warns, if China’s economic problems spin out of control completely. In that
case, the Chinese state could collapse—a typical occurrence among typical dictatorships when faced with
economic shocks, external threats (especially a defeat in war), or popular unrest—but one that, given China’s
size, could have cataclysmic consequences if it happened there.

The plan solves by creating a national policy inclusive of all dams focused on
improving rivers --- this is necessary to correct the arbitrary regulatory framework and
prevent regional bias to produce a competitive advantage for the U.S. --- develops
technology and skills that can be exported to Russia, China, India and others to
remove or repair dams
Workman, 7 --- adviser and consultant on water and natural resources issues to governmental and
nongovernmental organizations, including the World Commission on Dams (FALL 2007, JAMES G.
WORKMAN, “How to Fix Our Dam Problems; Thousands of aging dams should be repaired or destroyed,
at a cost of billions. A cap-and-trade policy could speed the process and help pay the bills,”
https://issues.org/workman-water-crisis-drought-fix-dams/, JMP)

Another effect would be an innovation revolution in the kinds of tools and technologies that are already
in the works but that have lacked a national incentive to really flourish. These include new kinds of fish
passages, dredging techniques, low-flush toilets, and timed-drip irrigation, along with a more aggressive
use of groundwater that pumps reservoir water underground as soon as it is trapped. The range of tools
would also include financial instruments; in the West, they might accelerate the trading in water rights
between agricultural, industrial, urban, and environmental users that has begun in Oregon, Montana,
Washington, and California.

This brings us to a final advantage of a cap-and-trade policy for existing dams: global competitiveness.
Seventy years ago, the United States set off a macho global race to build the biggest dams on Earth,
starting with Hoover. It’s not clear which country won the top-down competition, which displaced 80
million people and amputated most of Earth’s rivers. But a new horizontal policy can lead to a
competitive advantage. Whether scaled to tributaries or based on federal standards, the United States
gains through dam consolidation, efficiencies, and innovation. Flexibility and incentives in a coast-to-
coast market lower the transaction costs of repair or removal. Economies of scale would spur a
substantial new dam removal and mitigation industry akin to the clean-air industry of scrubbers,
software, and innovative technology sparked by the Clean Air Act or the Kyoto Protocol cap-and-trade
policy. These don’t just bring down the costs of such policies in the United States; they create conditions
for a competitive advantage for the United States. Exporting technology and skills will be in high
demand beyond our borders, especially in China, Russia, and India, where most dams lie and where
sedimentation and evaporation rates are high and dam safety and construction standards are low.

What is keeping this policy from emerging? Mostly it is because the competing governmental and
nongovernmental organizations engaged in water think of dams as solitary entities locked within
sectoral and jurisdictional cubicles. They fail to recognize that all dams have a national impact, positive
and negative, on the life and livelihoods of communities throughout the United States.

We regard as distinct each dam operated by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Army Corps of Engineers,
Tennessee Valley Authority, or Bonneville Power Administration. Together those public projects total
half of the nation’s hydropower generation, but each is often seen as outside the laws that govern
private hydropower authorized under the Federal Power Act. In turn, the 2,000 hydro dams overseen by
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission fall into one category and the 77,000 nonhydro (but
federally registered) dams into another. We see 39,000 public dams as different from 40,000 private
dams. We regulate irrigation dams differently from navigation dams and assign water rights to dams in
western states but apply common law in eastern states, even when dams share the same river. Two
dams on the same stream owned by the same company are subject to different environmental laws. We
put 2.5 million small dams in a different category from 79,000 larger dams. The predictable mess is
arbitrary and absurd and cries out for an overarching national policy.

Taking note of seemingly contradictory trends around dam construction and destruction worldwide, one
might ask, “How far will the current trends go? How many old dams are we talking about repairing or
removing? Hundreds? Thousands? A few big ones? A million little ones? Do we need more dams or
fewer?”

Such questions largely miss the point of the policy envisioned here. We don’t need a specific number of
dams, but rather we need healthier rivers, safer societies, and a more efficient and disciplined water-
development infrastructure. How we get there is beyond the capacity of a single person to decide; only
through a flexible horizontal market can we answer, together. A government policy can be the catalyst
for and guide the direction of this market because it removes personal, political, ideological, and
geographic biases from the equation. Nothing environmental and safety activists say or do can prevent
new dam construction, and nothing dam supporters say or do can prevent old dams from coming down.
But if the nation’s anti-dam and pro-dam interests were gathered collectively under the same fixed
national ceiling and left to their own devices, Adam Smith’s “human propensity to truck, barter and
exchange” could unite with the spirit of Thoreau’s civil “wildness.” A cap-and-trade dam policy’s
embedded incentives would encourage the market’s invisible hand while ensuring its green thumb.

The United States once led the world in the construction of dams, but over time, many have
deteriorated. Now, under a cap-and-trade policy, it can bring horizontal discipline to that vertical
stockpile of fixed liabilities, reducing risks while improving the health and safety of living communities.
The United States can once again show the way forward on river development. Through such a cap-
and-trade policy it can help dams smoothly and efficiently evolve with the river economies to which they
belong.

Developing technology and experience will help other countries remove their dams
Perera, 21 --- MA and Phd in Urban and Environmental Engineering from Kyushu University, Japan;
over ten years of experience primarily focusing on water-related disasters and risk management
(5/10/2021, Interviewed by Cristina Novo, Dr. Duminda Perera, “One-size-fits-all criteria to assess dam
removal are at least useless and at most dangerous,” https://smartwatermagazine.com/news/unu-
inweh/one-size-fits-all-criteria-assess-dam-removal-are-least-useless-and-most-dangerous, JMP)

Q: The report calls for protocols to guide the process of dam removal, to understand processes and
outcomes. What do you see as the path ahead for this to become a reality? Are any countries leading in
this regard?

A: Over 90% of large dams are located in 25 countries. The majority of them are in the developed world,
which is economically and technologically advanced enough to find sustainable alternatives for the
ageing dams, including dam decommissioning as a solution. So far, dam removal is limited mainly to
small dams in North America and Europe. However, sharing the lesson learned, technology, and
experience can lead the other nations to develop sound plans for dam removal in their soils.
Ultimately, value judgments will determine the fate of many of these large water storage structures. It is
not an easy process, and thus distilling lessons from and sharing dam decommissioning experiences
should be a common global goal. Lack of such knowledge and lack of its reflection in relevant
regional/national policies/practices may progressively and adversely affect the ability to manage water
storage dams properly as they age.
 1ac Adv Rivers

Advantage ___ is Rivers

Dams disrupt entire aquatic ecosystems and impact whole regional biome
Miller, 20 --- B.A. from UT Austin, seasoned writer who has written over one hundred articles, which
have been read by over 500,000 people (Mar 13, 2020, Brandon Miller, “17 Biggest Advantages and
Disadvantages of Dams,” https://greengarageblog.org/17-biggest-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-
dams, JMP)

3. This technology disrupts local ecosystems.

Dams create a flooding issue behind the structure as a way to form a reservoir. Not only does this
disrupt human activities, but it also destroys the existing wildlife habitats that exist. This issue can
disrupt entire ecosystems, which can have an adverse effect on a whole regional biome. Marine life
that relies on an unobstructed flow of a river, such as migratory fish, can be adversely affected by the
decision to dam the water.

4. Some river sediment is beneficial.

Dams can have a profound impact on the overall aquatic ecosystem of a region. The transformation
upstream creates a lack of settlement that moves down the waterway to support the entire marine
habitat. It can also cause changes in temperature, chemical composition, and shoreline stability. Many
reservoirs also host invasive species, such as algae or snails, that undermine the natural communities of
the plants and animals that lived on the river before.

The riverbeds that are downstream from a dam can erode by several yards within the first decade of
operations. This damage can extend for hundreds of miles downstream afterward.

This spills over to other critical ecosystems

Wernick, 14 (September 10, 2014, Adam Wernick, “How 'clean power' dams actually damage the
environment,” https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-09-10/how-clean-power-dams-actually-damage-
environment, JMP) ***Note --- Jason Rainey is the executive director of International Rivers

But despite those successes, Rainey says there's not enough attention being paid to river health. “The
world's rivers are in grave peril, and there is no international institution, no panel of experts, looking
squarely at the problem," he says.

His group recently unveiled an interactive Google Earth-based online platform that allows users to look
at the health of the world's rivers. And if the crisis continues unabated, Rainey believes there will be
serious environmental consequences.
“The rate of species extinction is greatest in aquatic freshwater ecosystems. But we're really dealing
with planetary cycles here,” he says. “Rivers connect us to deltas and to coastal marine systems; they
carve their way through the land and are the ribbon of life in dry and wet communities.”

We are “clogging the arteries of the planet,” Rainey says, because of the illusion that the "alternative
[to energy pollution] is to just dam our way to some sustainable future.”

The problem is especially large in developing countries, where dams can provide badly-need power —
and jobs. "[These] regions have very legitimate needs for energy access and development,” Rainey
emphasizes, “but they are doing so by pushing a mega-dam energy agenda. It's just a dangerous course
for the planet.”

Fresh water is key to sustain all life --- necessary to eradicate poverty and ensure
resilience of the biosphere
Boltz, et. al, 15 --- Managing Director Ecosystems at The Rockefeller Foundation (Dr Frederick Boltz,
Alex Martinez - Stanford University Tom Ford Fellow The Rockefeller Foundation, Dr Casey Brown -
Associate Professor Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of Massachusetts
Amherst, Dr Johan Rockström - Professor in Environmental Science Stockholm University Executive
Director Stockholm Resilience Centre, Water for Development – Charting a Water Wise Path, “Chapter 7
Healthy freshwater ecosystems: an imperative for human development and resilience,”
https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2015-WWW-report-Chapter-7.pdf, JMP)

Introduction | Fresh water is vital to human life and wellbeing. Along with food and shelter, it forms our
most basic need. So vital, in fact, that access to drinking water is commonly considered a fundamental
right for all humanity. Healthy, functioning freshwater ecosystems provide reliable and quality water
flows upon which these basic human needs depend. Energy, food and health – all indispensable to
human development – rely on the water services provided by natural ecosystems. Freshwater
ecosystems, such as wetlands and rivers, also provide crucial regulating services, such as water
purification, flood mitigation and the treatment of human and industrial wastes. Now, more than ever,
we must incorporate the value of water-related environmental services in our water management
decisions. Eradicating poverty and hunger among the billions living in deprivation today and those in
the future will depend fundamentally on water security – for both people and ecosystems.

Water is central to the functioning and resilience of the biosphere. Its availability and variability strongly
influences the diversity and distribution of biomes and habitats that harbour the wealth of plant and
animal life on Earth. Water of specific quantity and quality is required to preserve the state and stability
of ecosystems and build their resilience to localised disturbance and to global change. It mediates the
persistence of ecosystem types, their composition and function, and facilitates the migration of species
and habitats as key environmental conditions such as temperature, rainfall, and soil moisture change.

Water’s central role in the biosphere has long implied that several of the most important challenges
confronting human development are related to fresh water (e.g., Falkenmark, 1990). This has been true
for decades and will only intensify without a change in the course of human water use. For too long,
conventional approaches to water planning have focused narrowly on economic productivity, largely
ignoring the costs of overdrawing water from ecosystems or disrupting natural flow regimes with hard
infrastructure. If we are serious about meeting human development objectives for the coming century,
the way we plan and manage water resources must change.

Rapid dam removal causes rivers to stabilize quickly

O'Connor, et. al, 15 --- Research Geologist, U.S. Geological Survey, Portland, Oregon (May 2015, J. E.
O'Connor, J. J. Duda, G. E. Grant, Science, “1000 dams down and counting; Dam removals are
reconnecting rivers in the United States,” VOL 348 ISSUE 6234, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24747366,
JMP)

Forty years ago, the demolition of large dams was mostly fiction, notably plotted in Edward Abbey's
novel The Monkey Wrench Gang. Its 1975 publication roughly coincided with the end of large-dam
construction in the United States. Since then, dams have been taken down in increasing numbers as
they have filled with sediment, become unsafe or inefficient, or otherwise outlived their usefulness (7)
(see the figure, panel A). Last year's removals of the 64-m-high Glines Canyon Dam and the 32-m-high
Elwha Dam in northwestern Washington State were among the largest yet, releasing over 10 million
cubic meters of stored sediment. Published studies conducted in conjunction with about 100 U.S. dam
removals and at least 26 removals outside the United States are now providing detailed insights into
how rivers respond (2, 3).

A major finding is that rivers are resilient, with many responding quickly to dam removal . Most river
channels stabilize within months or years, not decades (4), particularly when dams are removed rapidly;
phased or incremental removals typically have longer response times. The rapid physical response is
driven by the strong upstream/downstream coupling intrinsic to river systems. Reservoir erosion
commonly begins at knickpoints, or short steep reaches of channel, that migrate upstream while cutting
through reservoir sediment. Substantial fractions of stored reservoir sediment—50% or more—can be
eroded within weeks or months of breaching (4) (see the figure, panel B). Sediment eroded from
reservoirs rapidly moves down stream (5, 6). Some sediment is deposited downstream, but is often
redistributed within months. Many rivers soon trend toward their pre-dam states (5, 7).

Migratory fish have also responded quickly to restored river connectivity. Removal of a dam on
Virginia's Rappahannock River increased American eel populations in Shenandoah National Park, 150 km
upstream (8). Similarly, following a small dam removal in Maine, sea lamprey recolonized newly
accessible habitat, increasing abundance and nesting sites by a factor of 4 (9). Within days of the blast
removing the last of Glines Canyon Dam, Elwha River Chinook salmon swam upstream past its rocky
abutments. Responses have been mixed for less mobile bottom-dwelling plants and animals in former
reservoirs and down-stream channels (10, 11).

Dam size, river size, reservoir size and shape, and sediment volume and grain size all exert first-order
controls on physical and ecological responses to dam removal. Larger dam removals have had longer-
lasting and more widespread downstream effects than the much more common small-dam removals (4).
Local environmental and habitat conditions and the dam's position in the watershed also affect physical
and ecologic consequences. In the case of the Elwha River, both dams were near the river mouth,
minimizing the extent of downstream effects while reconnecting large areas of high quality fish habitat
upstream in Olympic National Park.
Atlantic salmon specifically are critically endangered and fishways aren’t sufficient ---
removing dams is necessary to revitalize the whole ecosystem
Lohan, 21 (APRIL 11, 2021 6:59PM (UTC), TARA LOHAN, “Our last, best chance to save Atlantic salmon;
Atlantic salmon are perilously close to extinction in the United States,”
https://www.salon.com/2021/04/11/our-last-best-chance-to-save-atlantic-salmon_partner/, JMP)

Atlantic salmon have a challenging life history — and those that hail from U.S. waters have seen things
get increasingly difficult in the past 300 years.

Dubbed the "king of fish," Atlantic salmon once numbered in the hundreds of thousands in the United
States and ranged up and down most of New England's coastal rivers and ocean waters. But dams,
pollution and overfishing have extirpated them from all the region's rivers except in Maine. Today only
around 1,000 wild salmon, known as the Gulf of Maine distinct population segment, return each year
from their swim to Greenland. Fewer will find adequate spawning habitat in their natal rivers to
reproduce.

That's left Atlantic salmon in the United States critically endangered. Hatchery and stocking programs
have kept them from disappearing entirely, but experts say recovering healthy, wild populations will
require much more, including eliminating some of the obstacles (literally) standing in their way.

Conservation organizations, fishing groups and even some state scientists are now calling for the
removal of up to four dams along a 30-mile stretch of the Kennebec River, where about a third of
Maine's best salmon habitat remains.

The dams' owner — multinational Brookfield Renewable Partners — has instead proposed building
fishways to aid salmon and other migratory fish getting around dams as they travel both up and down
the river. But most experts think that plan has little chance of success.

A confusing array of state and federal processes are underway to try and sort things out. None is likely
to be quick, cheap or easy. And there's a lot at stake.

"Ultimately the fate of the species in the United States really depends upon what happens at a handful
of key dams," says John Burrows, executive director of U.S. programs at the Atlantic Salmon Federation.
"If those four projects don't work — or even if just one of them doesn't work — you could basically
preclude recovering Atlantic salmon in the United States."

Prime habitat

The best place for salmon recovery is in Maine's two largest watersheds.

"The Penobscot River and the Kennebec River have orders of magnitude more habitat, production
potential and climate resilient habitat" than other parts of the state, says Burrows.

The rivers and their tributaries run far inland and reach more undeveloped areas with higher elevations.
That helps provide salmon with the cold, clean water they need for spawning and rearing. Smaller
numbers of salmon are hanging on in lower-elevation rivers along the coastal plain in Maine's Down East
region, but climate change could make that habitat unsuitable.
"There's definitely concern about how resilient those watersheds are going to be for salmon in the
future," says Burrows. "To recover the population, we need to be able to get salmon to the major
tributaries farther upriver, in places where we're still going to have cold water even under predictions
with climate change."

One of those key places is the Penobscot, which has already seen a $60 million effort to help recover
salmon and other native sea-run fish. A 16-year project resulted in the removal of two dams, the
construction of a stream-like bypass channel at a third dam, and new fish lift at a fourth. In all, the
project made 2,000 miles of river habitat accessible.

While there's still more work to be done on the Penobscot, says Burrows, attention has shifted to the
Kennebec. The river has what's regarded as the largest and best salmon habitat in the state, especially in
its tributary, the Sandy River, where hatchery eggs are being planted to help boost salmon numbers.

"That's helped us go from zero salmon in the upper tributaries of Kennebec to getting 50 or 60 adults
back, which is still an abysmally small number compared to historical counts," says Burrows. "But these
are the last of the wildest fish that we have."

The obstacles

The Sandy may be good salmon habitat, but it's also hard to reach. Brookfield's four dams stand in the
way of fish trying to get upriver.

At the lowest dam on the river, Lockwood Dam in Waterville, there's a fish lift — a kind of elevator that
should allow fish that enter it to pass up and around the dam. But if fish do find the lift — and only
around half of salmon do — they don't get far.

"It's a terminal lift," says Sean Ledwin, division director of Maine's Department of Marine Resources' Sea
Run Fisheries and Habitat. "The lift was never completed. So we pick up those fish in a truck and drive
them up to the Sandy River."

That taxi cab arrangement isn't a long-term solution, though, and was part of an interim species
protection plan.

Only the second dam, Hydro Kennebec, has a modern fish passage system. But how well that actually
works hasn't been tested yet since fish can't get by Lockwood Dam. As part of a consultation process
related to the Endangered Species Act, Brookfield has submitted a plan proposing to fix the fishway at
Lockwood and add passage to the third and fourth dams.

But federal regulators found it inadequate.

"Brookfield's proposal was rejected by the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee [which oversees
hydroelectric projects] and all the [federal management] agencies," says Ledwin. The company now has
until May 2022 to come up with a new plan.

State scientists aren't convinced Brookfield's plan would work either.

"We have really low confidence that having four fishways would ever result in meaningful runs of all the
sea-run fish and certainly not recovery of Atlantic salmon," says Ledwin. "We don't think that it's going
to be conducive to recovery."
In addition to considerations related to the Endangered Species Act, Shawmut Dam, the third on the
Kennebec, is currently up for relicensing, which triggers a federal review process by FERC.

And at the same time the Maine Department of Marine Resources has drafted a new plan for managing
the Kennebec River that recommends removing Shawmut Dam and Lockwood Dam. A public comment
period on the proposed plan closed in March.

Brookfield isn't happy with it and responded with a lawsuit against the state.

It was good news to conservation groups, however, which would like to see all four of the dams
removed if possible — or at least a few of them.

"There's no self-sustaining population of Atlantic salmon anywhere in the world that we know of that
have to go by more than one hydro dam," says Burrows. He believes that having Brookfield spend tens
of millions of dollars on new fishways will just result in failure for salmon.

It's partly a game of numbers. Not all fish will find or use a fishway. And if you start with a low number of
returning fish and expect them to pass through four gauntlets, you won't be left with many at the end.

"If you're passing 50% of salmon that show up at the first dam, and then you've got three more dams
passing 50%, that means you're left with only an eighth of the population you started with by the end,"
says Nick Bennett, a staff scientist at the Natural Resources Council of Maine. "You can't start a
restoration program where you're losing seven-eighths of the adults before they even get to their
spawning habitat."

And getting upriver is just part of the salmon's journey. Juvenile salmon face threats going downstream
to the ocean as well, including predation and warm water in impoundments. They also risk being injured
or killed going through spillways or turbines. Only about half are likely to survive the four hydro projects.

Atlantic salmon, unlike their Pacific cousins, don't always die after spawning, either. So some adults will
also make the downstream trek, too.

"Just looking at our reality, at least two dams need to go, hopefully three, and it would be amazing if all
four would go," says Burrows.

Ecosystem restoration

The fate of Atlantic salmon hangs in the balance , but so do the futures of other fishes.

The Pacific coast of the United States is home to five species of salmon. And while the Atlantic side has
just the one, it has a dozen other native sea-run species that have also seen their habitat shrink.

"Those dams are preventing other native species like American shad, alewives, blueback herring and
American eel from accessing large amounts of historic habitat," says Burrows.

Ledwin says removing dams on the Kennebec could result in populations of more than a million shad,
millions of blueback herring, millions of eels and hundreds of thousands of sea lampreys.

"The recovery of those species would actually help Atlantic salmon as well because they provide prey
buffers and there are a lot of co-evolved benefits," he says.
Salmon are much more successful at nesting when they can lay their eggs in old sea lamprey nests,
explains Bennett. "But sea lamprey are not good at using fish lifts and we've essentially blocked 90% of
the historic sea lamprey habitat at Lockwood dam. We need to get those fish upstream, too."

Dam removal advocates don't have to look too far to find an example of how well river ecosystems
respond when dams are removed.

The removal of the Edwards Dam on the lower Kennebec River in 1999 and the Fort Halifax Dam just
upstream on the Sebasticook in 2008 helped ignite a nationwide dam-removal movement. It also
brought back American shad, eel, two native species of sturgeon and millions of river herring to lower
parts of the watershed.

"We've got the biggest river herring run in North America now due to the dam removals," says Ledwin.
"And the largest abundance of eel we've ever seen on the lower Kennebec."

The resurgence of native fishes helps the whole ecosystem. When they returned, so too did eagles,
osprey and other wildlife.

"When people see all those fish in the river and the eagles overhead, it just kind of blows their minds
because they never realized what had been lost for so long in our rivers," says Burrows.

Rebuilding key forage fish like herring also benefits species that live not just in the river, but the Gulf of
Maine and even the Atlantic Ocean. The tiny fish feed whales, porpoises and seabirds. They're also used
for lobster bait and can help rebuild fisheries for cod and haddock, which has economic benefits for the
region, too.

"We have to rebalance the scales if we want to have marine industries and commercial fishing industries
and if we want the ecological benefits of what sea-run fisheries do for us," says Bennett.

Dams on the lower Snake River are driving salmon to extinction and causing orcas to
starve --- dam removal is critical
 wind energy and natural gas have supplanted hydropower as Pacific Northwest’s cheapest
sources of power
 increasing availability of wind and solar energy means Bonneville probably won’t find new
customers for that electricity
 freight volume on the Snake corridor already declining – growing shift to rail and trucks
 fish hatcheries have been a failure

Leslie, 19 --- book on dams, Deep Water: The Epic Struggle Over Dams, Displaced People, and the
Environment, won the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award for its "elegant, beautiful
prose”(OCTOBER 10, 2019, JACQUES LESLIE, “On the Northwest’s Snake River, the Case for Dam
Removal Grows; As renewable energy becomes cheaper than hydropower and the presence of dams
worsens the plight of salmon, pressure is mounting in the Pacific Northwest to take down four key dams
on the lower Snake River that critics say have outlived their usefulness,”
https://e360.yale.edu/features/on-the-northwests-snake-river-the-case-for-dam-removal-grows, JMP)
North America’s largest Pacific watershed, the Columbia River Basin, is in the midst of an environmental
and energy crisis so severe that the most obvious, yet hotly contested, antidote — removal of four
dams on the Columbia’s longest tributary, the Snake River — is gaining traction.

The hydropower dams have been controversial since before their completion, between 1962 and 1975,
because of their disastrous impact on salmon and the other 137 species that are part of the salmon food
chain. Most of the Columbia Basin’s 250-plus dams have played roles in the salmon’s decline, but the
four lower Snake River dams are prime targets for removal because their economic value has
diminished and their absence would inordinately benefit salmon.

Even though the dams include ladders and other fish passage mechanisms, they have made salmon
passage to and from the sea so difficult that populations have plummeted from already low mid-20th
century levels. The dams effectively prevented all but a few salmon from carrying out some of nature’s
most astonishing migrations, reaching spawning grounds in Idaho’s Snake River Basin as far as 900 river
miles from the Pacific Coast and more than a mile in elevation. As a result, all three Snake River salmon
species are endangered or threatened. Nevertheless, federal agencies and regional politicians have
steadfastly declined to consider removing the Snake dams.

Now orcas off the coast of Washington are dying of starvation, the direct result of the near-absence of
chinook salmon, the foundation of their diet. A whale mother that seemed to mourn her lost calf by
carrying its carcass on her back for 17 days as she swam hundreds of miles drew so much international
attention that a Seattle Times headline cited “the grief felt around the world.” Biologists have observed
orcas with “peanut head,”a misshapen head and neck brought on by starvation. The three local orca
pods are down to 73 animals, from a recent peak of 99 in the late 1980s. Given a dearth of reproducing
females and a paucity of recent births, the biologists fear that their population has dropped below a
sustainable level.

The orcas’ plight has refocused attention on the Snake River dams, for their removal offers the most
likely prospect of generating chinook — and, in turn, orca — recovery. Even with its dams, the Snake
River watershed supports 70 percent of the habitat available for chinook in the entire Columbia Basin —
no other dam removals in the Columbia Basin would open as much habitat .

The case for keeping the dams has been weakened as solar and wind energy and natural gas have
supplanted hydroelectricity as the Pacific Northwest’s cheapest sources of power. That development
has sent the Bonneville Power Administration, the long-tentacled federal agency that markets electricity
from the Snake River dams and 27 other federally owned Columbia Basin dams, into a tailspin.
Nevertheless, Bonneville and the dams’ many supporters continue to resist removal because, they say,
the hydropower system and the Pacific Northwest economy are inseparable.

The lower Snake River dams have enabled large quantities of grain to be shipped by barge from
Lewiston, Idaho all the way to the mouth of the Columbia River, 465 miles away, making the ninth-
largest city in the nation’s 39th most populous state the West Coast’s farthest-inland port. But in the last
two decades, freight volume on the Snake corridor has declined by 70 percent, as farmers have turned
to rail and trucks to move their grain to the West Coast, and container shipments dropped from 18,000
a year in 2000 to zero in 2017.
Last year, 32 Pacific Northwest salmon biologists and six whale scientists signed letters to Washington
Govenor Jay Inslee, advocating removal of the four dams. Dam decommissioning, the whale scientists
wrote, “will re-establish productive access” for chinook and other salmon to more than 5,000 miles of
high-quality habitat in the Snake Basin. Inslee hired a consulting team in August to conduct an
“engagement process” with Snake River Basin stakeholders that is supposed to result in a
recommendation in February on whether to remove the dams.

Mike Simpson, a rare environmentally-minded, climate change-believing conservative Republican

Congressman from Idaho, broke ranks with other Congress members in the region last April by declaring
in a speech, “I am going to stay alive long enough to see salmon return to healthy populations in
Idaho.” Though the only way that can happen is through dam removal, Simpson didn’t quite endorse
that option, but he made clear that it should be considered.

Recent studies have buttressed the case for removing the dams. A 2017 study by the Fish Passage
Center, a nonpartisan, government-funded Columbia Basin research group, found that removal of the
four Snake River dams would result in a two- to three-fold increase in salmon abundance in the Snake
River Basin, even though the fish would still have to negotiate four more dams downstream, on the
Columbia River.

Another study published in July by ECONorthwest, an independent economic consulting firm, conducted
cost-benefit analyses that the report said “strongly justify” removing the dams. The study is notable for
its inclusion of “non-use values,” assessments of the worth to local residents of a thriving, free-flowing
Snake River in which salmon runs rebound. According to four surveys conducted for the study, Pacific
Northwest households were willing to pay an average of $40 each for the dams’ removal, much higher
than the $8.44 per household that the study concluded justified removal. But proponents of retaining
the dams said the study’s methodology was faulty and that respondents overstate how much they
would hypothetically pay for a promised result like dam removal.

Daniel Malarkey, a report co-author, maintains, however, “These dams have reached the end of their
useful lives. They are going to take a lot more additional investment if they’re going to be operated for
another 30 years, and when you factor in their true costs, including their effect on fish, they are no
longer the low-cost resource. We have low-carbon and zero-carbon alternatives that don’t make fish go
extinct.”

For now, the dams’ fate rests with Bonneville, which markets more than a quarter of the Pacific
Northwest’s hydroelectricity and owns about three-fourths of its transmission lines. Beginning in the
1940s, Bonneville’s distribution of low-cost electricity generated by the mammoth Grand Coulee and
other main-stem Columbia River dams gave the Pacific Northwest a competitive advantage that
stimulated its economy and seemed to signify dams’ endless bounty. Now, however, the agency faces
financial collapse. As Elliott Mainzer, its administrator, stated publicly last year, Bonneville has
experienced a “bloodbath.” “I’m not in a panic mode,” he said, “but I am in a very, very significant sense
of urgency mode.”

The 21st century has caught up with Bonneville, as the cost of renewable energy and natural gas has
dropped below the price of Bonneville’s hydroelectricity. Bonneville historically maintained low prices
for its contracted customers, chiefly 134 Pacific Northwest public utility districts, by selling its surplus
power at much higher rates to California. But when the state began embracing solar energy in the last
decade, the going price for Bonneville’s surplus power dropped sharply.

As a result, Bonneville has been forced to raise rates it charges its contracted customers by about 30
percent over the last eight years. Those customers now pay Bonneville more than $35 per megawatt-
hour; were it not for their contractual obligations, they could buy electricity on the open market for
prices that over the last year averaged less than $30 a megawatt-hour and occasionally dropped to
below zero. The public utility districts’ contracts expire in 2028, when many may opt for cheaper
electricity somewhere else. Bonneville might then be forced to raise its rates even more, driving away
still more customers and intensifying the “death spiral” that utilities increasingly fear.

A Bonneville spokesman said in an email that its electricity prices aren’t “entirely comparable” to open
market prices because both Bonneville’s prices and its electricity supply are more stable than electricity
purchased on the open market. As for the raising of rates that would trigger a death spiral, he cited
Bonneville’s 2018-2023 strategic plan, which calls for “holding program costs at or below the rate of
inflation through 2028.”

Bonneville regards the lower Snake River dams as vital to its operations, comprising a quarter of the
system’s electricity reserves. Those reserves are needed, it says, to counteract high winter energy
demand and the variability of the system’s more intermittent wind power. In addition, the dams’
hydropower provides needed support for the system’s western Montana-to-eastern Washington
transmission lines.

But Bonneville’s prospects aren’t likely to improve. Its six dams on the main stem of the Columbia River
provide all the electricity its contracted customers need; the electricity generated by its 25 other dams,
including the four lower Snake River dams, is all surplus. Given the increasing availability of wind and
solar energy, Bonneville probably won’t find new customers for that electricity, says Anthony Jones, an
independent economist at Rocky Mountain Econometrics who has studied Bonneville’s finances for
more than two decades.

Instead, Bonneville has become the nation’s most highly leveraged utility. It spent down its financial
reserves from nearly a billion dollars in 2008 to about $5 million in 2017, and it accumulated $15 billion
in debt, on which it spent $1.56 billion on interest and related fees in fiscal year 2018. Most of its dams
are at least half-a-century old, and will require billions of dollars to repair; the cost of rehabilitating 21
aging Snake River dam turbines alone is likely to exceed $1 billion.

Bonneville is also required to spend large sums on Columbia Basin fish and wildlife mitigation to make
up for the environmental damage the dams cause. From 2008 to 2017, that effort cost Bonneville $727
million a year, about a fourth of its annual budget. Much of the mitigation money has been spent on the
basin’s 178 salmon hatcheries, yet the hatcheries have amounted to an abysmal boondoggle. No
salmon species is in better condition than before hatcheries were introduced, and a mountain of
scientific evidence indicates that hatchery salmon not only don’t support wild salmon, but reduce
chances of their recovery. The salmon recovery effort has cost Bonneville ratepayers more than $16
billion since 1980, about a quarter of their electricity bills. That makes it the nation’s most expensive
endangered species recovery failure. According to Jones, salmon and other wildlife mitigation efforts
attributable to the four Snake River dams have cost between a third and a fourth of Bonneville’s total
mitigation expenditures.
On top of this, dam removal advocates say, the Snake River dams are both unneeded and unprofitable.
Their hydroelectricity comprises between 5 and 13 percent of Bonneville’s total electricity output,
depending on season, but the last time the dams’ power helped meet Bonneville’s contracted customer
demand was in 2009, according to Linwood Laughy, an advocate of removing the Snake River dams who
follows Bonneville’s financial activities. Since then, all their electricity has been surplus, and it’s the price
of that surplus electricity that has plummeted.

“Even if you don’t give a rat’s ass about the fish,” Jones said, “there is good justification for taking the
dams down purely on a cost savings basis.”

This is a race against time --- only quick removal of the Snake River dams can prevent
these extinctions
 Salmon and Southern Resident orcas are being driving to extinction
 Fish ladders and other recovery fails

Steinbauer, 21 --- contributing writer covering national environmental policy, was an editorial fellow
at Sierra (MAR 2 2021, JAMES STEINBAUER, “Will the Snake River’s Dams Be the Next to Come Down? A
multibillion-dollar rescue package to pull Idaho’s salmon back from extinction,”
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/will-snake-river-s-dams-be-next-come-down, JMP) ***Note --- Bill
Arthur went on to chair the Sierra Club’s Columbia–Snake River Salmon Recovery Campaign

In 1991, the salmon and steelhead that returned to the Snake River were listed as endangered species,
kicking into motion the process of developing a federal recovery plan. The first such plan focused on
small restoration projects and largely ignored the four dams. Over the next 30 years, a coalition of
environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club, sued the federal government six times, arguing
that the recovery plan was inadequate. The most recent lawsuit, in 2016, resulted in a four-year study of
the environmental impact of the four lower Snake River dams. Although it found that breaching the
dams would be the most effective salmon recovery action , the federal agencies ultimately decided
against it.

Simpson calls this history of lawsuits the “unsustainable status quo.” Arthur describes it as a hamster
wheel of failed and inadequate salmon recovery plans from the federal agencies. “Each time they redo
their recovery plan, they add a few new bells and whistles but still forgo the problem that these last four
dams are just fundamentally lethal to salmon,” Arthur said.

To date, the United States has spent more than $17 billion trying to recover Snake River salmon, with
little to show for it. In 2017, the number of Chinook returning to the Snake River dropped below 10,000.
Only 500 made it past the dams (via fish ladders) to central Idaho. Just a few months before his speech
at Boise State, Simpson traveled to Marsh Creek, a tributary of the Salmon River in central Idaho, to look
for salmon that had made the 900-mile journey from the Pacific to lay their eggs and die—the end of
one cycle and the beginning of another. He found just one.

The effects of salmon's decline on the Pacific Northwest’s web of life reverberated widely. When
Chinook, sockeye, and steelhead make the journey back to the streams and tributaries where they were
born to spawn, they bring with them the collected nutrients of up to five years spent in the ocean. For
thousands of years, the salmon not only provided sustenance for Native Americans, but also their
decaying bodies fertilized and shaped the forests of the Northwest and fed more than 140 species, from
bald eagles to salamanders.

Perhaps no animal has felt the decrease in salmon more intensely than the endangered Southern
Resident killer whale. Southern Resident orcas are distinct from other orca populations through their
dialect and the fact that they are obligate piscivores, meaning they eat only fish. And not just any fish:
More than 90 percent of their diet is salmon, and 80 percent of that is Columbia Basin Chinook.

The health of salmon can be used as a sort of barometer for the health of the orcas. Southern Resident
killer whales need to eat between 350 and 450 pounds of fish a day to survive. Deborah Giles, who
studies orcas at the University of Washington’s Center for Conservation Biology, said this probably
wasn’t a problem when the salmon returning from the North Pacific weighed in at over 100 pounds, but
a lack of quality Chinook is the number one threat affecting the orcas today. Giles said Simpson’s
proposal is the best plan for salmon recovery she has seen in 30 years, but the timeline he lays out—his
plan calls for breaching the dams starting in 2030—isn’t fast enough . “There is no doubt in my mind
that removing those dams will have a positive impact on the whales,” Giles said. “But they need to
come down tomorrow.”

Salmon are a critical keystone species --- sustains overall ecosystem

Bugas, 20 (November 13, 2020, Hannah Bugas, “Salmon: A Keystone Species; The enormous benefit
that salmon provide for countless species and the overall health and function of the coast is what makes
salmon a keystone species,” https://pacificwild.org/salmon-a-keystone-species/, JMP)

As salmon disappear, coastal ecosystems, culture and economies are disproportionately impacted. The
enormous benefit that salmon provide for countless species and the overall health and function of the
coast is what makes salmon a keystone species — an integral species which ecosystems depend on,
with drastic changes resulting if they are removed. Each part of a salmon’s life cycle is heavily
interconnected with its surrounding environment.

Pacific salmon are mostly anadromous, meaning they are born in freshwater, migrate to the ocean, and
then migrate back to freshwater, spawn and die immediately after. On their journey to the ocean, more
than 50 per cent of their diet is insects which fall into streams from surrounding tree canopies (Allan et
al. 2003, Baxter et al. 2005). Without Pacific salmon, there would be the potential for an explosion of
insects, as salmon are the main insect predator in aquatic environments. When salmon return to their
native streams to spawn, their energy-rich carcasses and eggs are consumed by a variety of predators in
coastal watersheds, including wolves, bears, and scavenging birds. In some cases, the diets of wolves can
consist of almost 50 per cent salmon, with the rest made up of small animals in their ecosystems
(Stankey et al. 2017). Coastal wolves are only one of many species that have uniquely co-evolved
alongside wild salmon over millennia.

Salmon support populations of eagles, gulls, sea birds and more by providing them with nutrients
essential for overwinter survival and migrations. The amount of salmon in a stream has been shown to
be an indicator of the density and diversity in species of birds in the surrounding ecosystem (Field and
Reynolds 2012). Pacific salmon populations are important for the survival of diverse and large
assemblages of resident and migratory birds, and their disappearance would mean the decline of many
bird species (Field and Reynolds 2012).

Salmon are an important source of nutrients for bears in coastal watersheds as well. The population
density of bears can be up to 20 times greater in areas where salmon are abundant, versus areas where
they do not occur (Reimchen 2000). In areas where salmon are abundant, bears will eat an average of 15
salmon per day, a significant portion of their diet (Reimchen 2000). Coastal bears get from 33-94 per
cent of their annual protein from salmon through scavenging for dead carcasses and capturing them in
streams (Klinka and Reimchen 2009). Without salmon as a food source, populations of bears would
become severely at-risk.

Salmon play a significant role in the survival of certain ocean species during their time in salt water. For
example, the Chinook salmon are the primary prey for the southern resident killer whale. In the past 35
years, consumption of salmon by killer whales and seals has increased by over 25 million individual
salmon, while harvest of the fish has increased despite reduction by fisheries in an attempt to recover
endangered killer whales (Chasco et al. 2017). If populations of Chinook salmon continue to decline,
there will be major correlating impacts on the food web. Some predict that certain apex predators like
the southern resident killer whale will become extinct.

When salmon die at the end of their life cycle, their carcasses provide valuable nutrients to streams and
rivers, providing a significant increase in organic matter and nutrients which is believed to enhance the
productivity of the surrounding ecosystem (Holtgrieve and Schindler 2011). These nutrients are
transferred to all levels of the food chain, and in some cases, species adjust their survival strategies to
capitalize on the additional resources (Holtgrieve and Schindler 2011). Throughout their life cycle,
salmon fundamentally transform the way ecosystems function, by playing the roles of both predator and
prey, plus releasing important nutrients back in the ecosystem after they spawn.

Risks human extinction --- salmon are keystone species

Stephan, 13 --- broker of Eco Realty, co-hosts KWMR’s Post Carbon Radio and blogs at
MarinSonoma.com (10/24/2013, Bernie Stephan, “Protecting our salmon and our human survival,”
http://www.ptreyeslight.com/article/protecting-our-salmon-and-our-human-survival, recut by JMP)

It’s time we valued our freshwater creeks—nature’s roads—for the value they bring in the long term.
Biodiversity in our watershed is essential for many species and is essential for ultimate human survival.
We must protect our watersheds, respecting the natural flows of water and the life they enable.
Extinction is far more serious than anyone’s financial investment.

The cumulative effect of many small land disturbances near a stream can be devastating. Land-use
restrictions to protect salmon streams have successfully been implemented elsewhere in California and
around the United States. Marin’s failure to take permanent action is truly disturbing, considering that
other counties and cities have enacted stream protection measures. The need to control development,
to protect Marin’s salmon, has been well understood for decades.

Marin officials have watched coho salmon populations drop by 70 percent since the 1960’s. In 2010, the
nonprofit Salmon Protection and Watershed Network sued the county for its failure to protect salmon.
Marin’s Superior Court imposed a ban on new development in San Geronimo Valley pending the
adoption of an ordinance that had been promised since 1994.

In June, almost two decades after the ordinance had been proposed, the Board of Supervisors had
before it a draft stream protection ordinance ready for adoption. But when it came to a vote,
supervisors lacked the political courage to protect the salmon. Instead, they chose to punt, appointing a
subcommittee to make recommendations for revising the Countywide Plan once again.

We can have development setbacks for coho and all the other species that don’t recognize our surveyed
boundaries. Our creeks are roads for salmon, whose annual migrations are a marvel of nature. When my
family lived on San Geronimo Creek, the sighting of salmon always lifted our spirits, connecting us to the
natural world. I envision Marin’s creeks as wildlife corridors where aquatic and terrestrial critter alike
would have their needs met. It’s time for us humans to see the bigger picture and begin limiting our
development.

Private property rights should take a back seat to the needs of nature. As a working realtor, I’m still
speaking up for the fish. I value their right to continue co-existing with us more highly than our right to
expand real estate development. But will our supervisors do the same? Human activity, especially land
development, has been the main cause of the collapse of the Lagunitas Creek salmon population, and
sustaining the salmon requires rigorous protection along the entire length of the creek and its
tributaries.

As our planet undergoes a biodiversity crisis everywhere, 16,000 species are threatened with extinction,
including 12 percent of birds, 23 percent of mammals and 32 percent of amphibians. Biologists are clear
that humans are responsible for the declines we are witnessing. The aggregate effect of all our
development continues to destroy the homes and habitat of wildlife, even when we as individuals take
great care not to.

We should move quickly to enact a rigorous, enforceable ordinance to protect our salmon, or they will
all be gone and the threats to human survival are not far behind. Let’s listen to the scientists over the
protestations of property owners. Let’s heed the dire warnings; there has been enough delay already.

I urge the county supervisors to exercise decisive leadership is reversing the tide that always seems to
put private property rights ahead of nature’s rights. Salmon are the biological foundation—and
keystone species—of our precious coastal ecosystems. Let’s hope the supervisors stem the tide of
ecocide and side with the fish on this important issue.

Regulating dams to protect rivers saves salmon from an extinction vortex

 slackwater pools behind the dams are heating up and killing fish

Kiernan, 21 --- president and CEO of American Rivers, a national river conservation organization
(5/25/21 04:00 PM EDT, Tom Kiernan, “Rivers, hydropower and climate resilience,”
https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/555296-rivers-hydropower-and-climate-resilience,
JMP)
The impacts of climate change, felt first and hardest on the water cycle in the form of floods and
droughts, demand that we protect and restore healthy, free-flowing rivers. In addition to protecting
rivers that provide our drinking water, irrigate crops, manage floodwaters, recharge groundwater
supplies and nurture fish and wildlife, we must reduce reliance on fossil fuels and boost energy from
renewable sources.

Given the need to reduce emissions and protect healthy rivers, what role should hydropower play?

Hydropower dams will continue to play a significant role in our nation’s energy portfolio. At American
Rivers, we recognize this. But we cannot responsibly meet our nation’s 21st century energy needs by
building new dams that damage more rivers, by weakening environmental protections designed to
protect rivers from harmful dam operations, or by supporting hydropower that perpetuates injustice.

In the Pacific Northwest, a decades-long debate around the role and impacts of hydropower on the
environment and Native American tribes has been heating up literally and figuratively. In the Columbia
River basin, four dams on the lower Snake River are pushing salmon to extinction. Hydropower
produced by the four lower Snake dams cannot be considered “green” or “clean” given the cumulative,
staggering impacts of these dams on the ecosystem and salmon runs. Salmon are essential to the
cultures, identities and economies of tribes across the region, and the loss of salmon is an ongoing and
devastating injustice.

Scientists say that any plan to recover salmon must include the removal of the four dams on the lower
Snake, to improve river conditions and access to habitat. Climate change is making the need for Snake
River restoration urgent: The slackwater pools behind the dams are heating up, creating lethal
conditions for fish. High water temperatures in 2015 killed over 90 percent of returning Snake River
sockeye before they could make it upstream to spawn in Idaho. The Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) forecasts that removing the four lower Snake dams would reduce water temperatures to levels
that are safer for endangered salmon, even in very hot years.

The Bonneville Power Administration and other agencies that operate the federal hydropower dams on
the Columbia and Snake rivers have spent $17 billion over 40 years on salmon recovery to avoid the
need for dam removal. These investments have been necessary but not sufficient nor successful. A
recent analysis by the Nez Perce Tribe found that many Snake River salmon populations are entering an
“extinction vortex” with nearly half of the wild spring chinook populations in the Snake River Basin
nearing a dire extinction threshold and without intervention may not persist .

We need to use visionary thinking to resolve long standing impacts of the lower Snake River dams on
salmon as part of a climate wise strategy. The power produced by these dams can be replaced with
clean, reliable and affordable alternatives that will create jobs while also helping confront the global
climate crisis. Beyond replacing the power we should invest in modernizing the region's power grid,
improved battery storage, energy efficiency and demand management.
 1ac Adv Climate – Trading Dams Version

Advantage ___ is Climate

We will isolate 2 internal links –

First is methane – a massive expansion of hydropower is coming and ensuring it is

responsibly developed is critical to prevent a short-term spike in methane emissions
Ocko, 19 --- Senior Climate Scientist, Barbra Streisand Chair of Environmental Studies at the
Environmental Defense Fund (November 15, 2019, Ilissa Ocko, “Long considered a “clean” energy
source, hydropower can actually be bad for climate,”
https://blogs.edf.org/energyexchange/2019/11/15/long-considered-a-clean-energy-source-
hydropower-can-actually-be-bad-for-climate/, JMP)

A new EDF study published this week in Environmental Science and Technology shows that hydropower
— the leading renewable energy technology projected to grow rapidly — is not always as good for the
climate as broadly assumed. Moreover, continuing to assume that it is could mean that projects meant
to reduce greenhouse emissions will unintentionally increase them instead.

Motivated by pervasive misconceptions of the climate impacts of hydropower, we assessed the warming
impacts over time of sustained greenhouse gas emissions estimated from nearly 1,500 existing
hydropower plants around the globe. We also looked at the implications of future hydropower
development.

If minimizing climate impacts are not a priority in the design, construction and geographic placement of
new hydropower facilities, we could end up generating electricity that yields more warming —
especially in the near-term — than fossil fuels .

How hydropower can be worse for the climate than fossil fuels

Hydropower is produced when water stored behind a dam is released, using the power of gravity to spin
turbines, which generate electricity. There is no fossil fuel burning or smokestacks involved. Which is
why, on average, electricity from a hydropower facility has a smaller carbon footprint per unit of energy
than electricity generated from fossil fuels.

But the reservoirs where water is stored also produce both carbon dioxide and methane (an even more
potent greenhouse gas, with over 80 times the warming power of CO2 for the first 20 years after it’s
released). Both carbon dioxide and methane are released when vegetation decomposes under water.
And here, there are enormous differences from facility to facility due to a range of varying reservoir
features and meteorological characteristics.

Some hydropower reservoirs are actually carbon sinks, taking in more carbon through photosynthesis by
organisms living in the water than they emit through decomposition, while others have carbon
footprints equal to or greater than, fossil fuels. In fact, of the nearly 1,500 plants worldwide that we
examined and account for half of global hydropower generation, more than 100 facilities have
greenhouse gas emissions that cause more warming than fossil fuels.

Further, some regions, such as Africa and India, have proportionally more plants with high greenhouse
gas emissions from hydropower compared to the rest of the world. Unfortunately, these also happen to
be hotspots for future hydropower growth. For example, electricity generation from hydropower in
India is projected to increase by 230% between 2015 and 2040.

Timeframes matter

It is also important to note that if we are building new hydropower facilities with the expectation of
climate benefits, those benefits will be significantly smaller in the near-term than over the long haul.
This is due to methane emissions’ powerful near term impacts, and also the large amount of carbon
dioxide released from newly-flooded reservoirs.

For example, after 50 years of operation, a hydropower facility could cause less than 40% of the
warming that would be caused by a coal-fired plant. But in the first decade after the hydro facility is
built, it could cause more warming than a coal-fired power plant. Our study finds that over 200 existing
hydropower facilities across the globe potentially cause more warming in the near-term than fossil fuel
plants.

Why it matters and what to do

Despite the rapid growth of wind and solar, hydropower accounts for two-thirds of renewable energy
generation worldwide. Thousands of new hydro facilities are either planned or under construction
globally. The International Energy Agency predicts that hydropower could grow by nearly 80% by 2040
as society works to displace fossil fuels.

Our research shows why it is important to ensure that future hydropower projects don’t hurt, but help,
the climate. For example, if new hydropower plants in India have greenhouse gas emissions properties
similar to existing Indian hydro plants, they could be worse for the climate than emissions from average
natural gas plants over the first 50 years of operation, due to methane emissions as well as carbon
dioxide emissions from reservoir creation.

There are things that can be done when planning a new hydropower project that can help keep
emissions down.

For example, if a facility draws from a large reservoir, but generates a relatively small amount of
electricity – it’s likely to produce disproportionate greenhouse gas emissions. Keeping this ratio in mind
is a valuable part of the planning process as this “power density” has been found to be the best indicator
of overall greenhouse gas emissions from hydropower facilities.

Temperature of the reservoir water can also play a role in the production of methane emissions, and
therefore avoiding development in extremely hot places could also lower emissions.

Overall, we must dispel the myth that hydropower is universally low-carbon, and be mindful of the
potential for high emissions when developing new facilities. This paper gives us a more effective way to
assess these projects so we can ensure new developments deliver climate benefits and not disbenefits .
The methane from dams is not currently accounted for in global or U.S. greenhouse
gas inventories AND independently dams disrupt the carbon cycle
Benson, 21--- Masters of Environmental Policy Candidate (MAY 16, 2021, Jen Benson, “The Murky
Ethics and Complicated Environmental Claims of Big Hydro,” https://www.bard.edu/cep/blog/?p=12930,
JMP)

Dam(n) Greenhouse Gasses

Despite consistent rhetoric around dams being a renewable energy source and an environmentally
responsible alternative to fossil fuels, hydropower has been found to cause significant disruptions to the
natural carbon cycle.

Human constructed dam reservoirs trap almost one-fifth of organic carbon moving from riverine to
oceanic environments. With 90% of rivers world wide predicted to host at least one dam in the next 15
years, impacts on the natural carbon cycle will continue to intensify over time. As the building block of
life, the carbon cycle is the basis for primary productivity, and reductions in carbon moving through an
ecosystem can have significant detrimental effects on its stability and productivity .

Furthermore, the reservoirs created by dams emit methane. A study using bubble-tracking sonar found
that each square meter of reservoir surface emitted 25% more methane than previous estimates
suggested. Despite considerable emissions, methane from dams is not currently calculated into global
or United States greenhouse gas inventories.

When under consideration as a renewable energy, the carbon and methane associated with dams must
be included in all cost benefit analyses, along with impacts to local biological and human communities.

Second, is carbon sinks --- dams flood forests preventing them from absorbing carbon
AND climate change undercuts the effectiveness of hydropower dams
Diehn, 20 (Jun. 26, 2020 08:57AM EST, Sonya Angelica Diehn, Deutsche Welle, “Five Ways Mega-Dams
Harm the Environment,” https://www.ecowatch.com/mega-dams-2646269103.html, JMP) ***Note -
Emilio Moran is a professor of geography and environment at Michigan State University

3. Dams Contribute to Climate Change (and Are Affected by It)

As reservoirs fill, upstream forests are flooded, eliminating their function as carbon sinks. As the
drowned vegetation decomposes, decaying plants in manmade reservoirs release methane, a powerful
greenhouse gas. That makes reservoirs sources of emissions — particularly those in tropical forests,
where there is dense growth. It's estimated that greenhouse gas emissions from dams amount to about
a billion tons annually, making it a significant global source.

And as the climate changes, more frequent and prolonged drought means dams will capture less water,
resulting in lower electricity production. Countries dependent on hydropower will be especially
vulnerable as temperatures keep rising.
Moran described a vicious circle, for example in Brazil, which gets 60 to 70% of its energy from
hydropower: "If you wipe out half the rainforest, there will a loss of half the rainfall. And then there
won't be enough water to provide the amount of power from those dams," he explained.

Specifically, dams are destroying forests in the Amazon and devastating biological hot
spots of international importance
 Dams trap nutrient-rich sediments critical for agriculture

Fearnside, 20 --- ecologist at the National Institute for Research in Amazonia in Brazil (Oct. 2, 2020,
Dr. Philip Fearnside, “Many Rivers, Too Many Dams,”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/02/opinion/amazon-illegal-dams-brazil.html, JMP)

Where rivers run free, dams are intruders.

Perhaps nowhere these days are they more threatening than in the Amazon basin. Its namesake river is
fed by more than 1,100 tributaries, many of them major rivers themselves, and forms the largest
drainage system in the world. About one-fifth of all of the water that runs off the surface of the Earth
ends up in it.

The flows of these rivers can generate a lot of electricity, so it’s not surprising that the Amazon River
basin is seen by governments, speculators and industries as a vast, untapped frontier for hydroelectric
power and the development that dams attract. At least 158 dams are either operating or under
construction now in the river basin, according to a study last year in the journal Nature Communications,
and an additional 351 have been proposed.

The study’s authors called the Amazon a “hot spot for future hydropower expansion.”

But it is hard to know, really, what lies ahead. Plans for these big, disruptive projects are often shrouded
in secrecy, especially in Brazil, which includes about two-thirds of the basin, because of the controversy
they generate over the environmental destruction and injustices they cause. New projects can appear
out of nowhere and dormant plans are sometimes resurrected as sudden priorities — so-called vampire
projects rising from the dead.

What is clear, as I argued in a 2017 article for the online magazine Yale Environment 360 — even before
Brazilians elected as their president Jair Bolsonaro, who has been predictably disastrous for the Amazon
— is that the dam building is “driven by the country’s agricultural and heavy industrial interests, is being
carried out with little regard to the impacts on Indigenous people and the environment, is proceeding
with little effort to capitalize on the nation’s vast renewable energy potential, and is often fueled by
corruption.”

One dam that appeared out of nowhere last year is the centerpiece of the Barão do Rio Branco
infrastructure project proposed soon after Mr. Bolsonaro took office in January 2019. This project calls
for a 2,000- to 3,000-megawatt dam on the Trombetas River, an Amazon tributary that flows through an
isolated and mineral-rich region of northern Brazil.

[map omitted]
The proposed dam would flood Quilombola lands upstream from the dam. These lands were established
by runaway slaves. The inundation would conflict with Brazil’s often-violated and easily amended
Constitution, which prohibits the removal of Quilombola and Indigenous peoples from their lands. (The
government says it will consult with potentially affected communities, a promise that has proved mostly
hollow in other dam projects.) This dam would also threaten one of Amazonia’s largest beaches for
turtle reproduction, which lies downstream.

Not coincidentally, Mr. Bolsonaro is dismantling the country’s environmental agencies and licensing
system for infrastructure projects, and is reducing protections for Indigenous peoples.

This has set the stage for a spree of dam building that could be enormously destructive to a region of
incredible biological diversity. At the same time, Amazonia’s rain forests are being cleared for cattle
ranges and soy farms, often illegally.

Every year Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy publishes an energy plan that includes large dams of at
least 30 megawatts of installed capacity to be completed within 10 years. The most recent plan, which
runs through 2029, lists three dams: the Tabajara in Rondônia, the Castanheira in Mato Grosso and the
Bem Querer in Roraima.

This last dam would block the Rio Branco, known as the White River for its color, which is caused by the
high load of sediments it carries. These sediments created and maintain the Anavilhanas Archipelago, a
national park whose 400 islands in the Rio Negro just downstream from the confluence with the Rio
Branco make up one of the world’s largest riverine archipelagos. Its wetland ecosystems depend on the
sediments from the Rio Branco and are considered of international importance for their biological
diversity.

In addition to that plan, Brazil’s most recent “National Energy Plan,” which goes through 2050, includes
the Chacorão Dam on the Tapajós River, which would flood part of the Munduruku Indigenous Land, as
well as dams on the Tapajós and its tributary Jamanxim River, which would inundate part of Sawré
Muybu, another Munduruku area that so far has been denied designation as an Indigenous land
precisely to make way for these dams.

Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador also have big plans for Amazonian dams. In 2010, Peru and Brazil agreed to six
large dams in Peru, to be built by Brazilian contractors and financed by Brazil’s national bank. Most
electricity from them would be exported to Brazil. When this will happen is unclear: The main contractor
has since been swept up in an unrelated corruption scandal, along with some political figures in Brazil.
But the dams remained listed on Brazil’s 2050 energy expansion plan.

In Brazil, there is a constant testing of the legal limits, to see which laws will be enforced and which will
be ignored. The Belo Monte Dam, the biggest hydroelectric project in the Amazon, stands as a concrete
monument to this reality. It became operational in 2016 after storms of protest from Indigenous
peoples, environmentalists and much of the public. The dam flooded roughly 200 square miles of
lowlands and forest, uprooted more than 20,000 people and has caused extensive damage to the river
ecosystem.

A federal judge originally ruled that the license for the dam was illegal because the people in the
Indigenous lands affected were not consulted as required by law. But construction was allowed to
proceed and the dam stands today. The project, which consists of two dams, removes 80 percent of the
water from a 45-mile stretch between them along which two Indigenous lands are. Despite an estimated
$18 billion price tag, the dam’s economic viability was always in question. The natural seasonal cycle of
the Xingu River includes a long low-flow period that prevents Belo Monte from using many of its
expensive turbines during much of the year.

The study in Nature Communications found that some lowland dams in the Amazon actually may exceed
the carbon emissions rates of fossil fuel plants. Beyond that, these tropical dams cause environmental
damage that is much more serious than their proponents admit, for benefits that are far less than
claimed.

River ecosystems are turned into reservoirs, for instance, damaging aquatic diversity. Dams can block
annual fish migrations, like that of the giant catfish of the Madeira River. According to one analysis, after
Brazil built one dam on the Madeira, in 2011, and another in 2013, fish catches in what had been the
world’s second greatest riverine fishery plummeted in Brazil, Bolivia and Peru. Thousands of people lost
their fishing-based livelihoods, and the steep decline in fishing also led to social tensions in the region
that persist today.

Another problem results when nutrient-rich sediments carried by these rivers are trapped behind dams
rather than carried downstream and deposited on flood plains, where they are essential for agriculture.
The nutrients also support the food chain that fish downstream depend on , compromising catches
along thousands of miles of Amazonian rivers.

These huge impoundments also destroy forests, which drown in the sprawling reservoirs behind them
and are cut down to make way for the accompanying development and to clear paths for transmission
lines strung across vast distances to deliver electricity to faraway consumers and industries. The rising
waters behind these dams can also displace thousands of people from their homes, as they have done
time and again in the Amazon.

Some proposed dams are important components of planned waterways that will allow for the
transportation of soybeans and other products by barge. This would accelerate the clearing of forest
and the transformation of cattle pasture for soy cultivation. This switch from pasture to soy fields is
already a key driver of deforestation as cattle ranchers sell their lands to soy farmers and buy cheap land
deeper into forest areas to clear for new ranches.

There are more subtle consequences, too.

Mercury that occurs naturally in the soil as well as in runoff from gold mining operations that can often
be found upriver of dams can be transformed into highly poisonous methylmercury through a chemical
reaction at the bottom of reservoirs, where there is almost no oxygen in the water. High levels of
mercury have been found in the hair of people living around the Tucuruí Dam in Pará and the Balbina
Dam in Amazonas.

And the lack of oxygen at the bottom of these reservoirs also causes another chemical reaction that
produces methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas. It bubbles up to the surface, where it is released
into the atmosphere. The gas also enters the atmosphere when reservoir water passes through the
turbines and down the spillways of dams.
What all this adds up to is clear: The countries of the Amazon should be extremely wary of damming
more rivers in pursuit of electricity they mistakenly see as clean and cheap. These projects are
enormously expensive, wreak havoc on the environment and are an injustice to the people who live
near them. Moreover, they often don’t add up financially. A 2014 study in the journal Energy Policy
warned that “in most countries large hydropower dams will be too costly in absolute terms and take too
long to build” to make sense.

Brazil has other ways to generate electricity — offshore turbines and solar power, for instance — with
the existing hydropower plants available to provide backup. There are also ample opportunities to cut
electricity use through conservation and to redirect the economy from industries that are electricity-
intensive, like aluminum production, for export.

Amazonia’s free-flowing rivers are the lifeblood of its biologically rich forests and the Indigenous
peoples who have depended on them for centuries. Treating Amazonia as a sacrifice zone for resource
extraction is unjust and unnecessary. The human and environmental costs are too high.

Warming leads to extinction---it’s a conflict-multiplier and defense doesn’t assume

non-linearity
Kareiva 18, Ph.D. in ecology and applied mathematics from Cornell University, director of the Institute
of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA, Pritzker Distinguished Professor in Environment &
Sustainability at UCLA, et al. (Peter, “Existential risk due to ecosystem collapse: Nature strikes back,”
Futures, 102)
In summary, six of the nine proposed planetary boundaries (phosphorous, nitrogen, biodiversity, land use, atmospheric aerosol loading, and chemical pollution) are unlikely to be associated with existential risks. They all correspond

climate change, global freshwater cycle, and

to a degraded environment, but in our assessment do not represent existential risks. However, the three remaining boundaries (

ocean acidification) do pose existential risks. This is because of intrinsic positive feedback loops, substantial lag times
between system change and experiencing the consequences of that change, and the fact these different boundaries interact with one another in

ways that yield surprises. In addition, climate, freshwater, and ocean acidification are all directly connected to
the provision of food and water, and shortages of food and water can create conflict and social unrest. Climate change has a long
history of disrupting civilizations and sometimes precipitating the collapse of cultures or mass emigrations (McMichael, 2017). For example, the 12th century drought in the North American Southwest is held responsible for the
collapse of the Anasazi pueblo culture. More recently, the infamous potato famine of 1846–1849 and the large migration of Irish to the U.S. can be traced to a combination of factors, one of which was climate. Specifically, 1846
was an unusually warm and moist year in Ireland, providing the climatic conditions favorable to the fungus that caused the potato blight. As is so often the case, poor government had a role as well—as the British government

Climate change intersects with freshwater

forbade the import of grains from outside Britain (imports that could have helped to redress the ravaged potato yields).

resources because it is expected to exacerbate drought and water scarcity, as well as flooding. Climate change can even impair water
quality because it is associated with heavy rains that overwhelm sewage treatment facilities, or because it results in higher concentrations of pollutants in groundwater as a result of enhanced evaporation and reduced groundwater

recharge. Ample clean water is not a luxury—it is essential for human survival. Consequently, cities, regions and nations that lack clean freshwater are vulnerable to social
disruption and disease. Finally, ocean acidification is linked to climate change because it is driven by CO2 emissions just as global warming is. With close to 20% of the world’s protein coming from oceans (FAO, 2016), the potential
for severe impacts due to acidification is obvious. Less obvious, but perhaps more insidious, is the interaction between climate change and the loss of oyster and coral reefs due to acidification. Acidification is known to interfere

Climate change also increases storm frequency and severity. Coral reefs and oyster
with oyster reef building and coral reefs.

reefs provide protection from storm surge because they reduce wave energy (Spalding et al., 2014). If these reefs are
lost due to acidification at the same time as storms become more severe and sea level rises , coastal
communities will be exposed to unprecedented storm surge —and may be ravaged by recurrent storms . A
key feature of the risk associated with climate change is that mean annual temperature and mean annual rainfall are not the variables of interest. Rather it is extreme episodic events that place nations and entire regions of the
world at risk. These extreme events are by definition “rare” (once every hundred years), and changes in their likelihood are challenging to detect because of their rarity, but are exactly the manifestations of climate change that we

must get better at anticipating (Diffenbaugh et al., 2017). Society will have a hard time responding to shorter intervals between rare
extreme events because in the lifespan of an individual human, a person might experience as few as two or three extreme events. How likely is it that you would notice a change in the interval between events
that are separated by decades, especially given that the interval is not regular but varies stochastically? A concrete example of this dilemma can be found in the past and expected future changes in storm-related flooding of New

every 25
York City. The highly disruptive flooding of New York City associated with Hurricane Sandy represented a flood height that occurred once every 500 years in the 18th century, and that occurs now once

years, but is expected to occur once every 5 years by 2050 (Garner et al., 2017). This change in frequency of extreme floods has profound implications for the
measures New York City should take to protect its infrastructure and its population, yet because of the stochastic nature of such events, this shift in flood frequency is an elevated risk that will go unnoticed by most people. 4. The
 Humans are remarkably ingenious, and have
combination of positive feedback loops and societal inertia is fertile ground for global environmental catastrophes

adapted to crises throughout their history. Our doom has been repeatedly predicted, only to be averted by innovation (Ridley, 2011). However, the many
stories of human ingenuity successfully addressing existential risks such as global famine or extreme air pollution represent
environmental challenges that are largely linear, have immediate consequences, and operate without
positive feedbacks. For example, the fact that food is in short supply does not increase the rate at which humans consume food—thereby increasing the shortage. Similarly, massive air pollution episodes such
as the London fog of 1952 that killed 12,000 people did not make future air pollution events more likely. In fact it was just the opposite—the London fog sent such a clear message that Britain quickly enacted pollution control
measures (Stradling, 2016). Food shortages, air pollution, water pollution, etc. send immediate signals to society of harm, which then trigger a negative feedback of society seeking to reduce the harm. In contrast, today’s great
environmental crisis of climate change may cause some harm but there are generally long time delays between rising CO2 concentrations and damage to humans. The consequence of these delays are an absence of urgency; thus

unlike past
although 70% of Americans believe global warming is happening, only 40% think it will harm them (http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/ycom-us-2016/). Secondly,

environmental challenges, the Earth’s climate system is rife with positive feedback loops . In particular,
as CO2 increases and the climate warms, that very warming can cause more CO2 release which further
increases global warming, and then more CO2, and so on . Table 2 summarizes the best documented positive feedback loops for the Earth’s climate system. These
feedbacks can be neatly categorized into carbon cycle, biogeochemical, biogeophysical, cloud, ice-albedo, and water vapor feedbacks. As important as it is to understand these feedbacks individually, it is even more essential to
study the interactive nature of these feedbacks. Modeling studies show that when interactions among feedback loops are included, uncertainty increases dramatically and there is a heightened potential for perturbations to be
magnified (e.g., Cox, Betts, Jones, Spall, & Totterdell, 2000; Hajima, Tachiiri, Ito, & Kawamiya, 2014; Knutti & Rugenstein, 2015; Rosenfeld, Sherwood, Wood, & Donner, 2014). This produces a wide range of future scenarios. Positive
feedbacks in the carbon cycle involves the enhancement of future carbon contributions to the atmosphere due to some initial increase in atmospheric CO2. This happens because as CO2 accumulates, it reduces the efficiency in
which oceans and terrestrial ecosystems sequester carbon, which in return feeds back to exacerbate climate change (Friedlingstein et al., 2001). Warming can also increase the rate at which organic matter decays and carbon is
released into the atmosphere, thereby causing more warming (Melillo et al., 2017). Increases in food shortages and lack of water is also of major concern when biogeophysical feedback mechanisms perpetuate drought conditions.
The underlying mechanism here is that losses in vegetation increases the surface albedo, which suppresses rainfall, and thus enhances future vegetation loss and more suppression of rainfall—thereby initiating or prolonging a
drought (Chamey, Stone, & Quirk, 1975). To top it off, overgrazing depletes the soil, leading to augmented vegetation loss (Anderies, Janssen, & Walker, 2002). Climate change often also increases the risk of forest fires, as a result

The expectation is that forest fires will become more frequent and severe
of higher temperatures and persistent drought conditions.

with climate warming and drought (Scholze, Knorr, Arnell, & Prentice, 2006), a trend for which we have already seen evidence (Allen et al., 2010). Tragically, the increased severity and risk
of Southern California wildfires recently predicted by climate scientists (Jin et al., 2015), was realized in December 2017, with the largest fire in the history of California (the “Thomas fire” that burned 282,000 acres,

This catastrophic fire embodies the sorts of positive feedbacks

https://www.vox.com/2017/12/27/16822180/thomas-fire-california-largest-wildfire).

and interacting factors that could catch humanity off-guard and produce a true apocalyptic event. Record-
breaking rains produced an extraordinary flush of new vegetation, that then dried out as record heat waves and dry conditions took hold, coupled with stronger than normal winds, and ignition. Of course the record-fire released
CO2 into the atmosphere, thereby contributing to future warming. Out of all types of feedbacks, water vapor and the ice-albedo feedbacks are the most clearly understood mechanisms. Losses in reflective snow and ice cover drive
up surface temperatures, leading to even more melting of snow and ice cover—this is known as the ice-albedo feedback (Curry, Schramm, & Ebert, 1995). As snow and ice continue to melt at a more rapid pace, millions of people
may be displaced by flooding risks as a consequence of sea level rise near coastal communities (Biermann & Boas, 2010; Myers, 2002; Nicholls et al., 2011). The water vapor feedback operates when warmer atmospheric conditions
strengthen the saturation vapor pressure, which creates a warming effect given water vapor’s strong greenhouse gas properties (Manabe & Wetherald, 1967). Global warming tends to increase cloud formation because warmer
temperatures lead to more evaporation of water into the atmosphere, and warmer temperature also allows the atmosphere to hold more water. The key question is whether this increase in clouds associated with global warming
will result in a positive feedback loop (more warming) or a negative feedback loop (less warming). For decades, scientists have sought to answer this question and understand the net role clouds play in future climate projections
(Schneider et al., 2017). Clouds are complex because they both have a cooling (reflecting incoming solar radiation) and warming (absorbing incoming solar radiation) effect (Lashof, DeAngelo, Saleska, & Harte, 1997). The type of
cloud, altitude, and optical properties combine to determine how these countervailing effects balance out. Although still under debate, it appears that in most circumstances the cloud feedback is likely positive (Boucher et al.,
2013). For example, models and observations show that increasing greenhouse gas concentrations reduces the low-level cloud fraction in the Northeast Pacific at decadal time scales. This then has a positive feedback effect and

The key lesson from the long list of potentially

enhances climate warming since less solar radiation is reflected by the atmosphere (Clement, Burgman, & Norris, 2009).

positive feedbacks and their interactions is that runaway climate change, and runaway perturbations
have to be taken as a serious possibility . Table 2 is just a snapshot of the type of feedbacks that have been identified (see Supplementary material for a more thorough explanation of
positive feedback loops). However, this list is not exhaustive and the possibility of undiscovered positive feedbacks portends

even greater existential risks. The many environmental crises humankind has previously averted (famine, ozone depletion, London fog, water pollution, etc.) were averted because of political will
based on solid scientific understanding. We cannot count on complete scientific understanding when it comes to positive feedback loops and climate change.

Trading removal of older dams for enhancements of existing dams allows

hydroelectricity to solve climate and simultaneously protect fish and the environment
--- resolving regulatory uncertainty is key
 allows utilities to expand solar and wind power because there is a solution to intermittency

Plumer, 20 (13 October 2020, Brad Plumer, NYTimes.com Feed, “Environmentalists and Dam
Operators, at War for Years, Start Making Peace,” Factiva database, Document
NYTFEED020201013egad002gx, JMP)

WASHINGTON — The industry that operates America’s hydroelectric dams and several environmental
groups announced an unusual agreement Tuesday to work together to get more clean energy from
hydropower while reducing the environmental harm from dams, in a sign that the threat of climate
change is spurring both sides to rethink their decades-long battle over a large but contentious source of
renewable power.
The United States generated about 7 percent of its electricity last year from hydropower, mainly from
large dams built decades ago, such as the Hoover Dam, which uses flowing water from the Colorado
River to power turbines. But while these facilities don’t emit planet-warming carbon dioxide, the dams
themselves have often proved ecologically devastating, choking off America’s once-wild rivers and killing
fish populations.

So, over the past 50 years, conservation groups have rallied to block any large new dams from being
built, while proposals to upgrade older hydropower facilities or construct new water-powered energy-
storage projects have often been bogged down in lengthy regulatory disputes over environmental
safeguards.

The new agreement signals a desire to de-escalate this long-running war.

In a joint statement, industry groups and environmentalists said they would collaborate on a set of
specific policy measures that could help generate more renewable electricity from dams already in
place, while retrofitting many of the nation’s 90,000 existing dams to be safer and less ecologically
damaging.

The two sides also said they would work together to accelerate the removal of older dams that are no
longer needed, in order to improve the health of rivers. More than 1,000 dams nationwide have already
been torn down in recent decades.

The statement, the result of two years of quiet negotiations, was signed by the National Hydropower
Association, an industry trade group, as well as environmental groups including American Rivers, the
World Wildlife Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists. Another influential organization, The Nature
Conservancy, listed itself as a “participant,” signaling that it was not prepared to sign the full statement
but would stay engaged in the ongoing dialogue over hydropower policies.

Bob Irvin, the president of American Rivers, which has long highlighted the harm that dams cause to the
nation’s waterways, said that growing concern over global warming had caused some environmentalists
to reassess their longstanding opposition to hydropower.

“The climate crisis has become a lot more acute and we recognize that we need to generate carbon-free
energy whenever and wherever we can,” Mr. Irvin said. “And we do see that hydropower has a role to
play there.”

Mr. Irvin emphasized that his group would still oppose any effort to build new dams on rivers. But that
still left plenty of room for compromise.

As an example, he pointed to the Penobscot River in Maine, where environmentalists, energy companies
and the Penobscot Indian Nation reached a landmark agreement in 2004 to upgrade several dams in the
river basin while raising money to remove two other dams that had blocked fish from migrating inland
for more than a century. The result: The hydropower companies on the Penobscot ended up producing
at least as much clean electricity as before, while endangered Atlantic salmon have returned to the
rivers.

“The rhetoric has definitely shifted and is becoming more thoughtful,” said Malcolm Woolf, president of
the National Hydropower Association. “We’re now willing to talk about removing uneconomic dams,
and environmentalists are no longer talking about all hydropower being bad.”
Energy experts have said that adding more hydropower could provide a useful tool in the fight against
climate change. While wind turbines and solar panels are becoming more widespread, they don’t run all
the time, and hydroelectricity can offer a backstop as utilities clean up their electrical grids .

In theory, there’s potential for the United States to get much more energy from running water. An in-
depth study by the Department of Energy in 2016 found the nation could increase its hydropower
capacity by 50 percent without building any large new dams.

Today, less than 3 percent of the nation’s 90,000 dams generate power. There are numerous smaller
dams built for irrigation or flood control that could be retrofitted with turbines to produce electricity.

“We’re not talking about the Hoover Dams of old,” said Jose Zayas, a former Energy Department official
who oversaw the study. “There have been some big technological advances that now let us produce
more energy in a much more sustainable way.” Some companies are designing new turbines that allow
fish to pass safely through, while others are looking at ways to reduce oxygen depletion in the water
caused by dams.

One particularly promising approach is to build more facilities known as pumped hydro storage, an old
technology that involves connecting two reservoirs of water, one at a higher altitude than the other.
When there’s surplus electricity on the grid, these facilities use that power to pump water from the
lower reservoir to the higher one. When electricity is needed, such as during lulls in wind or solar power,
the water flows back downhill, spinning a turbine to generate electricity.

Although many grid operators are now installing large arrays of lithium-ion batteries for this type of
storage, batteries can typically only store 4 to 6 hours’ worth of electricity. A pumped-hydro facility
could potentially store power for much longer periods of time, allowing utilities to juggle even more
solar and wind energy.

The downside is that these massive, billion-dollar pumped-storage facilities face steep regulatory
hurdles, and can attract opposition even when they don’t require large new dams. While energy
companies have proposed or applied for federal approval to build 50 gigawatts worth of pumped-
storage projects — roughly 30 times the capacity of all the batteries connected to the grid today —
hardly any new pumped storage has been built since 1995.

“Investors tend to be wary of these projects, because there’s a lot of regulatory risk,” said Lee Bailey,
managing director of the U.S. Renewables Group, a private equity fund.

As part of the new agreement, environmental groups and industry said they would collaborate to help
expand the pumped-storage market, exploring lower impact off-river technologies and new policy
incentives. The groups also said they would work together to make the regulatory process for
upgrading and removing dams more predictable.

The groups also agreed to lobby for policies to repair, or in some cases take down, the thousands of
aging dams around the country that are in danger of collapse. In May, rain-swollen flooding breached
two dams in Central Michigan, forcing thousands of nearby residents to flee their homes.

Heavier downpours fueled by climate change are putting many dams at increased risk of failure. Experts
have estimated it could cost tens of billions of dollars to repair and upgrade the 15,500 dams nationwide
classified as high hazard.
Achieving many of these goals will be difficult, requiring significant regulatory changes at both the state
and federal level, as well as major new sources of funding. Many of the nation’s dams serve a vast array
of purposes, such as producing electricity, controlling floods, irrigating crops and creating reservoirs for
boaters. Taking down older dams or upgrading existing ones can often be a complicated process that
requires balancing numerous competing interests.

The two sides will also have to overcome a legacy of mutual antagonism.

Even today, environmentalists and industry have clashed over a new Trump administration proposal to
modify clean water rules around hydropower projects, as well as over negotiations to remove four aging
dams on the Klamath River in Oregon and California. Many environmental groups came of age opposing
hydropower dams in the 20th century, and defusing those tensions will take time.

“I certainly wouldn’t call this peace in our time just yet,” said Mr. Irvin of American Rivers. “The two
sides will continue to have serious policy differences." But, he added, the fact that both sides had agreed
to work on a set of concrete actions to promote clean energy while reducing the ecological impact of
dams was “a big deal.”

Dan Reicher, a senior scholar at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment and founding director of
Stanford’s Center for Energy Policy and Finance, who helped convene the dialogue between industry
and green groups, said that neither side benefited from the current deadlock over hydropower. The
regulatory disputes around dam upgrades have made it harder for the industry to attract investment ,
while environmentalists have so far made only slow progress in removing dams .

“What’s different now is climate change,” Mr. Reicher said. “The industry has realized it can prosper by
offering an important solution to the climate crisis. And the conservation community has realized that
global warming is the biggest threat faced by the rivers they love. If rising temperatures fry or flood a
river, then what have you really accomplished?”

Dam trading produces more effective and necessary regulations --- protects resources,
enhances hydropower and solves climate
 Economic and environmental need alone will not be sufficient to motivate changes
 Results in more rational siting processes in areas where dam building might continue

Owen & Apse, 15 --- *Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, AND **Freshwater
Conservation Advisor, The Nature Conservancy (February 2015, Dave Owen and Colin Apse, “Trading
Dam,” 48 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1043, Nexis Uni, JMP)

Introduction

On the morning of July 22, 2013, an excavator smashed through the Veazie Dam, allowing the Penobscot
River to spill through. 1 It was a historic moment. Opposition - often unsuccessful - to dam construction
helped forge the American environmental movement, and the removal of any dam therefore carries
potent symbolism. 2 This was no exception. Political figures flocked to the breaching, the Penobscot
Indian Tribe commemorated the event with ceremonies, and the New York Times described the removal
as emblematic "of a nationwide movement." 3 Dam removals can also bring enormous ecological
benefits, and on this front the Veazie Dam removal seems particularly promising. Because of its
somewhat remote location, the Penobscot River's profile remains lower than that of Chesapeake Bay,
the Everglades, or California's Bay-Delta - the three tragically flawed icons of American environmental
restoration. 4 But the Penobscot River Restoration Project, of which the Veazie Dam removal is a key
part, is one of the most ambitious river restoration projects in the world.

Even with these removals, however, the Penobscot remains a dammed river, and hydropower at some
of its remaining dams actually is slated to increase. 5 This, too, reflects a larger story. The United States
is the [*1046] world's leader in dam removals, 6 but the overwhelming majority of its dams remain in
place, with no plans for removal. 7 Hydropower continues to generate more electricity than all other
sources of renewable energy 8 combined. 9 Many energy policy advocates, as well as many members of
Congress, want more hydropower, particularly at the many dams that currently generate no
hydropower or that could be upgraded to generate more. 10 In the United States, enthusiasm for
building new dams has waned, 11 but in many other nations it remains strong. 12 The environmental
accounting of dams has also evolved, and dam supporters increasingly can draw upon arguments that
ought to resonate with their traditional adversaries. Often - though, importantly, not always -
hydropower is a relatively clean energy [*1047] source, with low emissions of conventional air
pollutants and greenhouse gases. 13

Notwithstanding hydropower's emissions benefits, the tension between these stories might seem
profound, for environmental advocates have long regarded dams simply as "evil - placed and solid." 14
On the Penobscot River, however, the two stories are closely, and legally, linked in a very different way:
the dam removals and hydropower upgrades all are part of a negotiated deal. 15 The terms of the
agreement are complex, but at its core is a trade. In return for withholding opposition to continued dam
operations at several sites and for paying the dams' owner a substantial sum of money,
environmentalists and the Penobscot Indian Tribe secured the removal of two dams, the
decommissioning of a third, and upgrades to fish passage capacity at several others. 16 In other words,
the tribe traded environmental restoration in some places for increased hydropower generation in
others (and, again, for money). The net result will be major improvements in environmental quality,
including approximately a thousand miles of additional habitat access for migratory fish, with no net
loss of hydropower capacity. 17 For good reason, the project has been hailed worldwide as a model. 18

The core question considered by this Article is how to replicate that model and, more specifically, how
law can facilitate that replication. That is an important question, for the need for imitation is much
greater than most people realize. The United States' dams' ecological impacts are enormous. But energy
remains a basic societal need, and other [*1048] energy sources do immense environmental damage.
19 Projects that reduce the ecological impacts of dams while maximizing hydropower-generating
capacity therefore would be quite valuable. The potential for such projects also could be substantial.
The United States contains over 87,000 "large" dams, only three percent of which actually generate
hydropower. 20 On many rivers, combining hydropower installations or upgrades at some locations with
environmental restoration projects at others seems possible, at least as a matter of science and
engineering. 21 Similarly, in other countries where dam construction remains a national priority , 22
more rational siting processes could reduce dams' devastating impacts on river systems. At the same
time, dams could lessen demand for energy sources, like coal, whose environmental and health impacts
can be even worse. 23
Economic and environmental need alone will not be sufficient to ensure replication, however. Law
matters as well, and here, too, the Penobscot River Restoration Project shows promise as a model.
Though it applies that concept in a novel setting, the project reflects environmental law's growing
emphasis on trading systems. 24 Such systems now pervade conventional air quality regulation, and
they have assumed increasingly important roles in greenhouse gas regulation, [*1049] wetlands
protection, fisheries management, habitat protection, and a variety of other contexts. 25 Within those
many realms, trading systems come in a wide variety of forms. The archetypal trading system is a cap-
and-trade program, 26 in which trades are numerous, trading currencies are well-developed, and
transaction costs are low. But there are other programs in which governmental intervention is nearly
continuous and trades resemble bartered deals more than the outputs of a functioning market. 27 In all
of these contexts, trading systems share key common features. Most importantly, they involve trading
increased protection in some times or places for increased environmental degradation at others, and
they use those trades as means to provide greater flexibility and economic efficiency. 28 They also have
spawned an extraordinary volume of legal and economic research, and, in some circles, have become
almost synonymous with regulatory innovation. 29 Indeed, some prominent commentators argue that
trading systems are the economically and democratically optimal mode of regulation, and therefore
should be the central regulatory instrument of environmental law. 30 Dams, then, might seem like the
logical next frontier, and the Penobscot project, with its impressive balance of environmental [*1050]
improvement and sustained energy production, would seem to exemplify the possibilities. 31

Environmental law's forty-year experiment with trading systems, however, demonstrates that applying
trading concepts in this context would not be simple. While trading systems have succeeded in some
contexts, in others their track record is quite mixed. 32 Many theoretical and empirical critiques of
trading systems have helped explain their uneven record. 33 The history of environmental trading
systems therefore provides grounds for caution, and the cautionary tale clearly applies to dams. The
complexities of dams, and the rivers they occupy, will probably never allow for anything akin to the high-
volume, low-transaction-cost markets that exist for things like carbon or sulfur dioxide emissions. Even
more barter-like systems will be challenging to create. 34

But that cautionary note should not end the inquiry. A third lesson of environmental trading systems is
that they can be functional, and useful, even where they never will approach an economist's ideal
market. Trading systems also can become more effective as both regulators and the regulated learn
and adapt. 35 Even in contexts that never will be optimal for trading systems, they can succeed as
components of broader regulatory regimes. 36 These possibilities inform our core conclusions, which
are that more dam trading should occur; [*1051] reforms to facilitate trading should be implemented;
and the process of regulatory experimentation and learning should begin. 37

This Article's analysis proceeds as follows: Part I surveys the status of dams in the United States,
discussing their current and potential value, their environmental harms, and the complex legal regimes
to which they are subject. That analysis underscores the need for more projects like the Penobscot, as
well as the extent to which dams, which lately have lacked the legal-academic cachet of wind, solar, or
fracking, remain crucially important for energy and environmental law. Part II describes the Penobscot
River Restoration Project in more detail. Part III then draws on the history and literature of
environmental trading systems to evaluate their potential application to dams, and to identify factors
that could facilitate or discourage other projects like the Penobscot. Part IV builds on that evaluation to
recommend reforms that would make dam trading a more widespread option.
In describing those reforms, and in providing a broader analysis of the possibilities for dam trading, we
offer three primary contributions to the existing literature. Most importantly, we identify steps that
would help reconcile society's interest in reducing the massive environmental impacts of dams with its
need for non-fossil fuel energy. While many articles have focused on the former problem, 38 and some,
more recently, have considered hydropower's potential contributions to the latter goal, 39 none has
provided an in-depth analysis of the extent to which these seemingly opposing goals may be legally
reconciled. 40 Relatedly, [*1052] this Article provides the broadest analysis of which we are aware of
the legal incentive structures that drive or, more often, inhibit thoughtful management of our system of
dams. Our final contribution is to provide a window into a cutting edge of environmental trading
systems, which have evolved considerably since they first emerged in the 1970s and 1980s. 41 An
analysis of dams illustrates both emerging possibilities and continuing challenges.

Removing smaller dams will reduce methane emissions and prevent runaway climate
change
 Sediment accumulation is higher in smaller reservoirs

Johnson, 17 --- J.D., University of Idaho College of Law, 2016 (Patrick Johnson, “DAM REMOVAL AS
CLIMATE CHANGE POLICY: HOW SUPPLEMENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL PROJECTS COULD BE USED TO
REDUCE METHANE EMISSIONS,” 53 Idaho L. Rev. 179, Nexis Uni, JMP)

I. INTRODUCTION

As many in the scientific community have been predicting for decades, significant climatic changes are
occurring around the globe. These changes are compelling local communities to continue the process of
building resilience in preparation for more intense weather events and shifts in water availability and
growing seasons. While many of these changes will continue to intensify regardless of whether policy is
enacted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, efforts are underway at the domestic and international
level to reduce total emissions. Most of these efforts are focused on the energy and transportation
sectors, as these make up a large portion of the world's greenhouse gas contributions. 1 However,
creative solutions to this pressing problem must include a wide array of options.

This article seeks to add to this list by proposing the systematic removal of small, non-energy producing
dams and obstructions using existing programs implemented by the federal government. The removal of
methane-producing structures, by violators of Clean Air Act regulations, could be done using the current
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP) structure. While
energy-producing hydroelectric dams can and should continue to be used and improved as sources of
relatively clean power to continue the transition away from fossil fuels, thousands of small dams and
artificial obstructions located on rivers and streams throughout the country are emitting greenhouse
gases without providing a significant amount of local benefit .

This article seeks to first discuss the role of methane in the context of global climate change. After
discussing the impacts of methane, a connection between methane emissions and dams will be made
using scientific literature. This will be followed by a discussion, using case studies, of the likelihood of
future increases in methane releases from dams in areas expected to experience significant shifts in the
quantity and type of precipitation falling. In order to provide some background context, a brief overview
of EPA's SEP policies will then be discussed, including examples of implementation. Connections are
then made between certain Clean Air Act violations and SEPs that could be used as tools for dam
removal. This is followed by a brief discussion of areas of the country that could benefit from such SEP
implementation.

II. METHANE AND CLIMATE CHANGE

The greenhouse gas that the general populace most often first identifies is carbon dioxide, as domestic
leaders have villainized it 2 and it is the subject of many international agreements. 3 While carbon
dioxide is a substantial source of manmade climate change, many other gases are also significant
contributors, including carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, and sulfur hexafluoride. 4 Methane is another
critical greenhouse gas that is seldom mentioned in policy discussions. 5 Incrementally, methane is "a
much more effective greenhouse gas than" carbon dioxide, and it is emitted from a wide range of
sources. 6 Significant research is being performed to identify ways in which methane can be captured. 7

Methane is the second most prevalent greenhouse gas emitted in the United States, and "accounts for
about 11 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from human activities." 8 "Methane's lifetime in
the atmosphere is much shorter than carbon dioxide," but "pound for pound, the comparative impact of
[methane] on climate change is more than 25 times greater than [carbon dioxide] over a 100-year
period." 9 Methane is emitted from a variety of industrial, agricultural, and waste management
activities, including natural gas production and generation during the decomposition of waste in
landfills. 10

Similar to other greenhouse gases, methane acts as a metaphorical umbrella over the planet. When
sun's rays hit the Earth's atmosphere, approximately 70 percent of the sun's energy penetrates and
remains on the planet, while the other 30 percent is reflected by clouds and other reflective surfaces. 11
The 70 percent that remains eventually begins to radiate back toward space, some of which is absorbed
by greenhouse gases like methane. 12 After these gases absorb the energy, they emit it as heat, keeping
the planet warmer than its surrounding environment. 13 This is what is commonly known as "the
greenhouse effect." While the greenhouse effect is the reason why Earth is habitable, the steady
increase of the amount of these gases in the atmosphere has resulted in rising global temperatures and
significant changes in weather extremes. 14

Human-induced climate change is a pressing problem that must be addressed swiftly. Lowering
methane emissions is a critical step towards solving this global crisis. Because it comes from a variety
of sources, complex and creative solutions to lowering total methane emissions are required.

III. METHANE RELEASE FROM DAMS

Although dams are often elevated as a useful solution to the issues related to power-production systems
emitting high amounts of greenhouse gases, dams are rarely discussed as a contributor to man-made
global climate change. These perspectives and opinions have some legitimacy, as hydroelectric power
generation could and should continue to be considered a "cleaner" source of energy than coal, oil, and
natural gas. Despite being a less substantial contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions than other
sectors, the contributions that dams make to this global problem should not be overlooked. Peer-
reviewed scientific literature links increased sedimentation behind dams and other freshwater
obstructions to higher rates of methane release. This research emphasizes the value and importance of
recognizing dams as a source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Inland waters are significant sources of both carbon dioxide and methane, as microbial degradation of
organic matter in toxic sediments produce primarily carbon dioxide, and anaerobic pathways produce
primarily methane. 15 Researchers have identified two factors as the primary reasons that reservoirs
and storage behind obstructions in freshwater bodies emit significant amounts of methane to the
atmosphere. 16 The first factor is the continuous trapping of both allochthonous and autochthonous
organic materials in reservoirs. 17 Autochthonous organic material stems from primary producers that
create their own energy (through photosynthesis for example), and allochthonous microorganisms get
energy from outside sources. 18 Obstructions, such as dams, do not allow the natural flow of the system
to move these materials downstream to normal deposit areas. As such, a large collection of these
materials begins to build behind the obstruction.

The second factor at play is the anaerobic degradation of organic carbon that occurs in reservoir
sediments. 19 In reservoirs, rapid sedimentation can occur, which leads to anaerobic environments that
are ideal for methanogenesis if the organic substrate is available. 20 The first factor, where the organic
material is trapped, gives rise to the organic substrate necessary for the methanogenesis process. 21
Methanogenesis is the bacterial conversion of methanogenic substrates into methane and carbon
dioxide, which is the process contributing to greenhouse gas emissions from reservoirs. 22 In small
reservoirs the accumulation of sediment is often much higher than large reservoirs, making the
concern of methane emissions stemming from obstructions and small dams in riverine systems
sometimes even higher than larger dam projects. 23 The figure below illustrates how methane is created
and released at dam sites.

Figure 1 24

Figure 1

A particularly useful recent study was performed in the Saar River in France and Germany. 25 It will be
used to outline some of the recent developments in the scientific literature regarding methane
emissions in small reservoirs. In the Saar River, six dams were built for shipping purposes, and this
increased the minimum depth to at least four meters within the main channel for the lower 96
kilometers of the channel. 26 As is common with virtually all impoundments, these projects led to
elongated water residence times, lower flow velocities, and increased water depths in the system. 27
Despite efforts to improve water quality parameters in the basin, extremely low oxygen levels were
seen in the small reservoirs - low oxygen levels are a primary contributor to the microbial activity that
leads to methanogenesis. 28

The first component of the research provided that the net sediment accumulation occurring in the
reservoir areas of the Saar River was significant. 29 The porewater found in reservoir sediment buildup
was supersaturated with methane, especially when compared to sediment found in other portions of
the waterway. 30 Dissolved methane volume was also clearly correlative with the location of reservoirs,
as these amounts were extremely low in the tailwaters of the dams relative to the amount found in the
reservoirs immediately behind the dams. 31 A high volume of this dissolved methane accumulating
behind the dams was found to be released into the atmosphere. 32 Despite covering a much smaller
surface area relative to the entire river, the emissions stemming from these areas directly behind the
dams were much higher than the remainder of the river system. 33 These areas are known as "methane
emission hot spots," 34 and they should be particularly relevant to policy makers when considering the
impacts of methane emissions on global climate change.

The seasonal ebullition measurements are also of particular relevance. In this study, ebullition rates,
which are the amount of methane bubbles being released into the atmosphere, show that increases
occur during warmer months relative to occurrences during colder times of the year. 35 This intuitively
could be related solely to temperature, or could also be a result of drawdowns during warmer months
as a result of lower precipitation patterns and increases in evapotranspiration.

Generally, the conclusions from this study are extremely applicable to the subject of this article, as they
indicate that impoundments and dams contribute significantly to total methane emissions coming from
a waterbody. In the Saar River, sediment accumulation accounts for large amounts of methane
emissions, which are primarily a result of sediment accumulation combined with high amounts of
organic matter. 36 While this is but one study, similar findings can be seen elsewhere.

In a much more general study from a global perspective, one peer-reviewed publication indicates that
large dams release about 104 million metric tons of methane each year. 37 This research also suggests
that methane capture technology for energy production from dams and impoundments should be
developed similar to technology that exists in landfills. 38 This type of global research shows the scope
of methane releases from dams, and why efforts are needed to develop policies and designs that
mitigate these releases in a systematic and thorough manner.

In one of the first studies examining greenhouse gas emissions stemming from reservoirs, a group of
researchers quantified methane outputs from a tropical reservoir located in French Guiana known as
Petit Saut. 39 Importantly, immediately following the construction of the impoundment, dissolved
methane levels spiked considerably relative to pre-reservoir levels. 40 In addition, as will be discussed
later in this article, 41 significant fluctuations were seen between different times of the year related to
the amount of emissions. 42 During low flow events, which occurred during mid-winter, maximum
methane emissions were seen. 43 Additionally, a clear correlation occurred between high flow events
and low methane emissions at this site. 44 This demonstrates that freshwater impoundments lead to
methane buildup and correlatively high atmospheric releases of methane occur when water levels are
relatively low.

It is clear from the above commentary that dams, impoundments, and obstructions are a significant
source of methane releases into the atmosphere. One study from the United States indicates, "Harsha
Lake, a large reservoir near Cincinnati, Ohio, emitted as much methane in 2012 as roughly 5,800 dairy
cows would have emitted over an entire year." 45 In addition to the general conclusion that dams are
methane emission "hotspots," it is important to emphasize the correlation between flow and increases
in methane release. As flows decrease, methane emissions seem to increase in these reservoir areas. 46
These general conclusions are critically important for policy makers and provide a framework from
which policy can be crafted to attempt to lower total methane emissions from these sites.

IV. LIKELY FUTURE RESERVOIR DRAWDOWNS

In order to combat the looming threats of global climate change, efforts should be made to mitigate the
causes of methane emissions from dams. Making such mitigation difficult, however, is the likely future
increase in reservoir drawdowns. As discussed above, scientific research seems to indicate that lower
depths in reservoirs behind obstructions leads to higher rates of methane emissions. This section seeks
to analyze scientific literature, which suggests that because of already shifting climate patterns, reservoir
drawdowns are becoming more frequent, thereby likely leading to an increase in methane emissions
from these areas. Similar to the feedback mechanisms in the Arctic, where climate change has increased
permafrost melting and methane emissions (which lead to more rapid permafrost melt) reservoir
drawdowns from climatic changes are potentially leading to more methane release. Such events likely
lead to more reservoir drawdowns. This cycle can result in "runaway" climate change. 47

Plan solves globally too by creating a regulatory framework that is modeled to ensure
new hydropower development protects the environment
Owen & Apse, 15 --- *Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, AND **Freshwater
Conservation Advisor, The Nature Conservancy (February 2015, Dave Owen and Colin Apse, “Trading
Dam,” 48 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1043, Nexis Uni, JMP)

Conclusion

In a sense, the dams of the Penobscot River all are relics of an earlier age. The United States stopped
building dams during the Reagan Administration, and in recent decades, there have been few serious
proposals for large-scale dam construction to resume. 383 Nevertheless, the United States Department
of Energy has begun taking bold steps toward a hydropower revival, and that revival, if it does
materialize, could involve extensive new construction. 384

Meanwhile, in much of the rest of the world, dam building never really ceased. Hundreds of dams, many
of them enormous, are currently planned across South America, Asia, and Africa. Many national
governments view those planned dams as integral components of their economic development
strategies, and while the judgments informing these views are sometimes slanted or dubious, the plans
nevertheless are quite real. If those dams are sited and built without regard to environmental impacts -
in other words, if they are built the same way the dams on the Penobscot, and throughout much of the
rest of the United States, were - the ecological consequences will be devastating.

The dam laws of other nations are not the subject of this Article; our discussion instead has focused
almost entirely upon the United States. But the still-unfolding international age of dams highlights the
importance of any successful United States reforms. If some [*1109] hydropower development is
inevitable, then there is a glaring and urgent need for legal mechanisms that will reduce the impacts of
those dams that are built. Environmental trading systems could be one such mechanism. And there is
precedent for imitation, for the United States' pioneering experiments with environmental trading
systems have now influenced regulatory approaches around the world. 385 Dams, then, could be the
next frontier.

We do not claim that crossing that frontier will be easy. Trading systems will never be a perfect fit for
dams, or for river management more generally. Nor will they be fully effective upon first emergence; in
this realm, as in most areas of regulatory policy, learning will take time. But the restoration of the
Penobscot illustrates how the concept of trading holds promise.
 1ac Plan + Solvency – Trading Dams

The United States federal government should limit water pollution in the United
States through a cap and trade system for dams.

Trading system will produce an optimal configuration of dams --- removes the most
harmful and expands hydropower where it is appropriate
 dams, locks and other waterworks could be fitted with hydropower equipment
 dams with older turbines could be upgraded

Owen & Apse, 15 --- *Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, AND **Freshwater
Conservation Advisor, The Nature Conservancy (February 2015, Dave Owen and Colin Apse, “Trading
Dam,” 48 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1043, Nexis Uni, JMP)

I. The Prevalence, Law, and Ecology of Dams

In any legal system, the desirability of new regulatory instruments depends in large part on the nature of
the things being regulated and the structure of the existing legal regime. Dams are no exception, and
this Part therefore provides a background account of the United States' dams and their governing laws.
Although the law, economics, and ecology of dams are complicated, the basic point is straightforward:
our physical system of dams is enormous and in many ways outdated, and reconfiguring that system
could produce major social and environmental benefits. But existing legal systems do little to encourage
such reconfiguration and in some ways are impediments to change. Consequently, any regulatory
reform that better reconciles the benefits and costs of dams, which is exactly what trading systems are
supposed to do, would be a significant improvement.

A. The Continued Importance of Dams

Perhaps the best indicator of the continued importance of dams, and the law governing them, lies in
sheer numbers. According to the National Inventory of Dams, there are over 87,359 dams in the United
States. 42 The actual number is significantly higher, for the inventory includes only dams that meet
certain size or safety thresholds, and one recent study estimated that an additional two million smaller
dams [*1053] populate the American landscape. 43 Even based on the inventory number alone, the
United States contains approximately one dam for every day the nation has been in existence. 44
Because of those dams, the United States' river systems are heavily and pervasively engineered, so
much so that a free-flowing river, for most Americans, is an exotic concept. 45 For example, the Hudson
River basin alone contains over 1,726 dams, 46 which translates to approximately one dam for every
eight miles of stream or river. 47

Collectively, dams serve a wide variety of purposes, including providing water supply, recreation, and
flood control. Among those many purposes, one of the most important - and a central focus of this
Article - is generating hydropower. According to the Energy Information Administration, hydropower
generated approximately seven percent of the United States' electricity in 2013. 48 While that number
may seem small, and is less than the global average of 16%, a few comparisons place it in perspective.
49 Based on the EIA's 2013 figures, hydropower generated twice as much electricity as wind and
approximately twenty-six times as much energy as solar power. 50 The EIA's projections show those
gaps closing, with hydropower in moderate decline and other renewable energy sources growing. 51 But
[*1054] even if those trends continue, hydropower will remain the United States' predominant source
of renewable energy for several more years. 52 In many other countries, that dominance is even more
pronounced. 53

The energy generated by hydropower also is particularly important. Its cost per kilowatt hour can be
relatively low, and it also provides energy managers with important flexibility. 54 Water discharges
through turbines can be shifted to periods of higher energy demand, 55 and hydropower also can
dispatch to a grid with minimal startup time, making it an important source following blackouts. 56 As
intermittent sources like wind and solar grow more prevalent, that flexibility is likely to become
increasingly valuable. 57 Perhaps most importantly, most of the United States' hydropower is nearly
emissions-free, 58 while fossil fuel combustion generates most of the United States conventional air
pollutants and greenhouse gases. 59 Consequently, if hydropower substitutes for fossil fuel energy
generation or provides the flexibility that allows increased reliance on other renewable sources, it
offers an enormous environmental benefit. 60

While hydropower is one of the most important societal benefits provided by dams, most dams do not
actually generate hydropower. According to a recent study from the Idaho National Laboratory, "The
United States hydroelectric plant population is comprised of 2,388 licensed plants." 61 That number may
sound large, but it means that approximately 97% of the dams in the national inventory do not [*1055]
produce hydropower. That percentage is somewhat misleading, for hydropower tends to be generated
at larger dams, and most of the non-producing dams are relatively small. 62 Nevertheless, the huge
number of dams that produce no hydropower has sparked widespread interest in increasing our
hydropower capacity. 63 In addition to those dams, locks and other waterworks could be fitted with
hydropower equipment, and dams with older turbines could be upgraded. 64 The extent to which those
upgrades would be environmentally and economically feasible is a more difficult question - and also a
question whose answer depends on the regulatory regime for, and economics of, other energy sources.
65 Nevertheless, a series of studies shows that even under existing regulatory and economic conditions,
the power upgrades on some of the Penobscot River dams could be replicated elsewhere. 66

The absence of hydropower at many existing dams underscores a larger point: some dams are less
valuable than others, and some are not valuable at all. In addition to hydropower, many dams play
valuable roles in storing water supplies, supporting recreation, and reducing floods. 67 But other dams
have long outlived their original purposes; the northeastern United States, for example, is filled with
milldams that have long outlasted their mills. 68 Dams also become structurally [*1056] obsolete as
trapped sediment fills in their reservoirs and their structures decay. 69 Over time, these dams can turn
into public hazards. 70 Others never made much sense, for the history of dam planning is filled with
stories of pork-barrel boondoggles justified by fictitious cost-benefit analyses. 71 Despite that history,
many dams continue to provide significant societal benefits, and others could be upgraded to serve
more modern purposes. 72 But our present system of dams remains quite different from one optimally
designed to serve contemporary needs.

For the legal field, the continued importance of dams has significant implications. In practice, at least,
the law of dams has never really faded away. For decades, dams have been generating cases by the
dozens, and hydropower licensing remains an important and active sub-field of energy and
environmental law. 73 Nevertheless, while recent years have brought an energy law boom, academics
and activists have focused primarily on wind, solar, and the enormous expansion in domestic oil and gas
generation. One could easily form the impression that dams are nowhere near the cutting edge of
energy law. But the continued prevalence of dams and the potential for upgrades, as well as pervasive
problems with our existing dam systems, raise the possibility of a very different future, with major
changes in our existing dam system helping hydropower reemerge as a dynamic and growing area of
law.

[*1057]

B. The Adverse Impacts of Dams

While the conventional story of dams may miss their potential to be a dynamic and growing source of
relatively carbon-free energy, there is another important respect in which that story is spot-on. Dams
cause enormous environmental harms. 74

Dams impact aquatic systems in many ways. Most obviously, most dams flood land behind the dam. 75
Dams also affect downstream flow, particularly if the flow schedule is governed by hydropower or other
human needs. 76 The annual hydrograph of a dam-managed river is often quite different from an
undammed stream, and those fluctuations can wreak havoc on downstream species that have adapted
to a natural flow regime. 77 Dams also can decrease the aggregate amount of water flowing
downstream, both because of evaporation and because many dams operate in conjunction with off-
stream water supply projects. 78 And dams can starve downstream reaches of sediment, which again
can dramatically alter downstream habitats. 79

All of those impacts are pervasive, but perhaps the most significant ecological impact of dams is to limit
the movement of aquatic species. Many rivers play important roles in the lifecycle of diadromous
species, like salmon or shad, which migrate between fresh and salt water. 80 Those species in turn can
play central roles in the ecology of river systems , both by providing prey for other species and by
moving huge [*1058] quantities of nutrients between oceans and rivers. 81 By blocking access to
habitat, dams can devastate those species' populations, with ripple effects on all the other species,
including humans, that depend on their migrations. 82 Dams also can adversely affect resident species
that do not migrate out of the river system. Barriers can prevent these species from relocating in
response to habitat stress or seasonal changes, and they can promote inbreeding within isolated
populations. 83 When a portion of a watershed loses its population of a species to disease or some
other disturbance, barriers can prevent repopulation from areas where the species has survived. 84

The scale of these impacts has been profound. To provide one example, a single board blocking a fish
ladder on Maine's St. Croix River caused a migratory population of alewives to drop from 2.6 million to
900 fish in the span of just seven years. 85 That story is not unique, and the aggregate impact of tens of
thousands of migration barriers is sufficiently pervasive that few people even realize how productive
many river systems once were. 86 Before the industrial revolution, East Coast fish runs were so
abundant that, in one explorer's creative phrasing, "it seemed to mee, that one might goe over their
backs drishod." 87 Even as late as 1832, the Potomac River shad catch was over fifty-one million [*1059]
kilograms. 88 The demise of the East Coast runs initially generated conflicts, fought with guns as well as
petitions and legal briefs, and in the time of the United States' Founding Fathers, legal battles over fish
passage were recurring phenomena (and phenomena in which the Founding Fathers themselves
participated). 89 But outside of a few relic runs, that abundance has long since been lost, not just to
river systems but also to cultural memory. 90 On the West Coast, where dams came later, some cultural
memories remain, but migratory fish still have gone from storied abundance to chronic endangerment.
91 The changes aren't limited to iconic migrants, or even to fish. Aquatic freshwater species now are
more likely to be listed as threatened or endangered than any other class of species, and dams and
diversions are among the largest threats to their survival. 92

Of course, not all of the environmental impacts are negative. Some popular sport species thrive in dam-
altered environments. 93 Dams can prevent the migration of invasive as well as native species. 94
Reservoirs allow flatwater boating, and altered flows also can support recreation in downstream areas
where summer flows otherwise would be too low. 95 [*1060] Finally, to the extent that hydropower
obviates the need to burn oil, natural gas, or coal, dams provide an important environmental benefit to
river systems, for climate change also ranks high as a threat to freshwater ecosystems. 96 In short, dams
present environmental tradeoffs, and sometimes environmental damage is in the eye of the beholder.
Nevertheless, there is little debate that the environmental impact of many dams, both individually and
cumulatively, is profoundly negative. 97

One consequence of these impacts has been to generate interest in dam removal. Twenty-five years
ago, the idea was largely a novelty, though occasional dam removals have occurred throughout
American history. 98 But beginning in the 1990s, the idea went mainstream. 99 Hundreds of dams have
come out, and while most of the removals have involved small structures, a few medium-sized dams
have recently been removed. 100 The trend is still a minor one; while dam removals tend to grab
attention, only a small percentage of the United States dams have actually come out. 101 Dam removal
also is not a panacea, for removals are unlikely to completely restore rivers to their prior condition. 102
But the improvements are often fast and dramatic . 103 Consequently, even if dam removal remains an
incomplete and, to date, relatively rare approach to environmental restoration, it still holds
transformative potential for many river systems.

To date, those removals have been largely opportunistic; rarely have dams come out pursuant to some
larger plan. 104 But impacts vary [*1061] significantly from dam to dam, and that variance creates
opportunities for prioritization. 105 Obviously size matters, and a large dam generally will have greater
impacts than a smaller one. 106 Location also is important. A dam near a natural fish barrier, or
upstream of another dam, will do less ecological damage than one that blocks access to many miles of
habitat. 107 The design of dams also is important. For example, some have better fish passage systems
than others, and some have no fish passage at all. 108 Similarly, a dam operated in run-of-the-river
mode 109 will generally have lower impacts than one that creates a large reservoir as it retains inflows.
110 Finally, the extent to which the dam alters the downstream flow regime can make a substantial
difference, and mimicking the natural flow regime can reduce, though not eliminate, some of a dam's
adverse effects. 111 Consequently, when engineers consider where and how to build dams, or when
regulators consider where to require fish passage, flow changes or dam removals, there are significant
differences between the environmental impacts of alternative proposals. 112

[*1062]

C. The Legal Regime

The central point of the preceding discussion is that our system of dams is enormous, influential, and
haphazardly matched to modern societal needs. Ideally, our response would be a broad program of
dam reform, in which many dams come out and others are re-operated to produce different benefits -
including, sometimes, more hydropower - and in which those adjustments follow careful planning
efforts designed to identify the best places for changes. The extent to which that response can occur,
however, depends partly upon law, and this section therefore reviews the laws of dams. It is necessarily
a brief overview, for these laws are much too complex to describe in detail in a few pages. Nevertheless,
even this brief summary should illustrate two overarching points. First, key parts of existing law create a
strong bias toward the status quo, and against any actions that would either generate new hydropower
or lead to dam removals. Second, while the system allows systemic reassessment of dams, it does
almost nothing to compel such analysis. It is, in short, a system suited primarily for sporadic, ad hoc
adjustments.

Cap-and-trade strategies have decades of empirical success --- plan ensures efficient
dam removal or repair
 Avoids political fights or individual dam decisions
 cap-and-trade policies for other uses have proliferated from India to China to Europe
 compliance likely from division of responsibilities – government agencies set and enforce caps
and dam owners trade to achieve best overall result

Workman, 7 --- adviser and consultant on water and natural resources issues to governmental and
nongovernmental organizations, including the World Commission on Dams (FALL 2007, JAMES G.
WORKMAN, “How to Fix Our Dam Problems; Thousands of aging dams should be repaired or destroyed,
at a cost of billions. A cap-and-trade policy could speed the process and help pay the bills,”
https://issues.org/workman-water-crisis-drought-fix-dams/, JMP)

California is the world’s eighth largest economy and generates 13% of U.S. wealth. Yet Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger says high temperatures, low rainfall, and a growing population have created a water
crisis there. A third of the state is in extreme drought and, if there’s another dry season, faces
catastrophe. The governor fears that his economy could collapse without a $5.9 billion program to build
more dams.

His concerns are widely shared in the United States—not to mention in dry Australia, Spain, China, and
India. Yet as California desperately seeks new dam construction, it simultaneously leads the world in old
dam destruction. It razes old dams for the same reasons it raises new dams: economic security, public
safety, water storage efficiency, flood management, job creation, recreation, and adaptation to climate
change. Dam-removal supporters include water districts, golf courses, energy suppliers, thirsty cities,
engineers, farmers, and property owners.

With 1,253 dams risky enough to be regulated and 50 times that many unregistered small dams,
California is a microcosm of the world. There are more than 2.5 million dams in the United States,
79,000 so large they require government monitoring. There are an estimated 800,000 substantial dams
worldwide. But within the next two decades, 85% of U.S. dams will have outlived their average 50-year
lifespan, putting lives, property, the environment, and the climate at risk unless they are repaired and
upgraded.

Neither dam repair nor dam removal is a recent phenomenon. What is new is their scale and complexity
as well as the number of zeros on the price tag. Between 1920 and 1956, in the Klamath River drainage
22 dams were dismantled at a total cost of $3,000. Today, the removal of four dams on that same river
—for jobs, security, efficiency, safety, legal compliance, and growth—will cost upwards of $200 million.

Which old uneconomical dams should be improved or removed? Who pays the bill? The answers have
usually come through politics. Pro-dam and anti-dam interests raise millions of dollars and press their
representatives to set aside hundreds of millions more tax dollars to selectively subsidize pet dam
projects. Other bills bail out private owners: A current House bill earmarks $40 million for repairs;
another one sets aside $12 million for removals. The outcome is gridlock, lawsuits, debt spending,
bloated infrastructure, rising risks, dying fisheries, and sick streams.

Dam decisions don’t have to work that way. Rather than trust well-intentioned legislators, understaffed
state agencies, harried bureaucrats, or nonscientific federal judges to decide the fate of millions of
unique river structures, there’s another approach. State and federal governments should firmly set in
place safety and conservation standards, allow owners to make links between the costs and benefits of
existing dams, and then let market transactions bring health, equity, and efficiency to U.S. watersheds .
Social welfare, economic diversity, and ecological capital would all improve through a cap-and-trade
system for water infrastructure. This system would allow mitigation and offsets from the vast stockpile
of existing dams while improving the quality of, or doing away with the need for, new dam construction.
BIG BENEFITS, THEN BIGGER COSTS

A new dam rises when its public bondholder/taxpayer or private investor believes that its eventual benefits will outweigh immediate costs. When first built, dams usually fulfill those hopes, even if the types of benefits change over
time. In early U.S. history, hundreds of dams turned water mills or allowed barge transport. Soon, thousands absorbed flood surges, diverted water for irrigation, or slaked the thirst of livestock. Later still, tens of thousands
generated electrical power, stored drinking water for cities, and provided recreation. North America built 13% of its largest dams for flood control, 11% for irrigation, 10% for water supply, 11% for hydropower, 24% for some other
single purpose such as recreation or navigation, and 30% for a mix of these purposes. Today, the primary reason is drinking water storage and, to a far lesser extent, hydropower and irrigation.

Unfortunately, we usually fail to heed all the indirect, delayed, and unexpected downstream costs of dams. With planners focused primarily on near-term benefits, during the past century three large dams, on average, were built in
the world every day. Few independent analyses tallied exactly why those dams came about, how they performed, and whether people have been getting a fair return on their $2 trillion investment. Now that the lifecycle cost is
becoming manifest, we are beginning to see previously hidden costs.

First, it turns out that a river is far more than a natural aqueduct. It is a dynamic continuum, a vibrant lifeline, a force of energy. Dams, by definition, abruptly stop it. But all dams fill with much more than water. They trap river silt
or sediment at rates of between 0.5% and 1% of the dam’s storage capacity every year. Layer by layer, that sediment settles in permanently. By restraining sediment upstream, dams accelerate erosion below; hydrologists explain
that dams starve a hungry current that then must scour and devour more soil from the river bed and banks downstream. Silt may be a relatively minor problem at high altitudes, but it plagues U.S. landscapes east of the Rockies,
where precious topsoil is crumbling into rivers, backing up behind dams, and flowing out to sea. Removing trapped sediment can cost $3 per cubic meter or more, when it can be done at all.

The second enemy is the sun. Whereas sediment devours reservoir storage from below, radiant heat hammers shallows from above. In dry seasons and depending on size, dam reservoirs and diversions can evaporate more water
than they store. Rates vary from dam to dam and year to year, but on average evaporation annually consumes between 5% and 15% of Earth’s stored freshwater supplies. That’s faster than many cities can consume. It’s one of the
reasons why the Rio Grande and Colorado Rivers no longer reach the sea and why precious alluvial groundwater is shrinking, too. Nine freshwater raindrops out of 10 fall into the ocean, so the trick is to see the entire watershed—
from headwater forest to alluvial aquifers through downstream floodplain—as potentially efficient storage and tap into water locked beneath the surface. Today, irrigators pump more groundwater than surface water. In arid
landscapes, water is more efficiently and securely stored in cool, clean alluvial aquifers than in hot, shallow, polluted reservoirs.

The third threat to dam performance, as both a cause and a consequence, is climate change. Dams are point-source polluters. Scientists have long warned that dams alter the chemistry and biology of rivers. They warm the water
and lower its oxygen content, boosting invasive species and algae blooms while blocking and killing native aquatic life upstream and down. Rivers host more endangered species than any other ecosystem in the United States, and
many of the nation’s native plants and animals, from charismatic Pacific salmon to lowly Southern freshwater mussels, face extinction almost entirely because of dams.

What we didn’t appreciate until recently is that dams also pollute the air. The public may commonly see dams as producers of clean energy in a time of dirty coal and escalating oil prices. Yet fewer than 2% of U.S. dams generate
any power whatsoever. Some could be retrofitted with turbines, and perhaps various existing dams should be. But peer-reviewed scientific research has demonstrated that dams in fact may worsen climate change because of
reservoir and gate releases of methane. Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research calculated that the world’s 52,000 large dams (typically 50 feet or higher) contribute more than 4% of the total warming impact of human
activities. These dam reservoirs contribute 25% of human-caused methane emissions, the world’s largest single source. Earth’s millions of smaller dams compound that effect.

Worse, as climate change accelerates, U.S. dams will struggle to brace for predicted drought and deluge cycles on a scale undreamed of when the structures were built. This brings us to the fourth danger. Dams initially designed for
flood control may actually make floods more destructive. First, they lure people to live with a false sense of security, yet closer to danger, in downstream floodplains. Then they reduce the capacity of upstream watersheds to
absorb and control the sudden impact of extreme storms. Looking only at mild rainstorms in October 2005 and May 2006, three states reported 408 overtoppings, breaches, and damaged dams. Only half of the nation’s high-
hazard dams even have emergency action plans.

The scariest aspect of dams’ liabilities is the seemingly willful ignorance in the United States of their long-term public safety risks. Engineers put a premium on safety, from design to construction through eventual commission. Yet
after politicians cut the ceremonial ribbon, neglect creeps in. As dams age they exhibit cracks, rot, leaks, and in the worst cases, failure. In 2006, the Kaloko Dam on the Hawaiian island of Kauai collapsed, unleashing a 70-foot-high,
1.6-million-ton freshwater tsunami that carried trees, cars, houses, and people out to sea, drowning seven. This is not an isolated exception, but a harbinger.

These preventable tragedies happen because both public and private dams lack funds for upkeep and repair. In 2005, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave U.S. dams and water infrastructure a grade of D and estimated that
nationwide, repairing nonfederal dams that threaten human life would cost $10.1 billion. The U.S. Association of State Dam Safety Officials (ASDSO) placed the cost of repairing all nonfederal dams at $36.2 billion. Yet Congress has
failed to pass legislation authorizing even $25 million a year for five years to address these problems.

Cash-strapped states generally don’t even permit dam safety officials to perform their jobs adequately. Dozens of states have just one full-time employee per 500 to 1,200 dams. Hence state inspectors, like their dams, are set up to
fail. Between 1872 and 2006, the ASDSO reports, dam failures killed 5,128 people.
As environmental, health, and safety regulations drive up the cost of compliance, owners of old dams tend to litigate or lobby against the rules. Others simply walk away. The number of abandoned or obsolete dams keeps rising:
11% of inventoried dams in the United States are classified under indeterminate ownership.

To date, warnings have been tepid, fitful, disregarded, or politicized. In 1997, the American Society of Civil Engineers produced good guidelines for the refurbishment or retirement of dams. They have been ignored. In 2000, the
landmark World Commission on Dams established criteria and guidelines to address building, managing, and removing dams, but its report so challenged water bureaucrats that the World Bank, the commission’s benefactor, has
tried to walk away from its own creation. Environmental organizations have published tool kits for improving or removing old dams, but activists often target only the most egregious or high-profile dozen or so problems that best
advance their profile or fundraising needs.

Dams have always been politically charged and often the epitome of pork-barrel projects. For the same reasons, dam removal can get bipartisan support from leading Democrats and Republicans alike. The switch from the Clinton
to Bush administrations led to attempted alterations of many natural resource policies, but one thing did not change: the accelerating rate of dam removals. In 1998, a dozen dams were terminated; in 2005, some 56 dams came
down in 11 states. Yet despite bipartisan support, there has never been any specific dam policy in either administration. A dam’s demise just happened, willy-nilly, here and there. Dams died with less legal, regulatory, or policy
rationale than accompanied their birth.

THOREAU HAD IT RIGHT

No laws, no regulations, no policy? Federal restraint remains an alluring ideal in a nation that feels cluttered with restrictions. It’s a deeply ingrained American sentiment, embodied in Henry David Thoreau’s famous remark in Civil
Disobedience: “That government is best which governs least.” Yet the founder of principled civil disobedience was also the first critic of seemingly benign dams because of their unintended effects.

While paddling with his brother on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers in 1839, Thoreau lamented the disappearance of formerly abundant salmon, shad, and alewives. Vanished. Why? Because “the dam, and afterward the canal at
Billerica …put an end to their migrations hitherward.” His elegy reads like an Earth First! manifesto: “Poor shad! where is thy redress? …armed only with innocence and a just cause …I for one am with thee, and who knows what
may avail a crowbar against that Billerica dam?”

Thoreau restrained himself from vigilante dam-busting, but 168 years later the effects of the country’s dams have only multiplied in number and size. Happily, the end of Thoreau’s tale might nudge us in the right direction. He did
not complain to Washington or Boston for results, funds, or a regulatory crackdown. He looked upstream and down throughout the watershed and sought to build local consensus. Because the dam had not only killed the fishery
but buried precious agricultural farmland and pasture, Thoreau advocated an emphatically civic-minded, consensus-based, collective, economically sensible proposal, in which “at length it would seem that the interests, not of the
fishes only, but of the men of Wayland, of Sudbury, of Concord, demand the leveling of that dam.”

In other words, if those watershed interests were combined, they could sort out fixed liabilities from liquid assets. The economic beneficiaries of a flowing river, including the legally liable dam owner, should pay the costs of old
dam removal, just as the beneficiaries of any new dam pay the costs of its economic, environmental, and security effects. In a few words, Thoreau sketched the outlines of what could emerge as a policy framework for existing
dams that could be adapted to a river basin, a state, or a nation.

The most successful and least intrusive policies can be grouped under the strategic approach known as
cap and trade. That is, the government sets a mandatory ceiling on effects, pollution, or emissions by a
finite group of public and private property stakeholders. This ceiling is typically lower than present
conditions. But rather than forcing individual stakeholders to comply with that target by regulatory fiat,
each one can trade offsets, what amount to pollution credits, with each other. Those who cut waste,
emissions, and effects better may sell their extra credits to laggards or newcomers. This approach
leverages incentives to reform, innovate, and improve into a competitive advantage in which everyone
benefits, and so does nature. Although it did not involve dams, a cap-and-trade policy was tested
nationally under the 1990 Clean Air Act revisions aimed at cutting acid rain–causing sulfur dioxide
emissions of U.S. factories in half. When it was announced, the utility industry gloomily predicted a
clean-air recession, whereas environmentalists cried sellout over the lack of top-down regulatory
controls. But cap and trade turned out to reduce emissions faster than the most optimistic projection.
The industry grew strong and efficient, and the result was the largest human health gains of any federal
policy in the 1990s. Annual benefits exceeded costs by 40:1.

Since then, cap-and-trade policies have proliferated from India to China to Europe. Though far from
flawless, a cap-and-trade carbon policy is one success story to emerge from the troubled Kyoto Protocol
to reduce emissions that accelerate climate change. Nations and multinational corporations such as
General Electric and British Petroleum used it to reduce polluting emissions of carbon dioxide and
methane while saving voters and shareholders money in the process. More recently, atmospheric cap
and trade has been brought down to earth; the valuation and exchange in environmental offsets have
been applied to land and water ecosystems. Certain states use cap and trade in policies to curb nitrogen
oxides and nonpoint water pollution, others to reduce sediment loads and water temperature, and still
others to trade in water rights when diversions are capped. California’s Habitat Conservation Plans work
within the Endangered Species Act’s “cap” of preservation, yet allow “trade” of improving, restoring,
and connecting habitat so that although individuals may die, the overall population recovers. Under the
Clean Water Act, a cap-and-trade policy encourages mitigation banking and trading, which leads to a net
gain in wetlands.
In each case the policy works because it lets democratic governments do what they do best—set and
enforce a strict uniform rule—while letting property owners, managers, investors, and entrepreneurs
do what they do best: find the most cost-effective ways to meet that standard. Given the documented
risks of the vast stockpile of aging dam infrastructure in the United States, a cap-and-trade policy for
dams could be tested to see if it can restore efficiency, health, and safety to the nation’s waters.

MAKING THE POLICY WORK

The first step would be to inventory and define all the stakeholders. In air-quality cap-and-trade cases,
these include factory owners, public utilities, manufacturers, refineries, and perhaps even registered car
owners. In the case of dams, one could begin with the 79,000 registered owners in the National
Inventory of Dams. Tracking down ownership of the estimated 2.5 million smaller unregistered dams
may prove a bit challenging, until their owners realize that dismantling the dams can yield profit if
removal credits can be bought and sold.

The second step would be to recognize the legitimate potential for trades. Dams yield (or once yielded)
economic benefits, but every dam also has negative effects on air emissions and water quality, quantity,
and temperature, therefore on human health and safety, economic growth, and stability. Even the most
ardent dam supporter acknowledges that there is room for potentially significant gains in performance
from dams as well as from the rivers in which they squat. Whereas the top-down goal in the past had
been to subsidize or regulate new dams for their economic benefits, the aim in this case is horizontal: to
encourage an exchange to reduce old dams’ economic and ecological costs .

Third, quantify the kind, extent, and nature of those negative effects. Our scientific tools have advanced
considerably and are now ready to measure most if not all of those qualitative damages observed by
amateurs since Thoreau. By breaking them down into formal “conservation units,” degrees Celsius,
water quality, cubic meters of sediment, and so forth, we can quantify potential offsets in ecological and
economic terms. The United States could set out rigorous scientific standards modeled on the Clean Air
Act cap-and-trade policy or wetlands mitigation banking,

Fourth, start small, then replicate and scale up with what works best. The pilot exchanges could be
structured by geography or by type of effect. But both kinds of pilot programs have already begun. One
creative company in North Carolina, Restoration Systems, has begun to remove obsolete dams to gain
wetlands mitigation credits that it can sell and trade, in most cases, to offset the destruction of nearby
wetlands by highway building. In Maine, several dams in the Penobscot River watershed have been
linked through mitigation as part of a relicensing settlement. On the Kennebec River, also in Maine, the
destruction cost of the Edwards Dam was financed in large part by upstream industrial interests and
more viable dams as part of a package for environmental compliance. On the west coast, the Bonneville
Power Administration is using hydropower funds to pay for dam removals on tributaries within the
Columbia River basin.

These early efforts are fine, but restricted geographically; each approach could be allowed to expand.
The larger the pool of stakeholders, the greater are the economies of scale and the more efficient the
result. But a national consensus and standards do not emerge overnight, nor should they, given that
there are so many different dams. Each dam is unique in its history and specific in its effects, even
though the cumulative extent and degree of those effects are statewide, national, and sometimes even
global. A cap-and-trade policy will emerge nationally only as it builds on examples like these.
Finally, work within existing caps while using a standard that lets the amoral collective marketplace sort
out good from bad. The beauty of this framework is that many of the national standards are already in
place. Legal obligations to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act,
Clean Water Act, and Clean Air Act all have strong bearing on decisions to remove or improve dams.
Some tweaking may be required, but perhaps not much. Recently, Congress revised the Magnuson-
Stevens Act to pilot cap-and-trade policies in fishery management, in which fishermen trade shares of a
total allowable or capped offshore catch of, say, halibut or red snapper.

Those overworked state and federal agencies responsible for enforcing laws—the ASDSO, the Army
Corps of Engineers, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Services, and the
Environmental Protection Agency— need not get bogged down in the thankless task of ensuring that
each and every dam complies with each and every one of the laws. Dam owners may have better things
to do than argue losing battles on several fronts with various government branches. All parties can
better invest their time according to their mandate, strengths, and know-how: officials in setting the
various standard legal caps and ensuring that they are strictly applied to the entire tributary ,
watershed, state, or nation; and dam owners in trading their way to the best overall result.

A CAP-AND-TRADE SCENARIO

Suppose, for example, that a worried governor determines to cap at one-third below current levels all
state dam effects: methane emissions, sedimentation rates, evaporative losses, aquatic species declines,
habitat fragmentations, artificial warming, reduced oxygen content, and number of downstream safety
hazards. He wants these reductions to happen within seven years and is rigorous in enforcing the
ceiling. That’s the stick, but here’s the carrot: He would allow dam owners to decide how to get under
that ceiling on their own.

At first, dam owners and operators, public as well as private, could reliably be expected to howl. They
would label the policy environmentally extreme and say it was sacrificing water storage, energy, food,
and flood control. But eventually, innovative dam owners and operators would see the policy for what it
really is: a flexible and long-overdue opportunity with built-in incentives to become efficient and even to
realize higher returns on existing idle capital. They would seize a chance to transform those fixed
liabilities into liquid assets.

One likely effect would be private acquisition of some of the many thousands of small orphan dams. By
liquidating these, an investor would accumulate a pool of offset credits that could be sold or traded to
cumbersome dams with high value but low flexibility. This development has already emerged in isolated
cases. In northern Wisconsin, the regional power company bought and removed two small, weak dams
in exchange for a 25-year license to operate three healthier ones in the same watershed. Utilities in the
West have taken notice and begun to package their relicensing strategies accordingly.

Another predictable outcome would be that, in order to retain wide popular and political support, big
power, transport, and irrigation dam projects—think Shasta, Oroville, San Luis Reservoir, Glen Canyon,
and Hoover—would mitigate their effects first by looking upstream at land and water users, then at
other smaller dams that could be upgraded, retrofitted, or removed to gain efficiencies in ways easier or
cheaper than they could get by overhauling their own operations and managements.
There would also be a likely expansion outward and upward in user fees raised from formerly invisible or
subsidized beneficiaries from the services of existing dams. Such services range from recreational
boaters, anglers, and bird hunters to urban consumers, lakefront property owners, and even those who
merely enjoy the bucolic view of a farm dam. These disaggregated interests have largely supported
dams, but only as long as others foot the bill for maintenance and upkeep. Economists call them free
riders, and a new cap-and-trade dam policy would reduce their ranks. Dams that failed to generate
enough revenues to meet national standards could earn credits by selling themselves to those interests
that could. This happened when viable upstream industries on the Kennebec River helped finance the
removal of Edwards Dam.

Another effect would be an innovation revolution in the kinds of tools and technologies that are already
in the works but that have lacked a national incentive to really flourish. These include new kinds of fish
passages, dredging techniques, low-flush toilets, and timed-drip irrigation, along with a more aggressive
use of groundwater that pumps reservoir water underground as soon as it is trapped. The range of tools
would also include financial instruments; in the West, they might accelerate the trading in water rights
between agricultural, industrial, urban, and environmental users that has begun in Oregon, Montana,
Washington, and California.

The regulation mandated by the plan is critical to ensure an effective dam trading
system
Owen & Apse, 15 --- *Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, AND **Freshwater
Conservation Advisor, The Nature Conservancy (February 2015, Dave Owen and Colin Apse, “Trading
Dam,” 48 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1043, Nexis Uni, JMP)

b. Regulatory Leverage

While high stakes and disparities in value are necessary for a successful trading regime, they are by no
means sufficient. Potential traders will generally need additional incentives for participation, and those
incentives generally come from some combination of regulatory sticks and financial carrots. With dams,
some of those sticks and carrots exist, but the resulting incentives are mixed and uneven.

The importance of carrots and sticks arises from a simple problem: Often an activity that has high costs
for society as a whole does not have high costs for the people actually engaged in that activity, usually
because the actors are able to externalize those costs. Until those costs become the focus of either
regulatory limitations, positive financial incentives, or both, the actors will have little reason to
participate in a trading scheme. That simple principle explains why a regulatory cap is a key element of
most environmental trading schemes: it is the simplest, though by no means the only, way of creating
that regulatory push.

Dam management is by no means immune from this need for incentives. A high-environmental-impact,
low-value, non-powered dam might seem like an optimal candidate for participation in a trading scheme
designed to encourage upgrades or removals. But if the dam's owner does not bear the cost of those
environmental impacts, his participation in a trading scheme is unlikely. 307 The incentives are even
lower if the dam owner faces [*1094] no safety-related obligations, does not pay to insure the dam,
and (as is entirely plausible in some states) does not even need to provide public information about the
dam. 308 For that reason, some regulatory compulsion for dam owners to internalize the negative
impacts of their dams is a key element of a successful trading scheme. 309

Existing dam law does an uneven job of providing those incentives. No federal or state law creates an
overall cap on any of the environmental impacts of dams , and environmental limits instead derive from
a patchwork of legal obligations. Those obligations are strongest during FERC relicensing processes,
when the combination of extensive procedural requirements and multiple environmental law levers
creates a powerful incentive for dam owners to consider whether continued operation of a dam really is
worthwhile. 310 But even the FERC process contains countervailing incentives, including a default
preference toward preserving dams, and FERC itself has been reluctant to actually order dam removals.
311 Recent congressional changes have been designed primarily to weaken regulatory leverage over
dams, and those changes undermine dam owners' incentives to account for their projects' negative
effects. 312 In the long periods between licensing processes, the incentives toward maintaining the
status quo are even more powerful. 313 Unless FERC or another regulatory agency invokes a "reopener"
clause and reconsiders license terms, dam owners are largely exempt from regulatory reexamination
during those long interim periods. 314 Consequently, a set of moderately favorable incentives can exist,
but only once every several decades.

For federal dams that are not regulated by FERC, the incentives toward maintaining the status quo are
similar, if not more powerful. No relicensing process exists, and once Congress authorizes a federally
[*1095] owned dam, the default presumption is that it will remain in place. 315 Indeed, making
significant changes to dam operations might actually be precluded by the dam's authorizing legislation.
316 Nor does any statute prescribe a process for concurrently evaluating the status of multiple dams,
and therefore considering how multi-dam systems might be realigned. That does not mean that federal
dams, once built, are exempt from regulatory oversight. Perhaps most importantly, dam operations
remain subject to the ESA, and consultation processes may lead to significant new constraints. 317 But
both procedural and substantive levers for reconsidering dam operations are significantly weaker than
they are for FERC-regulated dams.

For state-regulated dams, those levers are generally weakest of all. As discussed above, few states have
any procedural requirement for re-examining the environmental impacts of existing dams - unless
someone proposes to make a change to the dam. 318 In many states, substantive environmental
constraints on those operations are similarly sparse; while a few states have potentially important
environmental requirements for existing dams, in many those dams' environmental impacts are largely
unregulated. 319 Safety regulation could be a substitute incentive, but in many states, that regulation
exists largely on paper. 320 That does not mean state dam owners are entirely immune to legal
leverage. Even absent coverage under regulatory programs, the potential tort liability associated with a
failing dam might be incentive enough for a landowner to take some action. 321 The willingness of
government agencies and environmental groups to pay for dam removal also provides an important
lever, though one limited by the sizes of government and private purses. 322 But the reality in many
states is that [*1096] the path of least resistance, even for a dam with high environmental impacts and
very little social value, is to simply leave it in place.

Incentives to upgrade dams, and add additional or new hydropower capacity, are stronger but still quite
uneven. The potential profits from electricity sales are one incentive, particularly where renewable
incentive programs elevate the price for that electricity. 323 Similarly, recent federal interest in new
hydropower capacity may spur some development. 324 But we found very few legal processes designed
to promote the positive externalities of hydropower. FERC, for example, does not tell its relicensing
applicants, "your equipment is old and underperforming, and we won't grant this license unless you
make changes to generate more hydropower." Nor do dams, or other renewable energy projects, get
any special treatment through NEPA or ESA processes because of their potential benefits for air quality
and climate. 325 Similarly, few, if any, states have programs designed to identify promising locations for
new hydropower installations or upgrades. 326 Consequently, dam owners' easiest course of action is
often to preserve not just the environmental but also the energy status quo.

The consequence of these uneven incentives is a fragmented regulatory terrain only weakly conducive
to trading. The FERC process does provide relatively strong incentives, and when the relicensing process
is impending or in progress, dam owners might be particularly interested in identifying other dam
removals that could serve as mitigation. 327 And there might be many other dams nearby that could be
part of an environmentally and economically sensible deal. But without substantial increases in, and
adjustments to, regulatory oversight, the other dam owners will have little regulatory incentive to
participate in such deals, even if their dams produce little economic or societal value, and are likely to
become involved only if the offering price is sufficiently high. Sometimes it may be, but both private and
public funds for environmental restoration are fairly limited. Consequently, while the Penobscot project
succeeded largely because many dams were part of the discussion, the existing regulatory system
misses most opportunities for recreating that circumstance.
Dam Failure
 2ac Global Dam Failure

The world is now facing the era of dam retirement --- growing risk of failure requires
new framework for removal
Walton, 21 --- winner of two Society of Environmental Journalists reporting awards, one of the top
honors in American environmental journalism: first place for explanatory reporting for a series on septic
system pollution in the United States(2016) and third place for beat reporting in a small market (2014)
(January 22, 2021, Brett, “‘Mass Aging’ of Dams a Global Safety and Financial Risk, UN Report Says,”
https://www.circleofblue.org/2021/world/mass-aging-of-dams-a-global-safety-and-financial-risk-un-
report-says/, JMP)

A global dam-building binge that spanned the early- to mid-20th century is now reaching a turning point,
according to a report published by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment, and
Health.

These dams are nearing middle and old age, when their operation and maintenance poses growing
financial, environmental, and safety challenges. Though each dam is a unique case, an older fleet has
common risks: Rising maintenance costs and declining capacity to store water due to sediment buildup.
Continued environmental harm from blocking fish migration and stagnant waters in their reservoirs. And
designs that may not stand up to an era of more intense rainstorms and severe weather, putting them in
danger of collapse.

The authors write that their purpose is to draw government attention to the problem of aging dams and
initiate discussions about end-of-life care so that proper procedures are in place for decommissioning
and removing structures whose costs now outweigh their benefits.

“With the mass ageing of dams well underway, it is important to develop a framework of protocols that
will guide and accelerate the process of dam removal,” they write.

Several notable dam failures have occurred in the United States in the last five years, from Edenville
Dam in Michigan to Spencer Dam in Nebraska to dozens of dams in the Carolinas that crumbled during
tropical storms. In 2017, nearly 190,000 people were evacuated downstream of Oroville Dam, in
California, after the spillway cracked amid surging outflows during a wet winter.

There are more than 58,700 large dams worldwide — a category largely defined by structures taller than
15 meters, or 49 feet. These dams are designed for a range of purposes: to supply water for irrigation
and cities, generate electricity, hold mining waste, protect against flooding, and provide playgrounds for
boaters.

The United States, one of the first countries to embrace widespread damming of rivers, is now the
leader in tearing them down. The conservation group American Rivers has tracked 1,722 dam removals
there since 1912. The pace of removals has accelerated. Eighty-five percent have been torn down in the
last three decades, including two dams on the Elwha River, in Washington state, which is the world’s
largest dam removal project to date.
Most of the removals in the United States, however, have been smaller dams, due to the expense and
complexity of taking down larger structures. The Elwha project took more than two decades from
planning to completion and cost nearly $325 million.

Just as human health varies among individuals, age alone is an inadequate indicator of a dam’s
condition, the report says. Even young dams are risky if they were poorly constructed — Sardoba Dam,
which collapsed in Uzbekistan last year, was only three years old. But a rule of thumb is that after 50
years maintenance problems become more problematic.

Many large dams are already in that age range. In North America and Asia, more than 16,000 such
structures are between 50 and 100 years old, according to the International Commission on Large Dams.
More than 2,300 dams have passed their centennial year. Some countries are dominated by geriatric
structures. In Japan and the United Kingdom, the average age of large dams is above 100 years.

Globally, dam building peaked in the 1970s, meaning that the U.S. experience is a precursor. The world
is at the cusp of the era of dam retirement, especially in Asia, where China, India, Japan, and South
Korea are among the leaders in the number of large dams.

Upmanu Lall, the director of the Columbia Water Center who has studied the risks of aging water
infrastructure, said that the report has an understandably clear bias in favor of dam removal. Still, he
said that dealing with older dams is a matter of tradeoffs. Though some reservoirs are a significant
source of methane, which is a greenhouse gas, hydropower is part of the energy mix to address climate
change. The right actions to take will be a matter of weighing risks and securing a financing source.

“At the same time, the risk associated with old, poorly maintained dams is real, and they are not cheap
to remove,” Lall wrote in an email to Circle of Blue. “So, this is a conundrum that will take a while to play
out.”

Climate change will trigger dam failures

Perera, 21 --- MA and Phd in Urban and Environmental Engineering from Kyushu University, Japan;
over ten years of experience primarily focusing on water-related disasters and risk management
(5/10/2021, Interviewed by Cristina Novo, Dr. Duminda Perera, “One-size-fits-all criteria to assess dam
removal are at least useless and at most dangerous,” https://smartwatermagazine.com/news/unu-
inweh/one-size-fits-all-criteria-assess-dam-removal-are-least-useless-and-most-dangerous, JMP)

Q: Extreme weather events as a result of climate change can increase the threat of ageing large dams
designed using historical hydrological data. On the other hand, a recent study by Japan's National
Institute for Environmental Studies exposes the role of dams in mitigating flood risk under climate
change. Do you think climate change should be another factor to consider when making decisions about
the future of dams?

A: Yes, absolutely. Climate change-induced extreme events, primarily floods and droughts, can cause
significant impacts on these ageing structures. Increased intensity and frequency of extreme flood
events can challenge dams' structural integrity and capacity. Overtopping is a common cause of several
dam failures recorded in the past. Also, the dams in the tropics will face high evaporation rates in the
future due to increased temperatures leading to storage losses. Eventually, these events are threats to
the effective functioning of dams.

Flood control is one of the major functions dams were designed for. We agree that dams play a big role
in mitigating flood risk. Due to the loss of stationarity of the hydroclimatic data as a result of climate
change, it is challenging to predict future events based on past data. Therefore, the decision about
ageing dams should be made considering the uncertainties in future events, capacities of dams, and
their structural integrity.
 2ac U.S. Dam Failure

Dams will increasingly fail --- aren’t designed to deal with climate change threats
Newburger, 20 (MAY 21 2020 2:49 PM EDT, Emma Newburger, “More dams will collapse as aging
infrastructure can’t keep up with climate change,” https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/21/more-dams-will-
collapse-as-aging-infrastructure-cant-keep-up-with-climate-change.html, JMP)

The collapse of two Michigan dams on Tuesday following heavy rainfall has triggered concerns over how
precarious dam infrastructure in the U.S. is inadequate to handle severe weather.

Aging dams will increasingly fail as climate change makes extreme precipitation and storms more
frequent and intense, scientists warn.

“A lot of the country’s infrastructure systems were built during a time when these kind of weather
events were considered rare and didn’t present a significant threat,” said Hiba Baroud, a professor of
civil and environmental engineering at Vanderbilt University.

“But things have changed. The climate has changed. These dams are aging and need to be maintained,
upgraded and in the most extreme cases, the entire design must be revisited,” Baroud continued.
“Otherwise, the situation like in Michigan will become more frequent in the future.”

The 91,000 dams in the U.S. earned a “D” for safety in a 2017 report from the American Society of Civil
Engineers. The ASCE estimated the cost of fixing up the dams whose failure would threaten lives at
roughly $45 billion, and the cost of fixing all aging dams at over $64 billion.

In Michigan, which is under a state of emergency after the two dam breaches, the average age of the
state’s total 1,059 dams is 74 years old, older than the typical 50-year designed life span. Just over 170
of those dams are labeled as high hazard potential — meaning a collapse will result in a loss of life.

“The combination of aging infrastructure, older design guidelines and an increasing probability of
extreme events from global warming is increasing the overall risk of these events,” said Noah
Diffenbaugh, a Stanford University climate scientist.

The most common form of dam failure is over-topping of inadequate spillway design, which accounts for
roughly 34% of all dam failures. The water levels behind the dam become too high and break through
the entire structure rather than passing through the spillway.

Growing number of dams at risk of collapse --- they aren’t being forced to make
repairs and collapse will hurt economy and environment
Holden, 20 (23 May 2020, Emily Holden, “Thousands of run-down US dams would kill people if they
failed, study finds,” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/23/us-dams-michigan-
report-infrastructure, JMP)
More than 15,000 dams in the US would likely kill people if they failed, and at least 2,300 of them are in
poor or unsatisfactory condition, according to recent data from the federal government’s National
Inventory of Dams.

The country’s neglected and deteriorating dam infrastructure is coming to light as heavy rains and two
dam failures in Michigan have caused catastrophic flooding and forced thousands to evacuate their
homes in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.

The problem will only become more serious as the climate crisis disrupts rain patterns, experts warn.

The average age of a US dam is 57 years, and many – like the Michigan dams – were built in the early
20th century, when states had not yet set safety standards. US dams received a “D” rating from the
American Society of Civil Engineers in its most recent review in 2017.

About 70% of dams are regulated by states, and another 5% are regulated by the federal government.
But many are not being forced to make needed repairs , said Mark Ogden, who co-authored the 2017
dam report and is a project manager at the Association of State Dam Safety Officials.

“Unfortunately, some state programs don’t have the resources they need to follow through,” Ogden
said. “These can be very expensive repairs … so if the owner is unable or unwilling to do that, it takes a
lot of time and resources to go through the enforcement process.”

Many dams, for example, were built by neighborhood developers who wanted to create bodies of water
for recreation, Ogden said. Then they were turned over to homeowners’ associations unprepared to
maintain them.

In total, there are more than 91,000 dams in the US, according to the National Inventory of Dams, a
project of the US army corps of engineers. About 17% of them are classified as having high hazard
potential, meaning the loss of human life is likely if the dam falls. Another 12% have significant hazard
potential, meaning a failure probably wouldn’t kill people but could cause “ economic loss,
environmental damage, disruption of lifeline facilities, or impact other concerns”.

About 20% of state-regulated high hazard dams do not have emergency action plans, Ogden said. Those
plans would dictate how an owner should monitor for possible failures and warn officials downstream.

Ogden said repairing dams and preparing emergency plans will become even more important with more
frequent intense rainfall.
 2ac U.S. Dam Failure / AT: Safety Regulations Solve

Dams increasingly at risk of collapse --- they can fail without warning and the current
patchwork of regulations are inadequate
Lieb, et. al, 19 (November 11, 2019, DAVID A. LIEB, MICHAEL CASEY and MICHELLE MINKOFF, “AP: At
least 1,680 dams across the US pose potential risk,” https://apnews.com/article/ne-state-wire-us-news-
ap-top-news-sc-state-wire-dams-f5f09a300d394900a1a88362238dbf77, JMP)

On a cold morning last March, Kenny Angel got a frantic knock on his door. Two workers from a utility
company in northern Nebraska had come with a stark warning: Get out of your house.

Just a little over a quarter-mile upstream, the 92-year-old Spencer Dam was straining to contain the
swollen, ice-covered Niobrara River after an unusually intense snow and rainstorm. The workers had
tried but failed to force open the dam’s frozen wooden spillway gates. So, fearing the worst, they fled in
their truck, stopping to warn Angel before driving away without him.

Minutes later, the dam came crashing down, unleashing a wave of water carrying ice chunks the size of
cars. Angel’s home was wiped away; his body was never found.

“He had about a 5-minute notice, with no prior warning the day before,” Scott Angel, one of Kenny’s
brothers, said.

State inspectors had given the dam a “fair” rating less than a year earlier. Until it failed, it looked little
different from thousands of others across the U.S. — and that could portend a problem.

A more than two-year investigation by The Associated Press has found scores of dams nationwide in
even worse condition, and in equally dangerous locations. They loom over homes, businesses, highways
or entire communities that could face life-threatening floods if the dams don’t hold.

A review of federal data and reports obtained under state open records laws identified 1,688 high-
hazard dams rated in poor or unsatisfactory condition as of last year in 44 states and Puerto Rico . The
actual number is almost certainly higher: Some states declined to provide condition ratings for their
dams, claiming exemptions to public record requests. Others simply haven’t rated all their dams due to
lack of funding, staffing or authority to do so.

Deaths from dam failures have declined since a series of catastrophic collapses in the 1970s prompted
the federal and state governments to step up their safety efforts. Yet about 1,000 dams have failed over
the past four decades, killing 34 people, according to Stanford University’s National Performance of
Dams Program.

Built for flood control, irrigation, water supply, hydropower, recreation or industrial waste storage, the
nation’s dams are over a half-century old on average. Some are no longer adequate to handle the
intense rainfall and floods of a changing climate. Yet they are being relied upon to protect more and
more people as housing developments spring up nearby.
“There are thousands of people in this country that are living downstream from dams that are probably
considered deficient given current safety standards,” said Mark Ogden, a former Ohio dam safety official
who is now a technical specialist with the Association of State Dam Safety Officials.

The association estimates it would take more than $70 billion to repair and modernize the nation’s more
than 90,000 dams. But unlike much other infrastructure, most U.S. dams are privately owned. That
makes it difficult for regulators to require improvements from operators who are unable or unwilling to
pay the steep costs.

“Most people have no clue about the vulnerabilities when they live downstream from these private
dams,” said Craig Fugate, a former administrator at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“When they fail, they don’t fail with warning. They just fail, and suddenly you can find yourself in a
situation where you have a wall of water and debris racing toward your house with very little time, if
any, to get out.”

___

It’s unclear whether Angel, a 71-year-old Vietnam War veteran, declined to flee or simply ran out of
time after workers with the Nebraska Public Power District warned him that water was overtopping the
dam near Spencer, a town of fewer than 500 residents.

An attorney for Angel’s wife, who wasn’t home when the dam broke, has filed a $5 million lawsuit
alleging negligence. It claims the power utility failed to properly maintain the dam, train its employees
or inform the Angels of dangerous conditions.

Even though the Angels’ home was squarely in its path, the dam was rated as a “significant” rather than
“high” hazard, meaning it wasn’t required under Nebraska law to have a formal emergency action plan.
About 20% of state-regulated high-hazard dams nationwide still lack emergency plans, according to the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which maintains the national dam inventory.

When last inspected in April 2018 , Spencer Dam’s “fair” rating was accompanied by an ominous
notation: “Deficiencies exist which could lead to dam failure during rare, extreme storm events.”

Tim Gokie, chief engineer of Nebraska’s dam safety program, said the warning was due to past water
seepage the power utility addressed by installing a drain system. Ultimately, Gokie said, the rising
Niobrara River simply overwhelmed the concrete and earthen dam, which was built in 1927 to generate
hydroelectricity, not for flood control.

“The fact was that it was just an unprecedented situation,” Nebraska Public Power District spokesman
Mark Becker said. “It was beyond what everybody anticipated.”

Nebraska was among the states hardest hit by storms and floods this year that have caused an
estimated $1.5 billion in damage to roads, dams, utilities and other infrastructure in 28 states, according
to an AP analysis.

A National Climate Assessment released by the White House last year noted growing frequency and
intensity of storms as the climate changes. That can push some dams beyond what they were designed
to handle.
Even if kept in good condition, thousands of dams could be at risk because of extreme rainstorms, said
Fugate, the former FEMA official.

“These are like ticking bombs just sitting there, waiting for the wrong conditions to occur to cause
catastrophic failure,” he said.

The nation’s dams are categorized as high, significant or low hazard in the National Inventory of Dams
database. High hazard means loss of human life is likely if a dam were to fail. A significant rating means
no deaths are likely, although economic and environmental damage are possible.

There is no national standard for inspecting dams, leading to a patchwork of state regulations. Some
states inspect high-hazard dams every year while others wait up to five years. Some states never inspect
low-hazard dams — though even farm ponds can eventually pose a high hazard as housing
developments encroach.

Dam conditions are supposed to be rated as unsatisfactory, poor, fair or satisfactory. But the ratings are
subjective — varying by state and the interpretations of individual inspectors — and are not always
publicly disclosed.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the U.S. government has cited national security grounds in refusing to include dams’ conditions in its inventory, which was updated most recently in 2018. But the AP was able to determine
both condition and hazard ratings for more than 25,000 dams across the country through public records requests.

The tally includes some of the nation’s most well-known dams, such as Hoover Dam along the Colorado River, but mostly involves privately owned dams. Many are used for recreation.

The AP then examined inspection reports for hundreds of high-hazard dams in poor or unsatisfactory condition. Those reports cited a variety of problems: leaks that can indicate a dam is failing internally; unrepaired erosion from
past instances of overtopping; holes from burrowing animals; tree growth that can destabilize earthen dams; and spillways too small to handle a large flood. Some dams were so overgrown with vegetation that they couldn’t be
fully inspected.

Georgia led the nation with nearly 200 high-hazard dams in unsatisfactory or poor condition, according to the AP’s analysis.

Among them is Reservoir No. 1 in Atlanta, a 180 million-gallon water supply dating to the late 1800s that has been out of service much of the past few decades. The city made repairs and brought it back online in 2017, only to shut
it down again after leaks were noticed.

If the dam were to catastrophically fail, the water could inundate more than 1,000 homes, dozens of businesses, a railroad and a portion of Interstate 75, according to an emergency action plan .

Joel Iverson has previously noticed water trickling out of the dam near the brewery he co-founded, Monday Night Brewing.

“If that one goes, it’s going to wash away us and a lot of beer,” Iverson said.

The Atlanta Watershed Management Department declined the AP’s request for an interview about the reservoir and instead asked for questions in writing. When those were submitted, it declined to answer them.

One of the most common problems for aging dams are spillways incapable of handling an extreme rainfall event.

If water can’t escape quickly enough through spillways, it could flow over the top of a dam, which increases the probability of rapid erosion that can cause it to collapse.

The spillway at the 107-year-old Willett Pond Dam near the Boston suburb of Norwood is capable of handling just 13% of the water flow from a serious flood before the dam is overtopped, according to a recent state inspection
report. If the dam were to give way, it could send hundreds of millions of gallons of water into the heart of the city of nearly 30,000 people.

“We are not talking of just flooding someone’s house. We are talking about covering their house,” said Murray Beach, who lives on the shore of the 220-acre privately owned lake and belongs to a citizens group that has lobbied for
years for the spillway to be repaired.

A 2017 inspection report said improvements to the spillway could cost between $1 million and $5 million. A nonprofit that owns the lake received a $215,000 state grant last year to design spillway improvements. But there is no
timeline to fix it.

More than 1,300 properties lie within the dam’s inundation zone, including several shopping centers and at least two elementary schools, as well as more than 70 roads and two railroads.

Tamiko Porter, who operates a Montessori school serving some 75 students, said she was surprised to learn there was a dam upstream that could flood her school if it failed.

“Oh God, please let it happen when my kids aren’t here,” Porter said.

Norwood emergency management director Bernard Cooper said there is no imminent risk of dam failure.

“Yes, it needs work. The spillway should be rebuilt. Absolutely, no question,” Cooper acknowledged. But “there is no money in the system for that.”

Concerns about inadequate dam spillways date back decades to when the Corps of Engineers undertook its first nationwide assessment of dams posing a high risk to life and property. From 1978 to 1981, the Corps inspected 8,818
dams. About one-third were deemed unsafe due to deficiencies, and about 80% of those cited inadequate spillway capacities.

One of the dams cited for a “seriously inadequate” spillway in 1978 was Lake Sebago, located in a New York state park near the village of Sloatsburg. Forty years later, nothing has changed.

A 2018 state inspection letter warned of “inadequate spillway capacity and dam stability” and asked for an improvement plan within 30 days. None was provided.

The state dam safety office has no authority to force the state parks department to make repairs.

To modify the Lake Sebago spillway, workers would have to rebuild a road and bridge that pass over the dam. The project could cost over $15 million, said Jim Hall, the recently retired executive director of the Palisades Interstate
Park Commission, which manages multiple dams.
“That structure has been in place with the same spillway capacity for over probably 60 to 70 years and it hasn’t been overtopped,” Hall said. “Should it be improved to meet all codes? Yeah, that would be nice. Does it make it the
highest priority for us to do in relation to other dam structures we have? Probably not.”

In a 1982 report summarizing its nationwide dam assessment, the Corps of Engineers said most dam owners were unwilling to modify, repair or maintain the structures, and most states were unwilling to spend enough money for
an effective dam safety program.

Since then, every state but Alabama has created a dam safety program.

But the Great Recession a decade ago forced many states to make widespread budget and personnel cuts. Since a low point in 2011, states’ total spending on dam safety has grown by about one-third to nearly $59 million in the
2019 fiscal year while staffing levels have risen by about one-fifth, according to data collected by the Corps of Engineers.

California, which runs the nation’s largest dam safety program, accounts for much of that gain. It boosted its budget from $13 million to $20 million and the number of full-time staff from 63 to 77 following the failure of the
Oroville dam spillway in 2017.

The scare at Oroville, the nation’s tallest dam, led to evacuation orders for nearly 200,000 people,
although no one was injured and the dam ultimately held. An independent investigation cited ”a long-
term systemic failure ” by regulators and the dam industry to recognize and address warning signs.

California spent $1.1 billion repairing the Lake Oroville spillway, enacted new emergency plan
requirements and launched a review of 93 other dams with similar spillways.

In South Carolina, after more than 70 dams failed following heavy rains in 2015 and 2016, the state
tripled the personnel in its dam safety program and ratcheted up spending from about $260,000
annually to more than $1 million.

But some states have continued to pare back their dam safety programs . Thirteen states and Puerto
Rico were spending less in 2019 than they did in 2011, and 11 states had fewer full-time positions in
their programs.

The Association of State Dam Safety Officials says almost every state faces a serious need to pump
additional money and manpower into dam safety programs.

“If you don’t have the staff to inspect a dam, or don’t have the authority to do that, you don’t know
what the problems are,” said the association’s Ogden.

“If you are able to do the inspection but you can’t follow up, and you have dam owners who don’t have
the resources to fix their dam, then ultimately you know what the problem is but you can’t get it
addressed,” he added.

Many states face a quandary when it comes to problematic private dams when they can’t identify the
owners. Rhode Island’s two-person dam safety office last year listed 32 high- or significant-hazard dams
with safety concerns whose owners were unknown.

“If we don’t know the owner, then we can’t take any action to order anybody to fix it,” said David
Chopy, chief of compliance and inspection for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental
Management.

In some states, dams go uninspected because of exemptions in state law.

A 2013 Texas law exempts all dams on private property with a capacity of less than 163 million gallons
that are rated significant or low hazard and are located outside of city limits in any county with fewer
than 350,000 people. As a result, about 45% of its roughly 7,200 dams are exempt from regulation.

Missouri performs safety inspections on only about 650 of its more than 5,000 dams. That’s because
state law exempts all dams that are under 35 feet, used for agricultural purposes or subject to federal
regulation.
Former Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt attempted to significantly expand the number of dams under state
supervision after the mountaintop Taum Sauk Reservoir collapsed in December 2005, injuring a state
park superintendent’s family. But the legislation failed after some rural landowners expressed concerns.
Then the proposal quietly faded away as new officials took over.

“Maybe it’s time to take a look at that again and make sure that our dams are safe,” said Missouri state
Rep. Tim Remole, who now leads the House committee overseeing dam safety.
 2ac AT: Dam Removal Now – Only Small & Private

Overall number of dam removals is small

Gonzales & Walls, 20 --- *Research Analyst at Resources for the Future, AND **senior fellow at
Resources for the Future (October 2020, Vincent Gonzales and Margaret Walls, “Dams and Dam
Removals in the United States,”
https://media.rff.org/documents/Dams_and_Dam_Removals_in_the_US_Js8EO7S.pdf, JMP)

The number of dam removals has increased significantly in recent years. Figure 15 shows the number of
removals across the United States in five-year aggregations between 1976 and 2020. State colors reflect
the number of total removals in each five-year period. Black dots show the location of each removal. As
is clear from the figure, dam removals sharply increased over the last 15 years, particularly in the
northeastern and upper midwestern states.

Despite the increases, the number of removals relative to the number of dams in place in the United
States is still quite low. The reasons for the low numbers are the limited enforcement of regulations
that force dam owners to address deficiencies in a timely manner, which in turn limits the extent to
which owners consider removal in lieu of repair; and the cost of removal and inadequate funding,
coupled with the high numbers of privately owned dams. These issues are discussed more fully in Walls
(2020).

Most dams removed are small and private

Perera, 21 --- MA and Phd in Urban and Environmental Engineering from Kyushu University, Japan;
over ten years of experience primarily focusing on water-related disasters and risk management
(5/10/2021, Interviewed by Cristina Novo, Dr. Duminda Perera, “One-size-fits-all criteria to assess dam
removal are at least useless and at most dangerous,” https://smartwatermagazine.com/news/unu-
inweh/one-size-fits-all-criteria-assess-dam-removal-are-least-useless-and-most-dangerous, JMP)

Question: What are the emerging trends in dam decommissioning?

Answer: Decommissioning dams is a relatively recent phenomenon but is becoming progressively more
common on various scales globally and regionally; for example, it has become quite common in the USA
and Europe. The dams removed are, however, primarily of smaller size. Removal of large dams is still in
its infancy, although a few cases have been recorded mainly in the last ten years. The USA plays the
leading role in dam decommissioning, removing nearly 1,275 dams in 21 states over the previous 30
years. However, most of the removed dams were smaller in size ( < 5 m height) and privately owned.
The decommissioning of the Glines Canyon and Elwha Dams which are nearly 110 years old and over 60
m high in Washington, USA, is recorded as the largest dam decommission project with a cost of about
USD 325 million. In Europe also a number of dams are decommissioned, mainly in relation to their
environmental impacts.

In developing countries, dam decommissioning has not significantly emerged as a solution to ageing
dams yet. Those dams’ functional contributions to their economies are inevitable, and still, a replaceable
alternative is not feasible in terms of cost and technology.
 2ac AT: Dam Removal Now – Offset by Global Dam Boom

Global dam boom offsets the few U.S. and international removals
O'Connor, et. al, 15 --- Research Geologist, U.S. Geological Survey, Portland, Oregon (May 2015, J. E.
O'Connor, J. J. Duda, G. E. Grant, Science, “1000 dams down and counting; Dam removals are
reconnecting rivers in the United States,” VOL 348 ISSUE 6234, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24747366,
JMP)

Dams are also being removed internationally; the 26 removals with published studies are just a sample
from a total probably numbering in the hundreds. Like most of those in the United States, many are
small structures at the end of their useful lives. And many removals, such as the ongoing one of Japan's
Arase Dam, are motivated by economic and ecological considerations similar to those spurring U.S. dam
removal.

The total number of U.S. and international removals are, however, more than offset by a renewed
global boom in dam construction, chiefly for hydropower and in regions with emerging economies, such
as Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa (14). But the dams of this ongoing boom will also age, just
like those of the U.S. dam-building heyday. Dam removal looks like an activity with a long future ahead.
 2ac AT: Dam Removal Now – Current Policy Doesn’t Promote
Environmental & Energy Improvements

American dam policy doesn’t promote both environmental and energy improvements
Owen & Apse, 15 --- *Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, AND **Freshwater
Conservation Advisor, The Nature Conservancy (February 2015, Dave Owen and Colin Apse, “Trading
Dam,” 48 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1043, Nexis Uni, JMP)

II. The Penobscot Project

While the United States' dam laws may entrench the status quo, dam policy does retain moments of
dynamism. In the past century, over one [*1074] thousand of the United States' dams have come out,
191 and the possibility of adding additional hydropower capacity has generated a flurry of studies. 192
But both trends are limited and largely piecemeal, and the trends also are almost entirely disconnected
from each other. Efforts to prioritize environmental and energy improvement projects throughout entire
river basins are generally absent from American dam policy. 193 That is problematic, and the Penobscot
River Restoration Project, which this section describes in depth, illustrates the potential benefits of an
alternative approach.
 2ac Dam Failure => Threatens Nuclear Plants

Dam failure floods risks nuclear reactor meltdowns --- unexpected occurrence makes it
uniquely more dangerous
UCS, 13 (Sep 22, 2013, Union of Concerned Scientists, “Flood Risk at Nuclear Power Plants,”
https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/flood-risk-nuclear-power-plants, JMP)

Nuclear reactors are located near bodies of water, introducing unique flood-related risks.

Nuclear power plants are always situated near a body of water—a river, lake, estuary or ocean—
because they require a plentiful, reliable source of water for cooling purposes. In the absence of cooling
water, a nuclear reactor will overheat, leading to core damage, containment failure, and release of
harmful radiation into the environment.

However, water can quickly turn dangerous when floods occur. Flooding can damage equipment or
knock out the plant's electrical systems, disabling its cooling mechanisms. This is what happened at the
Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in Japan as a result of the March 2011 tsunami, causing severe damage to
several of the plant's reactors.

Floods due to natural causes

While tsunamis are not a significant risk for most U.S. nuclear power plants, there are other natural
weather events that can lead to flooding. Heavy rain or snow can cause rivers to overflow, and tropical
storms or nor'easters can cause storm surges that threaten coastal plants.

Floods from such natural weather events have caused problems at several U.S. nuclear power plants in
recent years. In June 2011, unusually high water on the Missouri River, caused by a combination of
heavy spring rains and Rocky Mountain snowmelt, inundated the Fort Calhoun plant in Nebraska. And in
October 2012, flooding from Hurricane Sandy caused two New Jersey nuclear plants, Salem and Oyster
Creek, to shut down when high water levels threatened their water intake and circulation systems.

Floods caused by dam failures

Not all floods that threaten nuclear reactors have natural causes, however. Many nuclear plants are
situated near rivers, and some of them are downstream from a dam. When the dam fails, the resulting
flood is sudden and can be catastrophic. Unlike river overflows or hurricanes, dam failures are likely to
occur with little or no advance warning, leaving plant operators scrambling to protect their facilities
before the floodwaters arrive, typically within hours.

So far, dam failures have not affected any U.S. nuclear power plants. But in July 2011 we learned that we
may been luckier than we knew, as the NRC released a report stating that previous estimates of flood
risk for many reactors were based on outdated information and would need to be revised upward.

As the 2011 NRC report points out, dam failures are far from rare; there have been more than 700 of
them in the U.S. since 1975. The NRC has estimated the likelihood of failure at one particular dam—the
Jocassee dam, which lies a few miles upstream of the Oconee Nuclear Station in South Carolina—at
approximately 1 in 180 over the 20 years remaining on its license to operate.
While 1 in 180 may sound like a reasonably low probability, it is high enough to require corrective action
according to NRC standards. And when we consider that 34 nuclear plants lie downstream from more
than 50 dams, the cumulative likelihood of at least one plant being affected by a dam failure is too high
to ignore—especially since these risk estimates do not account for the impacts of earthquakes or the
possibility of sabotage.

Flooding from dam failures threaten safe operation of nuclear power plants
DeNeale, 19 --- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (December 2019, Scott T. DeNeale, Gregory B. Baecher,
Kevin M. Stewart, Ellen D. Smith, and David B. Watson, “Current State-of-Practice in Dam Safety,”
https://info.ornl.gov/sites/publications/Files/Pub121717.pdf, JMP)

2.1 RELEVANCE TO THE US NUCLEAR FLEET

Consideration of potential floods due to dam failures is integral to evaluating flooding hazards (and
thereby, risk) for nuclear power plants (NPPs). Traditionally, dam failure flooding has meant flooding
due to the uncontrolled release of water from any dam upstream from the plant site that threatens to
impact structures, systems and components (SSCs) important to safety at the NPP site. However, there
are instances in which controlled releases could also lead to inundation at the NPP site. Examples
include, but are not limited to, (1) releases performed to prevent incipient failure during flood
conditions; (2) releases performed to rapidly draw down a reservoir to prevent incipient failure after a
seismic event; and (3) releases performed to rapidly draw down a reservoir to prevent incipient sunny
day failure. (NRC 2013). In addition, dams that are not upstream from the plant, but whose failure would
affect the NPP site because of backwater effects, may present potential flooding hazards. Finally, failures
of dikes or levees in the watershed surrounding the site may contribute to or ameliorate flooding
hazards, depending on the location of the levee and the circumstances under which it fails. Failures of
onsite water-storage or watercontrol structures (such as onsite cooling or auxiliary water reservoirs and
onsite levees) that are located at or above the grade of safety-related equipment are also potential
flooding mechanisms. Flood-induced failure of a dam or levee that impounds the ultimate heat sink
(i.e., a cooling water system for use in normal and emergency operating conditions) constitutes a hazard
to the plant. Therefore, dam failure flooding hazard assessments include all water-impounding
structures that can affect the NPP site, whether or not they are defined as dams in the traditional sense.

To date, dam failures have not directly affected US NPPs. However, the Fukushima Daiichi incident in
Japan (the magnitude 9.0 earthquake associated with the event also failed the Fujinuma Dam)
heightened awareness of water and flooding issues in nuclear safety. NRC staff released a report in 2011
summarizing the current understanding of the flooding issue at NPPs related to upstream dam failures
(Perkins et al. 2011). Public interest groups, such as the Union of Concerned Scientists, 6 have also
become concerned.

NRC has estimated the likelihood of failure of Jocassee dam, upstream of the Oconee Nuclear Station in
South Carolina, at approximately 2.8×10-4 per year (Vail et al. 2010). This estimate aligns with historical
dam failure rates found in literature (see Table 3 in Section 2.5). Other recent incidents related to water
control infrastructure have also raised concerns, including the 2012 flooding at Fort Calhoun Nuclear
Generating Station and NPP shutdowns during Hurricane Sandy.
 2ac Chinese Dams at Risk

Dams in China are uniquely at risk --- collapse could produce a black swan disaster
Woo, 20 (JULY 21, 2020, Ryan Woo, “Dam collapse in China could point to a 'black swan' disaster,”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-weather-floods-dams/dam-collapse-in-china-could-point-to-
a-black-swan-disaster-idUSKCN24N047, JMP)

YANGSHUO, China (Reuters) - The dam at a small reservoir in China’s Guangxi region gave way last
month after days of heavy rain in a collapse that could be a harbinger of sterner tests for many of the
country’s 94,000 aging dams as the weather gets more extreme.

Located in Yangshuo county, famed for its otherworldly karst landscape, the dam collapsed at around
midday on June 7, inundating roads, orchards and fields in Shazixi village, residents told Reuters.

“I’ve never seen such flooding,” said villager Luo Qiyuan, 81, who helped build the dam decades ago.

“The water levels were never so high in previous years, and the dam had never collapsed.”

Completed in 1965, the dam, made of compacted earth, was designed to hold 195,000 cubic metres of
water, enough to fill 78 Olympic-size swimming pools and meet the irrigation needs of Shazixi’s farmers.

On a visit to the reservoir in mid-July, Reuters found the length of the dam, of about 100 metres, had
largely vanished. It was reinforced 25 years ago.

The water went over the dam, which then collapsed, said a member of a survey crew at the reservoir,
declining to be identified as he was not authorised to speak to media.

Shazixi residents said there were no deaths.

But the collapse, which was not reported by domestic media, suggests big storms might be enough to
overwhelm reservoirs, especially if the design is inferior and maintenance has been patchy.

That raises the prospect of disaster in river valleys and flood plains that are much more densely
populated than they were when the dams were built.

Environmental groups say climate change is bringing heavier and more frequent rain. Massive flooding
could trigger unforeseen “black swan” events, the government says, with extreme consequences.

EXTREME EVENTS

Thousands of dams were built in the 1950s and 1960s in a rush led by Mao Zedong to fend off drought in
a largely agrarian China.

In 2006, the Ministry of Water Resources said, between 1954 and 2005, dykes had collapsed at 3,486
reservoirs due to sub-standard quality and poor management.

It was unclear if record-breaking rains were to blame for the Shazixi collapse or if the dam’s emergency
spillway had been blocked by silt or if it was a design problem.
The water resources department in the area declined to comment. The county government did not
respond to a request for comment.

In Guangxi, in southwestern China, rainfall and temperatures were on average significantly higher in
1990-2018 compared with the previous 29 years, official data shows.

It’s the extreme events that put dams at risk, said David Shankman, a geographer at the University of
Alabama who studies Chinese floods.

“But a dam should be able to withstand extreme events even if they become regular, and when the
flood is over, it should be exactly of the same quality as before the event, if the dam was properly
designed and built,” Shankman said.

According to a notice at the Shazixi reservoir’s monitoring station, the 151.2 metre-tall dam was built
with a once-every-two-century worst-case scenario in mind in which water was expected to reach
149.48 metres. Last month, it overflowed.

In the county seat of Yangshuo in June, more rain fell in three hours than usually falls in two months.

The Ministry of Water Resources did not respond to a request for comment.

In what could be another sign of trouble to come, water behind a dam on a tributary of the Yangtze river
rose so sharply that authorities on Sunday were forced to blow up part of the dam to lower the level.

‘BLACK SWAN’

In China’s worst dam catastrophe, the Banqiao on the Yellow River, completed in 1952 with Soviet
assistance, collapsed in 1975, killing tens of thousands of people, official estimates published two
decades later showed.

Ye Jianchun, deputy minister of the Ministry of Water Resources, told a recent news conference he was
confident flood-control projects on major rivers were capable of handling the largest floods seen since
the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

But Ye was not so categorical about dams on other rivers, saying excessive floods may exceed the
defence capability of the engineering to result in a “black swan” event.

Aware of the risks, authorities have been reinforcing and raising old dams and stepping up inspections.
New dams are planned to increase storage capacity.

North of Yangshuo at Qingshitan is the biggest dam in the area. The banks of the river into which it
empties have been shored up since last month, said a workman dumping rocks and soil with a wheel
loader.

But climate change is bringing a new normal of extremes and flood-risk policies decided a decade or two
ago are no longer sufficient, said Benjamin Horton, director at the Earth Observatory of Singapore.

“What really needs to happen is to work with the ecosystems, not against them by building dams, by
extending flood wetlands and flood plains and allowing the water to naturally mix with the
environment,” he said.
 2ac Chinese Dam Collapse Undermines Econ, Ag, Xi, OBOR

Dam collapse in China triggers economic collapse, agriculture shortages, Xi leadership

crisis and massive tradeoffs to the Belt and Road Initiative
Cheng, 20 --- Senior Research Fellow, Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation (Aug 5th, 2020,
Dean Cheng, “What the Potential Crisis on the Yangtze Means for China and the World,”
https://www.heritage.org/asia/commentary/what-the-potential-crisis-the-yangtze-means-china-and-
the-world, JMP)

As if 2020 has not been sufficiently crisis-laden for the People’s Republic of China, it now faces the
potential for major catastrophe due to massive rains.

For much of the past several weeks, central China has been inundated by massive rainstorms, which
have generated the country’s third major flood for 2020. The massive runoff into the Yangtze has led to
concerns that the Three Gorges Dam will be overstressed beyond its capacity to withstand the inflow.

These concerns were not allayed when the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that there had been
“displacement, seepage, and deformation” (translated from “weiyí, shenliu, bianxíng”) in the dam
structure. Although these threat indicators are reportedly within normal parameters, there is still fear
that the dam will collapse.

Whether or not there is a dam collapse, the flooding of the Yangtze will have enormous effects in China
and beyond, especially since the threat of dam collapse coincides with several other domestic crises.

China’s Dams

Throughout its history, Chinese governments have sought to tame its rivers. The Yellow River, the
second-longest in China, has long been known as “China’s Sorrow” because of the various floods that
have devastated communities along its 3,400-mile length. As the South China Morning Post has
reported,

Discounting famines and pandemics, the 1931 central China floods are generally considered the
deadliest natural disaster of the 20th century. More than 140,000 people drowned, with at least
3.7 million dying over the nine months that followed.

As a result, various Chinese governments of all ideological stripes have sought to harness the power of
China’s rivers while also limiting their ravages. The result has been centuries of dams, levees, canals, and
dikes.

The nongovernmental organization International Rivers estimates that China has some 87,000 dams.
These have been built to control flooding, aid in irrigation, redirect the flow of rivers (especially to
northern China, which has been suffering water shortages in recent years), and to generate electrical
power.

The Three Gorges Dam is perhaps the most well-known of all of these dams. It was given this name
because of its location, near three scenic gorges along the Yangtze.
The idea of building a dam at or near this location was first broached by Sun Yat-sen, the father of
modern China who overthrew the Qing Dynasty. Sun envisioned a massive hydroelectric installation that
would help electrify central China and catapult the nation into modernity.

Both Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government and planners from imperial Japan, who hoped to add
China to the Japanese Empire during World War II, examined the area with the intent to harness the
river.

In the end, it was not until 1994 that ground was broken for the current dam.

Completed in 2008, the dam is 185 meters tall and 2,309 meters wide. The waters from the dam power
34 generators, with a total of 22,500 megawatt output, making the Three Gorges Dam the world’s
largest hydroelectric generating facility.

In addition to generating electricity, the dam is also intended to help control the flow of the Yangtze as
part of the flood-control system for the entire Yangtze basin. By adjusting how much water makes it into
the middle and lower reaches, the Three Gorges Dam helps limit flooding of such cities as Wuhan and
Nanjing.

At the same time, the dam has also helped make the entire Yangtze a navigable river from Shanghai on
the coast all the way to Chongqing (Chungking), deep in central China. The resulting reservoir is some
660 kilometers long.

Growing Risk

The Three Gorges Dam is only one of several dams built along the Yangtze. Although its reservoir is one
of the largest, dams further upstream are often taller. The entire network needs to hold and release
water in coordinated fashion in order to ensure that downstream reservoirs and overflow lakes are not
overwhelmed all at once.

This is becoming a problem in 2020, because the entire Yangtze River basin, including rivers that feed
the main Yangtze, have been subjected to an unprecedented series of massive rainstorms. As a result of
the massive inflow of water, upstream dams are themselves under increasing stress, as flooding
inundates their catchment areas.

To relieve the pressure, the Chinese have gone so far as to demolish a part of one small dam in nearby
Anhui province that held back one of the tributaries feeding into the Yangtze. But opening the spillways
on upstream dams would only increase the volume of water sluicing into the reservoir held back by the
Three Gorges Dam.

Indeed, the Three Gorges Dam itself has now had three flood peaks, affecting the release of water from
the massive reservoir. Reportssuggest that water has been flowing into the reservoir at some 50,000-
60,000 cubic meters a second, but due to concerns about flooding downstream cities, water is only
being released at about 38,000 cubic meters a second.

The reservoir, whose maximum level is 175 meters, has reached 164.18 meters, exceeding its previous
record of 163.11 meters in 2012.

Impact of Flooding
The ongoing flooding raises several challenges for the authorities in Beijing.

Economic. Downstream from the Three Gorges Dam, the Yangtze flows through a number of major
Chinese urban centers, including Wuhan and Nanjing, before reaching the sea at Shanghai.

The current flooding has already led to 140 deaths and 2 million displaced persons as cities and towns
along the Yangtze and its tributaries have been evacuated. Millions more have been affected as farms,
mines, and other businesses have been hit by floodwaters.

The flooding has affected China’s economy, as businesses have lost inventory and production has been
delayed. Similarly, transportation links across China have been disrupted, leading to not only local and
regional but national repercussions.

Farther afield, the massive scale of flooding is affecting a range of supply chains. Deliveries of personal
protective equipment from China, for example, may be delayed by as much as three weeks to a month,
due to flooding of production centers as well as transportation links that would move equipment to
shipping ports.

Disease. Notably, the floods are affecting Wuhan, the epicenter of the COVID-19 epidemic. The
evacuation of hundreds of thousands of residents potentially affects the ability to maintain social
distancing, lockdown, and other measures intended to curtail the spread of the virus. Where the
evacuees are relocated to is also likely to affect the ability to maintain quarantine behavior.

China’s socialized medical system means that individuals are largely tied to their home village for
provision of medical benefits. (The same applies to most other social welfare measures.) It remains to be
seen how the flooding of hospitals, and displacement of persons, will affect the provision of medical
care in the face of both rising waters and COVID-19.

Political. President Xi Jinping faces a “perfect storm” of political challenges. The COVID-19 crisis hit just
as China was about to resolve at least some aspects of the trade war with the United States.

The COVID-19 shutdown imposed on China led to a massive economic hit, including an unprecedented
6% drop in China’s gross domestic product. While this is not the fault of Xi per se, leaders of all political
stripes typically get blamed for economic downturns and other economic problems such as
unemployment and inflation.

For millions of Chinese, already facing economic hardship, to now have to evacuate due to flooding will
only further stress the ability of the Chinese Communist Party to maintain order—and for Xi to maintain
the aura of supreme leadership.

This is potentially exacerbated by foreign challenges. It can do Xi little good to have a number of
European states declare that Huawei will not be allowed into their 5G networks. The Trump
administration’s flurry of speeches, coupled with a constant procession of indictments of Chinese
nationals and officials for espionage, further increases the pressure on Xi and the rest of the Chinese
Communist Party’s Politburo.

Thinking the Unthinkable: A Failure of the Three Gorges Dam

This entire situation pales should the Three Gorges Dam itself fail. This is a scary but not impossible
scenario. A Chinese dam in Guangxi collapsed earlier in July. While there were apparently no deaths,
there was, not surprisingly, extensive flooding. Interestingly, there has been little reporting in China’s
domestic media about this dam collapse.

Should the dam fail, a massive torrent of water would sweep down the Yangtze. While there are several
major lakes downstream that serve as partial flood control measures, the sudden release of the millions
of cubic meters of water from the reservoir behind the Three Gorges Dam would rapidly exceed their
capacity.

The loss of life in the event of such a catastrophe would be staggering. Several smaller cities
downstream from the Three Gorges Dam have populations in the 4.5-6 million person range. Nanjing
has 8.5 million, while Wuhan has 11 million.

The physical damage would be massive. Cities such as Wuhan would be inundated, as would nearby
countryside if (as is likely) various levees broke from the massive surge.

The resulting loss of cropland would further tax China’s already stressed food production capacity, which
is already being threatened by an outbreak of African swine fever and an invasion of fall armyworm.
This, on top of rains and flooding themselves, would raise real questions of China’s ability to feed itself.

The global economic impact would be huge, not only due to supply chain disruptions, but the likely
financial effects of such a massive catastrophe. While China could import food to replace flooded stocks,
that in turn would create global impacts on world food markets.

It would also mean the reallocation of substantial Chinese foreign currency reserves from other projects,
such as the Belt and Road Initiative, which in turn would affect a range of lesser developed countries
hoping to improve their infrastructure through Chinese-financed projects.

Recognizing that global crisis management resources are already severely taxed by the ongoing COVID-
19 pandemic, it would nonetheless behoove national leaders and heads of international relief
organizations to keep a close eye on the weather reports for central China.
 2ac China Lashout Impact

State collapse causes nuclear civil war.

Kallberg '20 [Jan; 9/17/20; Assistant Professor of Political Science at the US Military Academy, PhD in
Public Affairs from the University of Texas at Dallas, JD from Stockholm University; "If China loses a
future war, entropy could be imminent,"
https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/09/17/if-china-loses-a-future-war-entropy-
could-be-imminent/]

If the regime loses its grip, the wrath of the masses may be unleashed from decades of repression. A
country of the size of China — with a history of cleavages and civil wars, and that has a suppressed,
diverse population and socioeconomic disparity — can be catapulted into Balkanization after a defeat. In the
past, China has had long periods of internal fragmentation and weak central government. The United States reacts
differently to failure. The United States is as a country far more resilient than we might assume from watching the daily news. If the United
States loses a war, the president gets the blame, but there will still be a presidential library in his/her name. There is no revolution. There is an
assumption lingering over today’s public debate that China has a strong hand, advanced artificial intelligence and the latest technology, and
that it is an uber-able superpower. I am not convinced. During the last decade, the countries in the Indo-Pacific region that seeks to hinder the
Chinese expansion of control, influence and dominance have increasingly formed stronger relationships. The strategic scale is in the democratic
countries' favor. If China, still driven by ideology, pursues conflict at a large scale, it is likely the end of the communist dictatorship. In my
personal view, we
should pay more attention to the humanitarian risks, the ripple effects and the dangers
of nukes in a civil war in case the Chinese regime implodes after a failed future war.

Draws in everyone and causes loose nukes.

David '8 [Steven; 2008; Professor of International Relations at Johns Hopkins University; Catastrophic
Consequences: Civil Wars and American Interests, p. 119-120]

The importance of a stable China to American strategic interests is best seen by considering what might happen if
China unraveled.
One of the first consequences would be millions of refugees pouring from China’s borders, unsettling its
neighbors. The stability of key American allies such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan would be severely tested as
they try to cope with this massive human flow along with the economic shockwaves of China’s dissolution. Nor
would the United States be immune, as many Chinese may take advantage of corrupt officials or professional human smugglers (”snakeheads”)
to make their way to America’s shores.8 North Korea, unpredictable under normal circumstances, may flex its military muscle
along its borders with China and South Korea, with dreadful results. Ethnic minorities in provinces such as Tibet and
Xinjiang might seize the moment to attempt to break away from Beijing’s domination, fostering even greater
instability. China’s control of its more than 200 nuclear weapons, usually very secure, may be
compromised, with the arms eventually falling into unknown hands. The territorial disputes that China
has with Russia, Vietnam, India, and others could well degenerate into armed warfare as China loses
control over its own military forces and its neighbors seek to take advantage of its internal strife.
As Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping remarked (following the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations), the collapse of Chinese rule would have terrible
effects that would go far beyond China’s borders: “And if a civil war broke out, with blood flowing like a river, what ‘human rights’ would there
be? If civil war broke out in China, with each faction dominating a region, production declining, transportation
disrupted and not millions or tens of millions but hundreds of millions of refugees fleeing the country, it is the Asia-Pacific region,
which is at present the most promising in the world, that would be the first affected. And that would lead to disaster on a
world scale.”9 While Deng may have had reason to exaggerate the effects of the toppling of the Chinese regime, his concerns ring true.
Adv Rivers
 2ac Removal Key to Restore River Ecosystems

Dams control water, decrease its quality and disrupt stream temperatures --- removal
is key
Walters, 20 --- Principal Environmental Scientist and Environmental Work Group Leader with nineteen
years of experience specializing in the management of NEPA projects, Wetland Delineations, Permitting,
Design, Mitigation, Monitoring, Threatened and Endangered Species Surveys, and Phase I Environmental
Site Assessment (Dec 11, 2020, Jeff Walters, PWS, “Dam Removal: An Alternative to Costly Maintenance
& Repairs,” https://www.snyder-associates.com/dam-removal-benefits/, JMP) *** Tony Trotter is City
Engineer for the city of Fort Dodge

Environmental Lift

Originally, dams were designed to control water, period — and the environmental impacts weren’t fully
considered. Decreased water quality, disrupted cyclical stream temperatures, and altered natural
meander of waterways are a just few ways dams have adversely impacted the environment. Removing a
dam improves water quality by allowing water to flow naturally. Natural flows allow for normal
sediment load, increased dissolved oxygen, and reduced concentrations of oxygen.

Fish and invertebrate species greatly benefit from dam removal, as well. Many dams act as barriers
because they were designed and constructed without including passage for fish and invertebrates. Dam
removal greatly benefits these species by allowing free passage upstream and downstream, which is
crucial to migration patterns. In addition, a greater diversity of fish and invertebrate species is often
documented both up and downstream following dam removal. Following the removal of the
Hydroelectric Dam in Fort Dodge, anglers are now able to catch flathead catfish upstream from the
dam’s previous location. According to Nichoel Church, this species of catfish is a big river fish that’s only
been observed downstream from the dam prior to removal.

During complete dam removal, rock riffles or series of large boulders are often constructed at dam site
to provide in-stream features. Benefits of these features include stabilizing channel beds, providing
habitat for fish spawning, reducing velocities, and increasing downstream oxygen levels.

Partial dam removal may be advantageous if full removal would release a significant amount of
sediment. For a partial removal, the dam’s height is reduced, eliminating the dangerous recirculating
current. Additional boulders or riffles can be added as instream structures here, as well, to reduce
downstream velocities.

Following dam removal projects, the banks of the waterway typically recover, developing natural
riparian buffers and restoring floodplains. These new areas increase the amount of natural terrestrial
vegetation available and improve the ecology of the waterway . “Dam removal allows for the natural
depositing of sediment, which benefits the environment,” says Trotter.
Dam removal is the best way to restore rivers
Corbley, 21 --- founder and editor of World At Large, a small environment, travel, and lifestyle focused
journal that stresses integrity, nuance (Mar 19, 2021, Andt Corbley, “Nothing Restores a River or Local
Economy Like Removing a Dam,” https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/american-rivers-work-to-remove-
dams-in-the-united-states/, JMP)

Across the United States, 69 river dams were removed from American rivers in 2020, opening up 624
miles of waterways to flow freely.

The work was undertaken with the guidance of American Rivers, a national non-profit that works to
restore rivers to their natural state.

More than 90,000 dams block rivers across the U.S, but while many might not think of this as a problem,
the relentless damming of American rivers over the decades has created significant detriments to the
environment.

Along with disrupting riverine ecosystems, inland marshes, and wetlands—which are important
ecosystems for many birds—dammed rivers can also dry up downstream from where dams are built.

Damming has been happening for centuries in the U.S, as GNN reported last year, piling up legacy
sediment and choking rivers. But even more modern dams can be major hazards to rivers and the
habitats they fragment while soaking up infrastructure tax dollars.

In 2020, dams were removed in South Carolina, Indiana, Washington, Montana, New Hampshire, and 18
other states—helping connect populations of salmon species like Chinook, coho, and pink, as well as
steelhead, cutthroat, and bull trout, Bartram’s bass, greater redhorse, longnose dace, and northern
brook lamprey—the latter three of which are threatened or endangered in the U.S.

The removal of one dam a mile upstream from its confluence with the St. Joseph River, the Elkhart River
Dam, has helped re-open a key migration route for more than 50 fish and other species moving out of
the St. Joseph.

Large contributions to the 2020 dam removal projects were made by Indian nations such as the
Nooksack and Lummi.

“We’re salmon people. So the salmon is very sacred and very important to the tribe,” said Merle
Jefferson, Director of the Lummi Nation’s natural resources department, in a video.

MORE: Salmon Spawning for the First Time in 80 Years in the Upper Columbia River

A 16-mile stretch of culturally sacred salmon habitat collapsed after a dam was built diverting the
Middle Fork Nooksack River near Bellingham, Washington.

Removing that dam not only gave the salmon back their habitat, but the Lummi back their culture. The
Tulalip Tribes is another group that recovered their ancestral salmon habitat, this time along the
Pilchuck River in Washington state, where two separate dams were completely removed.

In most cases, dams were built long ago to fortify industry, or to supply fresh water and irrigation. As
technology and population densities have changed over the decades, a surprising amount of dams are
powering or assisting nothing, and instead act as irrelevant tax leeches.
RELATED: Volunteers Remove 9,200-lbs. of Trash From One of the Dirtiest Rivers in the US

Reopening rivers, as American Rivers has shown, also brings back some economic opportunity to
communities by increasing recreational fishing and boating, as well as replenishing local fish stocks that
can be sold.

Dams impede natural flow of water --- removal is key to heal rivers
FWS, 17 (Mar 14, 2017, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, “The Purpose of Dam Removals,”
https://www.fws.gov/southeast/our-services/dam-removals/, JMP)

Consider the roads you regularly drive to complete your day-to-day tasks –what if they were
permanently blocked so that you could not get to important places? Dams that are located in streams
and rivers throughout the country have similarly served as roadblocks for wildlife that needs to move
through connected waters for survival and reproduction.

Dams have been used extensively throughout the United States for a variety of purposes, including
navigation, flood control, and power generation. While well-designed and properly managed dams can
provide many benefits, they drastically alter natural river communities. The natural flow of water and
sediment is impeded, and populations of native fish, mussels, and other aquatic animals are damaged.

In some cases where the costs of maintaining a dam outweigh its benefits, a decision is made to remove
it. Dam removal is a planning process that can often take several years and be expensive. However, the
safety and environmental benefits are priceless. In most instances, rivers heal quickly, and it’s hard to
realize that a dam once blocked the river.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with landowners and other partners to help remove
(decommission) dams, large and small, to reconnect wildlife passages and restore habitat.
Decommissioning provides an opportunity to restore a river’s health and return it to its natural, free-
flowing state.

Dams significantly alter rivers – removal improves ecosystems

ANSP, 12 (2/24/2012 according to http://carbondate.cs.odu.edu/#https://, The Academy of Natural
Sciences of Drexel University, “Ecological Effects of Small Dams,”
https://ansp.org/research/environmental-research/projects/small-dams/, JMP)

There are over 3000 dams in Pennsylvania, and over 100,000 throughout the United States. The great
majority of these dams are small (<15 ft. height) and many of these small dams are obsolete and in poor
repair. A growing number of small dams have been removed in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and many
other states during the last two decades to reduce safety and liability risks (Bednarek 2002). Although
safety and liability concerns are usually the primary factor influencing decisions to remove dams, some
government agencies and environmental organizations have also proposed dam removal as a method of
restoring fish passage and improving the health of stream and river ecosystems . This idea is derived in
part from the extensive scientific literature documenting various effects of large (>30 ft. height) dams,
along with the notion that dam removal might reverse some of these effects.
Large dams are known to impact river systems by altering several key parameters including: flow
regimes and physical habitats, channel shape, sediment transport, water temperature and chemistry,
and populations of algae, benthic macroinvertebrates, riparian vegetation, and resident and migratory
fish (Poff and Hart 2002). The nature and magnitude of these effects are likely to depend, however, on
dam size and other stream and watershed characteristics, so it is unclear whether the existing
information on large dam effects is applicable to smaller dams. A better understanding of the effects of
dams —particularly across a range of dam sizes— is needed to guide management decisions and
maximize the effectiveness of river restoration projects.

With funding from the Pennsylvania Growing Greener Program and the Patrick Center’s Endowment for
Innovative Research, scientists from the Patrick Center and the University of Delaware are studying the
potential ecological effects of dam removal across a range of dam and stream/watershed characteristics
using an approach based on ecological risk assessment. The study involves a regional assessment of the
effects of different-sized dams on important components of the ecosystem including river channel
structure, water quality, algae, benthic macroinvertebrates, fish, and streamside vegetation.

Ecological Risk Assesment

In ecological risk assessment, ecological effects are characterized by determining the potential effects
imposed by a stressor, linking these effects to assessment endpoints, and evaluating how effects change
with varying stressor levels (Hart et al. 2002). This basic framework can be used to evaluate the effects
of dam removal by considering dams to be stressors, dam size (or a related measure accounting for
stream/watershed characteristics) to be a measure of stressor level, and determining how the effects of
different dams (varying across a range of stressor levels) affect stream condition. For any negative
ecological impacts of a dam, the maximum potential benefit of a dam removal would be a return of the
stream to pre-dam conditions.

In the language of ecological risk assessment, the relationship between stream condition (response) and
dam size (stressor) is called a stressor-response relationship. When a reference curve is also shown, the
maximum potential benefit of a dam removal can be illustrated as the difference between the stream
response level and reference condition at any point along the stressor-response relationship. In our
study, we are determining the effects of dams of varying sizes on stream condition by comparing a
stream reach immediately below a dam with an undammed reference reach (either an upstream reach
or an adjacent, undammed stream depending on the characteristic being evaluated). For each dam, the
degree to which the dam affects stream condition can be measured as the difference between the
dammed reach and the reference reach. This difference is then used to compare dams. Below is the
hypothetical form of the stressor response relationship for dams, with larger dams hypothesized to have
a greater impact on stream condition.

Application of this framework allows an assessment of the potential benefits of dam removal across a
range of dam and stream/watershed conditions in the context of specific watershed management goals
(e.g. cold water fisheries, nutrient/sediment reduction). This information would be very useful to help
select and prioritize dam removal projects, and thereby maximize the effectiveness of dam removal in
river restoration.
Investigators

Riparian Vegetation

Dr. Rebecca Brown, Project Leader

Geomorphology

Dr. James Pizzuto, Principal Investigator (University of Delaware)

Katie Skalak, Geologist (University of Delaware)

Hydrology

Dr. Thomas Johnson, Watershed Hydrologist

Habitat Assessment

Jamie Carr, Aquatic Biologist

Biogeochemistry

Dr. David Velinsky, Principal Investigator

Paul Kiry, Senior Chemist

Nate Saxe, Chemist

Quill Bickley, Research Assistant

Lara Jarusewic, Research Assistant

Algae

Dr. Donald F. Charles, Principal Investigator

Diane Winter, Algal Biologist

Erin Hagan, Algal Biologist

Mark Schadler, Co-ordinator

Lont Marr, Algal Biologist

Marina Potapova, Data Analysis

Macroinvertebrates

Tim Nightengale, Principal Investigator

Fisheries

Dr. Richard J. Horwitz, Principal Investigator

Amanda Kindt, Fisheries Biologist

Kevin O'Donnell, Fisheries Biologist

Paul Overbeck, Fisheries Biologist

Josh Collins, Fisheries Biologist

Dr. Heidi Hertler, Aquatic Biologist

Roger Thomas, Aquatic Biologist

Matt Wilhelm, Chemist

Research Programs

To predict how streams and watersheds are likely to respond to the potential removal of small dams, we
believe that it is important to first understand the ecological effects of existing small dams. Accordingly,
the central goal of our study is to quantify how dams of different size influence various physical,
chemical, and biological properties of Pennsylvania streams. To gain an understanding of how dams of
different size influence stream characteristics, we are studying how the ecological effects of dams vary
along a continuum of dam characteristics, including dam height and storage volume.

Assessments of physical habitat, river channel structure, water quality, periphyton (attached algae),
benthic macroinvertebrates, fish, and riparian vegetation have been made downstream of each dam
and at an upstream reference location.

Habitat Assessment

The quantity and quality of available stream habitat has a significant effect on biological communities.
Dams can potentially alter flow and sediment transport, and thus can impact channel shape and physical
habitat. Visual habitat assessments were made following EPA rapid assessment protocols, and include
estimates of biological cover, substrate embeddedness, water velocity and depth, pool variability,
sediment deposition, riffle frequency, channel modifications, and bank stability. Quantitative
measurements of physical habitat also included channel dimensions and bed substrate size distributions.

Geomorphology and Sediment Characterization

Dams can cause significant changes in both the volume and size distribution of the sediment along a
stream channel. Because dam removal can likely mobilize a substantial fraction of the sediment stored
behind a dam, any risk assessment of the effects of dam removal must consider sediment-related
impacts. To determine the effect of the dam on sediment size and distribution, pebble counts were
conducted at both upstream and downstream reaches.

To determine the effect of the dam on channel morphology, surveys of each site were conducted using a
Total Station surveyor. A mid-channel longitudinal profile was constructed along the entire length of
both the upstream and downstream reaches to quantify potential differences in slope or pool/riffle
structure, which may result from the presence of the dam. Three cross-sections of the channel were also
surveyed at both the upstream and downstream reaches to determine the effect of the dam on channel
width and depth. The size distribution and thickness of sediment fill behind a dam are being assessed at
a select number of sites using a chirp sonar system, which can provide a high-resolution image of the
sediment surface and subsurface material.

Water Quality

Water quality is an important aspect of stream ecological integrity. Samples were collected upstream
and downstream of dams during low-flow periods to characterize dam-related water quality impacts.
Water temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen and conductivity were measured at all study sites, including
within the impoundment, using a YSI DM 6000 multiprobe meter. Water samples are being analyzed for
total suspended matter, soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP), nitrite+nitrate (NO2+NO3- N), dissolved
organic phosphorus (DOP), dissolved organic nitrogen (DON), total phosphorus (TP), total nitrogen (TN),
dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and dissolved silicate. In addition, particles within each water sample
are being analyzed for suspended chlorophyll a, particle size distribution, particle biochemistry, and
bacteria cell concentration. Water quality data will be analyzed with respect to several potential effects
of the dams including the type of dam release (surface or bottom) and residence time of the water
within the impoundment. In addition, elemental carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus ratios will be used to
assess within-impoundment transformations and the degree to which nutrient concentrations
potentially limit primary productivity (i.e., the growth of algae, including diatoms).

Periphyton (attached algae)

Periphyton are the major primary producers in most streams, and are extremely useful in assessing their
ecological condition. Because periphyton exhibit a wide range of sensitivities to stress and pollution,
they are good diagnostic indicators of particular types of disturbance. Periphyton are sensitive to
physical and chemical factors that are likely to be influenced by dams, including substrate type and
stability, nutrients, and water temperature. Periphyton samples were collected from rock substrates
below each dam and at upstream reference points and are being analyzed for measures of biomass
(chlorophyll a and ash free dry mass) and species composition. In addition, the percent cover and
thickness of algal growth were measured and samples of abundant filamentous algae present in the
study reaches were collected for identification.

Macroinvertebrates

The use of benthic macroinvertebrates (aquatic insects, snails, mussels, etc.) to assess ecological
conditions in streams and rivers is widely accepted among state and federal water resource agencies.
Benthic macroinvertebrates include species with a diverse array of habitat preferences, feeding types,
and pollution tolerances, thus providing considerable information concerning the nature and cumulative
effects of stress. More specifically, benthic macroinvertebrate communities are sensitive to variations in
sediment and flow characteristics, concentrations of dissolved oxygen, temperature, quantity and
quality of organic matter, and other environmental factors potentially affected by dams. Benthic
macroinvertebrate assemblages were sampled at each study site using U.S. EPA rapid bioassessment
protocols. The organisms in these samples are being enumerated and identified in the laboratory.

Fish

Fishes are commonly used in assessments of the biological integrity of streams. Stream fish communities
respond to numerous environmental attributes, including water quality, hydrology, and habitat
structure. The effects of dams on migratory fishes and other recreationally important species are of
particular interest. Because dams can affect fishes in the free-flowing sections above their impoundment
(e.g., by migratory blockage), the upstream reaches are not appropriate reference sites for all aspects of
fish community structure. Instead, reference sites on similar streams, some sampled for other studies in
the region, are being used as reference sites. Fishes have been sampled below each dam and at
comparable reference streams with backpack or tow-barge electroshocking gear. Standard metrics of
community structure (e.g., species richness, richness of habitat-specific groups, relative abundance of
different trophic groups) are being calculated to compare below-dam and reference sites. In addition,
fishes are being sampled above each dam and compared with those recorded downstream to determine
whether the dam is blocking fish migration.

Riparian (streamside) Vegetation

Riparian zones (the areas along rivers that are periodically flooded) contain highly diverse plant
communities that are structured by flooding, which creates disturbance and acts as a dispersal
mechanism for plants. Because dams potentially change the flood disturbance regime and block the
downstream dispersal of plant propagules (i.e. seeds), they may cause a downstream change in native
and exotic plant species diversity. Dams also drown the riparian zone within their impoundments and
cause the riparian ecosystem to become fragmented. To assess the effects of dams on riparian plant
communities, vegetation plots were established below each dam and at upstream reference points
(unaffected by the dam) to compare native and exotic species diversity in the dammed sites and
reference sites. In addition, vegetation plots were established adjacent to each impoundment to
document the potential effects of inundation on riparian vegetation.

Study Sites

A total of 15 small dams in southeastern Pennsylvania and eastern Maryland were selected for study.
They represent a spectrum of sizes. One dam approchaed 200 ft in height, while four were between 40-
70 feet high. About half were less than ten feet high.
Preliminary Results

We are still analyzing our physical, chemical, and biological data, but one or our initial results is that the
impoundments formed by dams have a significant effect on water chemistry. In the example shown
below, the removal of silica appears to increase asymptotically with hydraulic residence time. Hydraulic
residence time provides an estimate of the amount of time it takes for water to move through the
impoundment; it is measured by dividing the impoundment’s water volume divided by the volumetric
flow rate of water (or stream discharge) leaving the impoundment.

This relationship may be due to physical and chemical characteristics of the impoundment, which in turn
create favorable conditions for the growth of certain types of algae, including diatoms. When diatoms
grow, they incorporate silica into their cell walls, and when they die, the silica tends to sink with them to
the bottom of the impoundment rather than flowing downstream. In general, bigger dams have longer
hydraulic residence times, which results in an increased likelihood of silica deposition and a higher
percent removal of silica.
 2ac Salmon on Brink

Salmon on brink of extinction

Whitworth, et. al, 21 (April 23, 2021, 3:37 PM, Kayna Whitworth,Alyssa Pone, andHaley Yamada,
“Snake River among top 10 most endangered rivers in the US, conservation group says; A series of dams
is threatening the local salmon population,” https://abcnews.go.com/US/snake-river-top-10-
endangered-rivers-us-conservation/story?id=77277094, JMP)

Conservation group American Rivers has named Snake River, which passes through four Western states,
the most endangered river in the country due to a series of dams that it says are threatening the
existence of the river’s native salmon population.

“They’ve never been closer to extinction than they are today. We’ve got to remove the four dams on
the lower Snake River,” said Amy Souers Kober, an American Rivers spokesperson.

The Snake River Basin is home to half of all Pacific salmon in the lower 48 states, the group wrote in a
statement.

Salmon are on the brink of extinction AND it is an existential threat to Natives

Rice, 21 (Apr. 13, 2021, Doyle Rice, “The Snake River in the Pacific Northwest is the nation's 'most
endangered river' of 2021,” https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/04/13/most-
endangered-rivers-snake-river-tops-list-american-rivers/7191736002/, JMP)

The Snake River in the Pacific Northwest is the nation's most endangered river of 2021, according to a
report released Tuesday by the environmental advocacy group American Rivers.

"Rarely has a river been in such need of bold, swift action than the Pacific Northwest’s Snake River,"
American Rivers said in a statement. "Once the largest salmon producer in the Columbia River Basin,
today Snake River salmon runs are at the brink of extinction. The loss of salmon is an existential threat
to Northwest tribes who depend on the fish for their cultures and identities."

Salmon are a crucial component of the Northwest’s economy. Recreational fishing in the Pacific
Northwest generates more than $5.3 billion a year in economic benefits and supports more than 36,000
jobs, according to American Rivers.

The report suggests that to solve the problem, removing four dams on the lower Snake River in eastern
Washington is essential, along with increasing flow over downstream dams. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-
Idaho, proposed a $33.5 billion framework to remove the dams, recover salmon and revitalize the
region’s infrastructure and economy.
 2ac Salmon Are Keystone Species

Salmon are keystone species --- key to overall ecosystems

Horton, 08 (18 November 2008, Jennifer Horton, “What's depleting salmon populations?”
https://adventure.howstuffworks.com/outdoor-activities/fishing/fish-conservation/fish-
populations/salmon-population.htm, JMP)

The downward spiral of the salmon population is troubling for several reasons. This fish is far more than
just a tasty source of omega-3s. Salmon are what's known as a keystone species -- like the engine in
your car, their physical presence compared to the whole is rather small, but their importance to its
functioning is vital.

Not only are the fish a main source of sustenance for a variety of predators (more than 137 species), but
their decomposing carcasses are a significant source of nutrients and fertilizer for trees [source: Hunt].
When the salmon go, the surrounding ecosystem likely won't be far behind .
 2ac AT: Alt Causes to Salmon Decline

Alt causes are a reason to restore rivers to ensure salmon survival

Lohan, 21 (APRIL 11, 2021 6:59PM (UTC), TARA LOHAN, “Our last, best chance to save Atlantic salmon;
Atlantic salmon are perilously close to extinction in the United States,”
https://www.salon.com/2021/04/11/our-last-best-chance-to-save-atlantic-salmon_partner/, JMP)
***John Burrows is executive director of U.S. programs at the Atlantic Salmon Federation

Outside of the rivers, Atlantic salmon still face a tough road. Climate change is warming ocean
temperatures, changing salinity and altering food webs. But having so many unknowns in the marine
environment in the coming decades provides more reason to focus efforts on restoring rivers where
scientists already know what works, says Burrows.

And if that's done right, the benefits will extend far beyond salmon.

"It's not just about salmon — it's about these other native fish, it's about the wildlife, water quality,
economic opportunity for ground fishermen and lobstermen, and more sustainable forms of recreation
and community development," says Burrows. "If we remove a dam or two here and rebuild these fish
populations to pretty big levels that really impacts a whole bunch of different parts of society. That's
what we want to try to do here on the Kennebec."

There aren’t alternative causes --- aquatic species face extinction almost entirely
because of Dams
Workman, 7 --- adviser and consultant on water and natural resources issues to governmental and
nongovernmental organizations, including the World Commission on Dams (FALL 2007, JAMES G.
WORKMAN, “How to Fix Our Dam Problems; Thousands of aging dams should be repaired or destroyed,
at a cost of billions. A cap-and-trade policy could speed the process and help pay the bills,”
https://issues.org/workman-water-crisis-drought-fix-dams/, JMP)

The third threat to dam performance, as both a cause and a consequence, is climate change. Dams are
point-source polluters. Scientists have long warned that dams alter the chemistry and biology of rivers.
They warm the water and lower its oxygen content, boosting invasive species and algae blooms while
blocking and killing native aquatic life upstream and down. Rivers host more endangered species than
any other ecosystem in the United States, and many of the nation’s native plants and animals, from
charismatic Pacific salmon to lowly Southern freshwater mussels, face extinction almost entirely
because of dams.
 2ac AT: State Regulations Solve

Don’t solve significant federal dams and current state regs fail
Owen & Apse, 15 --- *Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, AND **Freshwater
Conservation Advisor, The Nature Conservancy (February 2015, Dave Owen and Colin Apse, “Trading
Dam,” 48 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1043, Nexis Uni, JMP)

3. State-Regulated Dams

The legal literature on dams focuses overwhelmingly on those regulated or, to a much lesser extent,
owned by the federal government, and in practice, those dams generate much of the controversy and
litigation. 159 There are obvious reasons for that focus; the largest and most heavily regulated dams
generally fall within these groups, and advocates are sensible to focus their efforts where they can exert
the most leverage. 160 But over 97% of dams are neither owned by the federal government nor
regulated by FERC, and while their collective impacts may not rise to the level of the federal
behemoths, those impacts still are significant. 161 No synopsis of dam regulation would be complete,
therefore, without some discussion of state law.

Providing that discussion is difficult, however, because of two factors. First, dam laws vary from state to
state, as do the financial and administrative resources that states devote to implementing their dam
laws. 162 Second, while a few studies summarize the dam laws of individual states, no comprehensive
state-by-state guide to the environmental law of dams exists. 163 There are good and recent studies of
state dam safety laws and of the treatment of hydropower in state renewable portfolio standards, but
our discussion of the environmental [*1070] regulation of dams is based largely on a review of the dam
laws of a select set of states. 164

Despite these caveats, even a partial review of state dam laws supports a few generalizations. The first is
that state environmental regulation of existing dams is generally quite lax. 165 None of the states we
reviewed had a re-licensing requirement analogous to that created by the FPA. 166 Moreover, we
identified few other procedural or substantive levers to compel reconsideration of the impacts of
existing dams. 167 Instead, in most states, a dam, once built, is grandfathered from the requirements of
environmental laws. 168 Many of those dams were constructed before significant environmental laws
existed or, at least, before those laws were acknowledged and enforced. 169 The environmental laws of
many states therefore have never really applied to most of those states' dams. 170 Indeed, in many
states, the only way environmental laws would be triggered is if a dam owner proposes to do something
different with a dam - like, for example, add hydropower capacity or take the dam out. 171

[*1071] On paper, state regulation of dam safety is more robust. Most states have safety standards and
laws requiring periodic inspection of dams, and safety reviews ought to present opportunities to
reexamine the operations or even existence of dams. 172 But on closer examination, those schemes also
often appear - in the words of one leading expert - "pitiful." 173 Maine, for example, has robust
requirements for dam inspections but has never adequately funded the inspection program. 174 Texas
recently passed legislation exempting many dams from its inspection program, and Texas law, at least as
currently interpreted, also limits the public's ability to even access information about dam hazards. 175
Many other states face similar circumstances. 176 Dams do age and fail, but because of these oversight
gaps, smaller dam owners in many states are all but legally invisible so long as nothing goes drastically
wrong. Indeed, there are thousands of state-regulated dams whose owners aren't even known. 177

Despite the prevalence of laissez-faire regimes, there are some incentives for reducing the
environmental and safety impacts of dams. In most states, a dam owner faces tort liability if his dam
fails, or if a boater is injured by a deteriorating dam structure. 178 The United States [*1072] has a long
tradition of passing laws designed to promote fish passage, and while those laws were often observed
largely in the breach, a few court decisions have given them significant effect. 179 And some states have
created legal mechanisms and offices devoted to helping dam owners move through the removal
process, or to allowing the state to assume responsibility for abandoned dams. 180 But those programs
are rare unless one counts laws empowering government agencies to dynamite beaver dams, 181 and
state dam regulation on the whole remains rather limited. Consequently, quite often the most
procedurally straightforward thing for a state-regulated dam owner to do with his dam turns out to be
nothing at all. 182

While state dam law does little to spur better environmental management, it sometimes does
encourage hydropower development. States use an extraordinary variety of pricing mechanisms to
incentivize renewable energy, including renewable portfolio standards, 183 net metering programs,
green power purchasing options, and property tax [*1073] rebates. 184 Some of these programs
include hydropower. 185 Typically, state programs are limited to small hydropower sources, and
environmental criteria sometimes apply. 186 Many dams, including larger hydropower systems,
therefore are likely to be excluded from these programs, no matter how much the dam owners do to
mitigate their facilities' adverse environmental effects. 187 Conversely, and perversely, in some states a
small hydropower facility is eligible for favorable pricing even if its environmental impacts are drastic.
188 But a variety of programs does create incentives for constructing new hydropower systems. 189

Nevertheless, state dam law on the whole generally provides only weak incentives to take proactive
steps with dams. Aside from pricing incentives in a subset of states (and applicable to a subset of dams),
states do little to encourage dam owners to upgrade their systems. Similarly, they do little to penalize
owners whose dams produce adverse environmental consequences or even safety threats. And state
programs to encourage comprehensive reassessment of dam systems are nearly unheard of. 190
Adv Climate – Trading Dams Version
 2ac New Dams Inevitable / Destroy Biodiversity

Thousands of new dams will be built --- triggers biodiversity loss in protected areas
Benson, 21--- Masters of Environmental Policy Candidate (MAY 16, 2021, Jen Benson, “The Murky
Ethics and Complicated Environmental Claims of Big Hydro,” https://www.bard.edu/cep/blog/?p=12930,
JMP)

Threats to Free-Flowing Rivers

Although hydropower dams are perceived as an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels, dams
drastically alter rivers, reducing ecosystem services relied upon by both riverine species and nearby
human communities.

Rivers are already under pressure from changing temperatures, precipitation patterns, storm severity,
and subsequent impacts on water quality, biodiversity, and habitat. At present, only 37% of the world’s
longest rivers remain free flowing, and out of the world’s 91 rivers over 1,000KM originally flowing to
the ocean, only 21 remain connected to the sea.

As humans continue to turn to hydroelectric power as an alternative energy source, 3,700 new
hydropower dams are either planned or under construction, adding to the estimated 60,000 large
dams currently in existence across the globe.

Constructing dams on rivers also threatens freshwater species, as dams block natural pathways between
fish feeding and spawning grounds, limiting reproduction. The 2018 Living Planet Report from the World
Wildlife Foundation noted an 83% decline in freshwater biodiversity between 1970 and 2014, identifying
dams and other water infrastructure as primary drivers of this significant reduction in biodiversity.

Furthermore, dams are being constructed in protected areas, including those already vulnerable to
biodiversity loss. Rivers, the creatures that inhabit them, and the communities that depend upon them
in the US and across the world are being sacrificed in the name of a hydropower.

Dam building is increasing in other countries

Miller, 20 --- B.A. from UT Austin, seasoned writer who has written over one hundred articles, which
have been read by over 500,000 people (Mar 13, 2020, Brandon Miller, “17 Biggest Advantages and
Disadvantages of Dams,” https://greengarageblog.org/17-biggest-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-
dams, JMP)
Conclusion

The Klamath River Has worked under the influence of four dams for almost 60 years. Those structures generate an average of 82 megawatts of power annually. That
energy might be renewable, but it is not free of environmental consequences. These structures took a dynamic ecosystem and replaced it with a wretched impostor
of itself. Even the dams’ owner decided that the cost of maintaining the structures it was no longer worth it, and so they are coming down.

The Reventazon Dam in Costa Rica tells a very different story. Engineers over the past 6 years have steadily corralled the river so that the facility can generate 305
megawatts of electricity annually. This project is the largest of its kind in Central America, and it almost guarantees that the country’s electrical grid will be nearly
100% renewable energy.
When we examine the advantages and disadvantages of dams, it is essential to remember that both
perspectives make legitimate claims to be doing what is best for the environment. These structures
might be coming down in the United States, but they are going up all over the rest of the world. That
means this technology is going to be in the past for some populations, but it will also be the future for
others.

Global dam building is still strong in other countries

Bardeen, 16 --- Communications Director at International Rivers (04/11/2016 - 11:24am, Sarah
Bardeen, “The Global Significance of the Klamath Agreement,”
https://web.archive.org/web/20160413075711/http://www.internationalrivers.org/blogs/433-20, recut
by JMP)

Many dams in the United States are now nearing the end of their lifespan. Dam removals have increased
in recent years, largely because these aging, unsafe structures – many of whose reservoirs are now filled
with sediment – must be taken down for the good of the communities near them.

The problem is, the Bureau of Reclamation’s decades-long export of dam technology is still
reverberating through the rest of the world. Large dams are being planned and developed on major
rivers like the Mekong, the Amazon, and the Congo, where millions depend directly on their rivers for
food and livelihoods.
 2ac New Dams – Mekong / Amazon / Congo

U.S. exported its dam building technology --- new dams are planned on the Mekong,
Amazon, and Congo
International Rivers, 20 (2020-09-18T13:31:26 – date found using
http://carbondate.cs.odu.edu/#https://www.internationalrivers.org/issues/corporate-
accountability/hydropower-industry/, “Hydropower Industry,”
https://www.internationalrivers.org/issues/corporate-accountability/hydropower-industry/, JMP)

For decades, the western United States was ground zero for one of the greatest experiments humans
had ever undertaken: replumbing the world’s rivers. As Marc Reisner cataloged so forcefully in the book
Cadillac Desert, dam builders pursued these mega-projects with little regard for whether they were
needed, or what effects they would have on people or the environment. It was an experiment fueled
less by need than by greed.

Dam-builders undertook this gargantuan effort without clearly understanding what they would lose –
the healthy, productive rivers that were once said to be so thick with fish that you could walk across a
river on their bodies.

The U.S. didn’t keep this ecosystem-devastating technology to themselves. Throughout the 20th
century, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation busily exported dam technology to other countries around the
world, selling these large dams as temples to modernity. Developing countries conveniently gave
American companies and engineers fat contracts to build them.

Many U.S. dams are now nearing the end of their lifespan, and dam removals have increased
exponentially. But the hydropower boom is still reverberating through the rest of the world. Large
dams are being planned and developed on major rivers like the Mekong, the Amazon, and the Congo,
where millions depend directly on their rivers for food and livelihoods.

This is madness. In too many cases, local communities shoulder the financial burdens and social and
environmental impacts while the developers walk away with a profit. And in an era of climate change,
hydropower is a risky and insecure energy source that’s deeply vulnerable to increasingly severe
droughts and floods. Furthermore, dams lower the climate resilience of riverine communities. It’s time
to find another way.
 2ac Dams => Climate Change

Dams increase greenhouse emissions through greater methane and more CO2 from
less photosynthesis
Miller, 20 --- B.A. from UT Austin, seasoned writer who has written over one hundred articles, which
have been read by over 500,000 people (Mar 13, 2020, Brandon Miller, “17 Biggest Advantages and
Disadvantages of Dams,” https://greengarageblog.org/17-biggest-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-
dams, JMP)

2. Reservoirs behind a dam can lead to higher greenhouse gas emissions.

When vegetation gets engulfed in water, then the plants will eventually die. When this outcome occurs,
the dead organic material releases methane that ultimately makes its way into the atmosphere. The
increase in the production of greenhouse gases is significant because methane is up to 20 times more
potent as a reflector than carbon dioxide.

The use of a dam in certain areas can also contribute to the loss of forests. When we lose a significant
number of trees simultaneously, then there is a corresponding uptake of carbon dioxide that occurs
because there are fewer photosynthesis processes happening each day.
 2ac Dams Largest Source of Methane

Dams are the single largest source of methane emissions

Workman, 7 --- adviser and consultant on water and natural resources issues to governmental and
nongovernmental organizations, including the World Commission on Dams (FALL 2007, JAMES G.
WORKMAN, “How to Fix Our Dam Problems; Thousands of aging dams should be repaired or destroyed,
at a cost of billions. A cap-and-trade policy could speed the process and help pay the bills,”
https://issues.org/workman-water-crisis-drought-fix-dams/, JMP)

What we didn’t appreciate until recently is that dams also pollute the air. The public may commonly see
dams as producers of clean energy in a time of dirty coal and escalating oil prices. Yet fewer than 2% of
U.S. dams generate any power whatsoever. Some could be retrofitted with turbines, and perhaps
various existing dams should be. But peer-reviewed scientific research has demonstrated that dams in
fact may worsen climate change because of reservoir and gate releases of methane . Brazil’s National
Institute for Space Research calculated that the world’s 52,000 large dams (typically 50 feet or higher)
contribute more than 4% of the total warming impact of human activities. These dam reservoirs
contribute 25% of human-caused methane emissions, the world’s largest single source. Earth’s millions
of smaller dams compound that effect.
 2ac AT: Dams Good to Control Methane

Muller says well planned and managed dams mitigate climate change --- our aff claims
to cause that
Muller, 19 --- adjunct professor at the University of Witwatersrand School of Governance in
Johannesburg, South Africa (19 FEBRUARY 2019, Mike Muller, “Hydropower dams can help mitigate the
global warming impact of wetlands; Manage methane emissions and produce clean, cheap energy at the
same time, argues Mike Muller,” https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00616-w, JMP)

Politics is filling the void. Hydropower projects, already controversial for their social and environmental
impacts, are now routinely opposed because they are said to add to greenhouse-gas emissions and
aggravate global warming. Yet dams that are well planned, constructed and managed can deliver
decades of clean, cheap energy and help to mitigate climate change (see ‘Life-cycle emissions’).
Hydropower dams account for 97% of electricity storage worldwide, and can reach full power in less
than a minute. They thus help in the integration of other renewable sources, such as solar and wind, into
supply grids3.

[graph omitted]

These wider benefits are seldom acknowledged. And in a rapidly warming world, we cannot afford blind
spots. Researchers need to take a systems approach to carbon emissions and sequestrations from fresh
waters. And the roles of dams and other water-management interventions need to be reassessed from
the perspective of climate change: in some places, they might help communities and the environment
more than they damage them.

Design and operation changes could help hydropower reduce emissions

Muller, 19 --- adjunct professor at the University of Witwatersrand School of Governance in
Johannesburg, South Africa (19 FEBRUARY 2019, Mike Muller, “Hydropower dams can help mitigate the
global warming impact of wetlands; Manage methane emissions and produce clean, cheap energy at the
same time, argues Mike Muller,” https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00616-w, JMP)

Strategic rethink

The IPCC must engage more strategically with these debates. Its next assessment report, due in 2022,
should review the state of knowledge about the freshwater carbon cycle and consider to what extent
hydropower and other water-management activities could reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

Water managers should consider how dams and other infrastructure can be designed and operated to
mitigate the emissions from freshwater systems generally, as well as from their own operations. Given
the controversies about geoengineering, public discussions will be needed around the implications of
such interventions, including the benefits of emissions reductions and impacts on local biodiversity.

Policymakers should re-examine hydropower’s strategic value as a long-term source of clean energy and
as a tool for integrating renewable energy sources. And although wetlands are sacrosanct in much
environmental legislation, a more nuanced approach to their management should be considered. For
example, in many cases, their methane emissions and size could be reduced without significantly
affecting wildlife; artificial wetlands can provide new focuses for biodiversity and valuable services, such
as treating wastewater.

Finally, financiers should fund hydropower to help mitigate climate change. Standard-setting
organizations need to develop and promote evidence-based standards that recognize hydropower’s
potential contribution to emissions reduction. Certainly, hydropower should be on the table on 5 March,
when 500 global financiers meet in London to discuss investing in climate-friendly infrastructure through
the Climate Bonds Initiative.
 2ac Regulating Dam => Climate Resiliency

Regulating hydropower dams to protect rivers ensures resiliency to climate impacts

American Rivers, 16 (Estimated creation date: 2016-06-02T12:42:39 according to
http://carbondate.cs.odu.edu/#https://, “The Future of Hydropower,”
https://www.americanrivers.org/threats-solutions/energy-development/hydropower-climate-change/,
JMP)

Hydropower dams play a role in our nation’s energy portfolio. But we cannot responsibly meet our
nation’s 21st century energy needs by damming new rivers or by weakening environmental protections
designed to protect rivers from harmful dam operations.

Our nation is at a crossroads. We desperately need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and
decrease the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. That means that we need to use less energy, and we
need to get more of our energy from renewable sources.

It is equally imperative that we do not destroy the environment we are trying to save by rushing to
develop low-emissions energy sources that will result in serious environmental harm, as well as high
economic and societal costs. We can have – and must demand – energy that avoids carbon emissions,
does not consume finite natural resources, and does not irreparably harm the environment.

Solutions For The 21st Century

American Rivers supports the continued operation of most hydropower projects. We have a long history
of working with dam owners to improve the operations of projects, achieving successes for ratepayers,
the economy, and the environment. We also advocate for the removal of outdated or unsafe dams
whose costs outweigh their benefits.

The focus on hydropower in the coming years must not be on building new dams, but instead on
maximizing efficiency, responsible operation, and environmental performance .

Increase efficiency at existing hydropower dams: Most of our nation’s hydropower dams were built 50,
75, even more than 100 years ago. Many of these dams use antiquated, inefficient generating
equipment. Dam owners should be required to bring their plants up to modern standards in order to
ensure that they are generating the maximum amount of power from every drop of water that they use.

Consider adding hydropower capacity to existing dams: There are more than 90,000 dams in the United
States, and only a fraction of those dams have hydropower capacity. Adding hydropower to dams in
good repair that are still serving another useful purpose is appropriate if it can be done without further
degrading the local environment that is already compromised by the existence of the dam

Uphold environmental safeguards: If a hydropower dam can’t be operated economically while meeting
modern environmental standards, then either its operations should be improved, or the dam should be
removed. New hydropower added to existing dams must be able to comply with all existing
environmental laws and regulations; if it cannot, then it should not be developed. There are plenty of
other sources of renewable energy that can be operated at a profit without harming the environment.
Hold hydropower developers responsible for dam safety:The majority of our nation’s dams are in need
of significant repairs. Would-be developers of hydropower on existing dams must take these costs into
consideration and must be responsible for ensuring that these dams are safe and secure.

Recognize that dams have finite lifespans: For a structure to be truly “green,” it must be built with its
full life cycle in mind. New or retrofitted dams must have a decommissioning strategy, including a set
aside fund dedicated to restoring the river when the dam becomes obsolete.

Judge dams on their impacts, not on their size: Low-power dams (many of which are physically quite
large, despite insistence by developers that they are “small”) harm streams in the same ways as dams
that produce more power. Multiple low-power dams scattered on multiple streams add up to major
environmental impacts that can be greater than that of a single large dam. The power provided by
smaller-scale hydro is a drop in the bucket compared to our overall energy needs. Low-power hydro
projects currently account for 40 percent of all hydropower dams, but generate less than 1 percent of
the power.

New dams don’t make sense

All the good locations are already developed: The available number of potential hydropower dam sites is
limited by geography, and in the United States, the most viable sites have already been developed or are
off limits. The few sites that remain would provide only marginal power benefits, often at great
environmental cost.

Healthy rivers are our “natural defense” against global warming impacts: We need healthy rivers and
the clean water and natural flood protection benefits they provide, in order to be resilient against the
droughts, floods, and waterborne diseases that will increase with global warming . Likewise, fish and
wildlife will need healthy, free-flowing rivers more than ever if they are to survive in a warming world.
Building dams destroys the natural defense system that healthy rivers give our communities.

Hydropower dams can contribute to global warming pollution: When a forest is cut down to make way
for a dam and reservoir, those trees are no longer available to absorb the carbon dioxide added by fossil
fuels. Further, decaying vegetation beneath the reservoirs can generate emissions, which can contribute
to global warming.

Dams damage rivers: Dams disrupt flows, degrade water quality, block the movement of a river’s vital
nutrients and sediment, destroy fish and wildlife habitat, impede migration of fish and other aquatic
species, and eliminate recreational opportunities. Reservoirs slow and broaden rivers, making them
warmer. The environmental, economic, and societal footprint of a dam and reservoir may extend well
beyond the immediate area, impacting drinking water, recreation, fisheries, wildlife, and wastewater
disposal.
2ac Hydropower Good – Renewable that Ends Fossil Fuel Dependence

Dams generate clean and renewable electricity to end dependence on fossil fuels
Miller, 20 --- B.A. from UT Austin, seasoned writer who has written over one hundred articles, which
have been read by over 500,000 people (Mar 13, 2020, Brandon Miller, “17 Biggest Advantages and
Disadvantages of Dams,” https://greengarageblog.org/17-biggest-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-
dams, JMP)

List of the Advantages of Dams

1. Dams provide us with a source of clean energy.

Hydroelectricity is responsible for 19% of the world’s energy supply, offering over 3000 terawatts each
year. We can produce power from dams because of the kinetic energy of the water movements as it
causes turbines to spin. That’s what allows us to generate electricity that is clean and renewable. Once
the dam gets entirely constructed, we no longer have a dependence on fossil fuels to be responsible for
the energy we need to maintain a modern lifestyle.

The United States is one of the largest producers of hydroelectricity in the world today, even with the
reduction of operational facilities. Americans generate over 103,000 megawatts of renewable electricity
with this resource, with only Canada currently creating more power in this way.
 2ac Hydropower Good – Sustains Electrical System

Hydropower keeps electrical transmission systems working

Sale, 13 --- executive director for the Low Impact Hydro Institute (17 JUN 13, Dr. Michael J. Sale, “River
Dams: Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down?” https://www.blueridgeoutdoors.com/paddling/river-dams-
thumbs-up-or-thumbs-down/, NZA+JMP)

There are 84,000 dams in the U.S. that provide flood control, drinking water, agricultural irrigation,
hydropower, and recreation. Dams are engineered structures—like roads, bridges, and railroads—that
make our high quality of life possible. Most dams that exist in the U.S. were constructed between 1950
and 1990. As with much U.S. infrastructure, many existing river dams are aging and in need of repair,
rehabilitation, or even removal if they have out-lived their original purposes.

Hydropower is one of the crucial uses for dams, but less than 3 percent of existing dams produce
hydroelectricity. Hydropower is the largest source of renewable electricity in the U.S. In addition to
providing baseload and peaking power, hydropower projects also keep electrical transmission systems
working smoothly.
 2ac Impact – Warming Causes Extinction

Warming causes extinction from oxygen, disease, ice melt, and cognitive failure.
McKibben ’19 [Bill; April 9; Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College, Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Rolling Stone, “This Is How Human Extinction Could Play Out,”
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/bill-mckibben-falter-climate-change-817310/]

Oh, it could get very bad.

In 2015, a study in the Journal of Mathematical Biology pointed out that if

the world’s oceans kept warming, by 2100 they
might become hot enough to “stop oxygen production by phyto-plankton by disrupting the process of
photosynthesis.” Given that two-thirds of the Earth’s oxygen comes from phytoplankton, that would
“likely result in the mass mortality of animals and humans.”
A year later, above the Arctic Circle, in Siberia, a heat wave thawed a reindeer carcass that had been trapped in the permafrost. The exposed
body released anthrax into nearby water and soil, infecting two thousand reindeer grazing nearby, and they in turn infected some humans; a
twelve-year-old boy died. As it turns out, permafrost is a “very good preserver of microbes and viruses, because it is cold,
there is no oxygen, and it is dark” — scientists have managed to revive an eight-million-year-old bacterium they found beneath the surface of
a glacier. Researchers believe there are fragments of the Spanish flu virus, smallpox, and bubonic plague buried in Siberia
and Alaska.

Or consider this: as ice sheets melt, they take weight off land, and that can trigger earthquakes — seismic activity
is already increasing in Greenland and Alaska. Meanwhile, the added weight of the new seawater starts to bend the Earth’s crust. “That will give
you a massive increase in volcanic activity. It’ll activate faults to create earthquakes, submarine landslides, tsunamis, the whole lot,” explained
the director of University College London’s Hazard Centre. Such a landslide happened in Scandinavia about eight thousand years ago, as the
last Ice Age retreated and a Kentucky-size section of Norway’s continental shelf gave way, “plummeting down to the abyssal plain and creating
a series of titanic waves that roared forth with a vengeance,” wiping all signs of life from coastal Norway to Greenland and “drowning the
Wales-sized landmass that once connected Britain to the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany.” When the waves hit the Shetlands, they were
sixty-five feet high.

There’s even this: if we keep raising carbon dioxide levels, we may not be able to think straight
anymore. At a thousand parts per million (which is within the realm of possibility for 2100), human cognitive ability falls 21
percent. “The largest effects were seen for Crisis Response, Information Usage, and Strategy,” a Harvard study reported, which is too bad, as
those skills are what we seem to need most.
 2ac Impact – Turns Other Impacts

Turns all other impacts.

Cribb ’17 [Julian; 2017; Principal of Julian Cribb & Associates, Fellow of the Australian Academy of
Technological Sciences and Engineering, former Director of National Awareness at the Commonwealth
Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation; Surviving the 21st Century, “The Baker,” Ch. 4, p. 91-93;
DML]

This event, known as the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum or PETM, happened only about ten million years after the
dinosaurs were smashed by an asteroid impact. This ‘hyperthermal’ period took place quite suddenly (in geological terms)—in less than 2000
years—and lasted for about 170,000 years before the planet again cooled. The heat spike was accompanied by a major wipe-out of
ocean life in particular, though most small land mammals survived. Investigating the records of old marine sediments Zeebe was able to show
there had been a sharp, 70 %, leap in atmospheric CO 2 concentrations at the time. However, he concluded there was only
sufficient carbon available to force the climate to warm by 1–3 °C and that some other mechanism must have been triggered by the
initial warming, which then drove the Earth’s temperature to fever pitch , up by another 4–6 °C (Zeebe et al. 2009). This process
is the ‘ runaway global warming ‘ which now menaces us.

The significance of PETM is that it appears that about the

same volume of carbon was dumped by natural processes into the Earth’s
atmosphere and oceans as humans are currently dumping with the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of the
world’s forests—about 3 trillion tonnes in all—and it was this that triggered the hyperthermal surge in planetary
heating.

As to the mechanism that could suddenly release a huge amount of extra carbon into the atmosphere
and oceans and project global temperatures up by 6–9 °C, the most likely explanation is the one described at
the start of this chapter—the rapid melting and escape of billions of tonnes of frozen methane, CH 4 , currently locked in
tundra and seabed sediments. This phenomenon, dubbed the “clathrate gun ” (Kennett et al. 2003), is now linked by scientists not only with the
PETM event but also, according to palaeontologist Peter Ward, with the Great Death of the Permian, the worst annihilation in the history of life
on Earth (Ward 2008). The significance of the clathrates is that they consist of methane, a gas that is 72 times more powerful than CO 2 as a
climate forcing agent in the short run, and 25 times stronger over a century or so. The clathrates could be released by a process known as ‘
ocean overturning ’, a shift in global current patterns caused by moderate warming, which brings warmer water from the surface down into the
depths, to melt the deposits of frozen gas. Unlocking several trillion tonnes of methane would cause global temperatures to rocket upwards
sharply. Once such a process gets under way, most experts consider, warming will happen so fast it is doubtful if humans could do anything to
stop it even if they instantly ceased all burning of fossil fuels.

This ‘double whammy’ of global warming caused by humans releasing three trillion tonnes of fossil carbon which then
precipitates an uncontrollable second phase driven by the melting of all or part of the five trillion tonnes of natural methane deposits (Buff et &
Archer 2004) is
the principal threat to civilisation in the twenty-first century and, combined with nuclear conflict (Chap. 4), to the
survival of the human species.

The IPCC’s fifth report states that the melting of between 37 and 81 % of the world’s tundra permafrost is ‘virtually certain’ adding “ There is
a high risk of substantial carbon and methane emissions as a result of permafrost thawing ” ((IPCC 2014a),
p. 74). This could involve the venting of as much as 920 billion tonnes of carbon. However, the Panel did not venture an estimate for methane
emissions from the melting of the far larger seabed clathrates and a number of scientists have publicly criticised the world’s leading climate
body for remaining so close-lipped about this mega-threat to human existence. The IPCC’s reticence is thought to be founded on a lack of
adequate scientific data to make a pronouncement with confidence—and partly to fear of the mischief which the fossil fuels lobby would make
of any premature estimates. However, it critics argue, by the time we know for sure that the Arctic and seabed methane is escaping in large
volumes, it will be too late to do anything about it.
The difficulty is that no-one knows how quickly the Earth will heat up, as this depends on something that cannot be scientifically predicted: the
behaviour of the whole human species and the timeliness with which we act. Failure to abolish carbon emissions in time will
make a 4–5 °C rise in temperature likely . As to what that may mean, here are some eminent opinions :
• Warming of 5 °C will mean the planet can support fewer than 1 billion people—Hans-Joachim Shellnhuber, Potsdam Institute for Climate
Impact Research (Kanter 2009)

• With temperature increases of 4–7 °C billions of people will have to move and there will be very severe conflict—
Nicholas Stern, London School of Economics (Kanter 2009)

• Food shortages, refugee crises, flooding of major cities and entire island nations, mass extinction of plants and animals, and a climate so
drastically altered it may be dangerous for people to work or play outside during the hottest times of the year—IPCC Fifth Assessment (IPCC
2014b)

• Corn and soybean yields in the US may decrease by 63–82 %—Schlenker and Roberts, Arizona State University (Schlenker & Roberts 2009a)

• Up to 35% of the Earth’s species will be committed to extinction—Chris Thomas, University of Leeds (Thomas et al. 2004)

• Total polar melting combined with thermal expansion could involve sea
levels eventually rising by 65 m (180 ft), i.e. to the 20th floor of
tall buildings, drowning most of the world’s coastal cities and displacing a third or more of the human
population (Winkelmann et al. 2015)

• Intensifiedglobal instability, hunger, poverty and conflict. Food and water shortages, pandemic
disease, disputes over refugees and resources, and destruction by natural disasters in regions across
the globe—Chuck Hagel, US Secretary for Defence (Hagel 2014)

• “Almost inconceivable challenges as human society struggles to adapt… billions of people forced to relocate.… worsening tensions
especially over resources… armed conflict is likely and nuclear war is possible”— Kurt Campbell, Center for
Strategic and International Studies (Campell et al. 2007).

• “Unless we get control of (global warming), it will mean our extinction eventually”—Helen Berry, Canberra
University (Snow & Hannam 2014).
 2ac Impact – Conflict Multiplier

Climate change a conflict multiplier

Scheffran 16, Professor at the Institute for Geography at the University of Hamburg and head of the
Research Group Climate Change and Security in the CliSAP Cluster of Excellence and the Center for Earth
System Research and Sustainability, et al (Jürgen, “The Climate-Nuclear Nexus: Exploring the linkages
between climate change and nuclear threats,”
http://www.worldfuturecouncil.org/file/2016/01/WFC_2015_The_Climate-Nuclear_Nexus.pdf)

Climate change and nuclear weapons represent two key threats of our time. Climate change endangers
ecosystems and social systems all over the world. The degradation of natural resources, the decline of
water and food supplies, forced migration, and more frequent and intense disasters will greatly affect
population clusters, big and small. Climate-related shocks will add stress to the world’s existing conflicts
and act as a “threat multiplier” in already fragile regions. This could contribute to a decline of
international stability and trigger hostility between people and nations. Meanwhile, the 15,500 nuclear
weapons that remain in the arsenals of only a few states possess the destructive force to destroy life on
Earth as we know multiple times over. With nuclear deterrence strategies still in place, and hundreds of
weapons on ‘hair trigger alert’, the risks of nuclear war caused by accident, miscalculation or intent
remain plentiful and imminent. Despite growing recognition that climate change and nuclear weapons
pose critical security risks, the linkages between both threats are largely ignored. However, nuclear and
climate risks interfere with each other in a mutually enforcing way. Conflicts induced by climate change
could contribute to global insecurity, which, in turn, could enhance the chance of a nuclear weapon
being used, could create more fertile breeding grounds for terrorism, including nuclear terrorism, and
could feed the ambitions among some states to acquire nuclear arms. Furthermore, as evidenced by a
series of incidents in recent years, extreme weather events, environmental degradation and major
seismic events can directly impact the safety and security of nuclear installations. Moreover, a nuclear
war could lead to a rapid and prolonged drop in average global temperatures and significantly disrupt
the global climate for years to come, which would have disastrous implications for agriculture,
threatening the food supply for most of the world. Finally, climate change, nuclear weapons and
nuclear energy pose threats of intergenerational harm, as evidenced by the transgenerational effects of
nuclear testing and nuclear power accidents and the lasting impacts on the climate, environment and
public health by carbon emissions.
 2ac Impact – Environmental Justice

Emissions disproportionately impact vulnerable and marginalized populations – causes

hunger, disease, and increased physiological violence
Parncutt 19 (Richard Parncutt, Professor @ the Centre for Systematic Musicology, University of Graz,
“The Human Cost of Anthropogenic Global Warming: Semi-Quantitative Prediction and the 1,000-Tonne
Rule,” Front. Psychol., 10/16/19, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02323, TM)

Greenhouse-gas emissions are indirectly causing future deaths by multiple mechanisms. For example,
reduced food and water supplies will exacerbate hunger, disease, violence, and migration. How will
anthropogenic global warming (AGW) affect global mortality due to poverty around and beyond 2100?
Roughly, how much burned fossil carbon corresponds to one future death? What are the psychological,
medical, political, and economic implications? Predicted death tolls are crucial for policy formulation,
but uncertainty increases with temporal distance from the present and estimates may be biased. Order-
of-magnitude estimates should refer to literature from diverse relevant disciplines. The carbon budget
for 2°C AGW (roughly 1012 tonnes carbon) will indirectly cause roughly 109 future premature deaths
(10% of projected maximum global population), spread over one to two centuries. This zeroth-order
prediction is relative and in addition to existing preventable death rates. It lies between likely best- and
worst-case scenarios of roughly 3 × 108 and 3 × 109, corresponding to plus/minus one standard
deviation on a logarithmic scale in a Gaussian probability distribution. It implies that one future
premature death is caused every time roughly 1,000 (300–3,000) tonnes of carbon are burned.
Therefore, any fossil-fuel project that burns millions of tons of carbon is probably indirectly
killing thousands of future people. The prediction may be considered valid, accounting for multiple
indirect links between AGW and death rates in a top-down approach, but unreliable due to the
uncertainty of climate change feedback and interactions between physical, biological, social, and
political climate impacts (e.g., ecological cascade effects and co-extinction). Given universal agreement
on the value of human lives, a death toll of this unprecedented magnitude must be avoided at all costs.
As a clear political message, the “1,000-tonne rule” can be used to defend human rights, especially in
developing countries, and to clarify that climate change is primarily a human rights issue. Introduction
Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is a human rights issue (Amnesty International, n.d.; Caney,
2010). It is violating the rights of future people—especially, in developing countries that will suffer the
most. Lancet Countdown on health and climate change has warned that “A rapidly changing climate has
dire implications for every aspect of human life, exposing vulnerable populations to extremes of
weather, altering patterns of infectious disease, and compromising food security, safe drinking water,
and clean air” (Watts et al., 2018). UN Environment (2019) found that “nearly one quarter of all deaths
globally in 2012 could be attributed to modifiable environmental risks, with a greater portion occurring
in populations in a vulnerable situation and in developing countries” (p. 22). From a legal perspective,
“a right to a healthy environment in various formulations is recognized by the constitutions of 118
nations around the world” (Kravchenko, 2007, p. 539). Progress toward global emissions reductions has
been consistently slow (Ge et al., 2019). Contrary to the primary aim of the United Nations Climate
Change Conferences held yearly since 1995, emissions increased by 2.2% per year on average between
2005 and 2015 (Le Quéré et al., 2018) and peaked again in 2018 (International Energy Agency, 2019).
The current rate of carbon emissions is some 10 times greater than the last time global mean surface
temperature (GMST) was relatively high, 56 million years ago (Gingerich, 2019). AGW has therefore
become a global emergency (Ripple et al., 2017). In responding to this challenge, it may help to express
the urgency in new terms by shifting attention from economic to human costs, which are incomparably
greater (Nolt, 2011a, 2015). The aim of this contribution is to defend the human rights of present and
future people from the fatal indirect consequences of AGW caused by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
and AGW by addressing the quantitative relationship between fossil carbon burned now and future
deaths attributable to AGW. The broader context involves interculturality and anti-racism research. The
failure of rich countries and corporations to adequately mitigate AGW is racist in the sense that
the protagonists are mainly white and the victims are mainly black (cf. Kaijser and Kronsell, 2014). AGW
may also be considered sexist, given known gender differences in effects of AGW on health and life
expectancy (World Health Organisation, 2011). AGW is ageist in that the emissions of today’s older
people will disproportionately affect today’s young people (Page, 1999). How much fossil carbon must
be burned to cause a future human death? Despite the inherent uncertainties, it is interesting to
attempt a zeroth-order estimate, based on semi-quantitative considerations of the current state of
global climate, the current global rate of emissions, and the complex, non-linear relationships among
the amount of carbon burned, corresponding changes in GMST, current mortality in connection with
poverty, and future death tolls. The question is explicitly interdisciplinary: it involves humanities (e.g.,
philosophy, history), sciences (e.g., physics, mathematics, statistics, psychology), practically oriented
disciplines (e.g., law, medicine, international development), and disciplines that mix these groups
(economics, sociology). “The greatest potential for contributions from psychology comes not from direct
application of psychological concepts but from integrating psychological knowledge and methods with
knowledge from other fields of science and technology” (Stern, 2011, p. 314). Of all the living and non-
living things that humans encounter in their everyday lives, human lives are usually considered the most
valuable (Harris, 2006)—regardless of the assumed value of non-human life (Kellert, 1997). Moreover,
people are universally considered inherently more important than money (cf. Sayer, 2011); this general
idea holds even if a human life can be assigned monetary value corresponding to the amount that
others are willing to pay to save it. The value of a quality-adjusted life year (QALY) according to this
criterion may effectively be of the order of $100,000 (Hirth et al., 2000). Can the continued use of fossil
fuels be justified after comparing today’s health and longevity benefits with future health and longevity
deficits due to AGW? The following text begins with a summary of ways in which AGW will shorten
human lives in the future. The idea of a human life as a mathematical unit of value is then introduced.
After a consideration of the use of numbers and words in public discourse on AGW, and the
psychological mechanisms that might distort estimates of future death tolls, an approximate top-down
estimate is presented for the relationship between carbon burned now and deaths caused in the future.
Ethical and political implications are addressed. How Anthropogenic Global Warming will Cause
Premature Deaths Historically, burning carbon has had a large positive effect on human life expectancy
and quality of life (Steinberger and Roberts, 2010; Jorgenson, 2014). Without explicitly considering
AGW, United Nations (2017b) estimated that from 1960 to 2100, global mean life expectancy will have
increased from 46 to 83 years, among other things due to increasing availability of energy for
agriculture, heating, cooking, transport, manufacture, and construction. But carbon-based economies
are also causing life-years to be lost in the future. The political challenge, therefore, is to maintain
increases in life expectancy due to industrialization while minimizing losses in life expectancy due to
AGW by replacing carbon-based power sources by sustainable ones. The following brief summary of
widely accepted climate impact predictions illustrates the magnitude of the problem: 1. Rising seas will
threaten coastal homes and cities. Salination of agricultural soils will destroy farming land. 2. Dry areas
will become drier with longer droughts, loss of ground water, and deglaciation. Agriculture will be
seriously affected. 3. Serious storms (hurricanes, cyclones, and tornadoes) will become more frequent
and dangerous (Knutson et al., 2015), destroying crops and buildings, and causing floods and epidemics
(cf. the cholera outbreak that followed Cyclone Idai in Mozambique in 2019; Nguyen et al., 2019). 4.
Heat waves will become more frequent and intense. When wet-bulb temperatures approach human
skin temperature, body temperature can no longer be regulated by perspiration—with fatal
consequences. 5. The current rate of species extinction (biodiversity loss)—already 100–1,000 times
faster than without humans—will continue to increase (sixth mass extinction event). Each of these
points will affect supplies of food and fresh water, increasing current death rates due to hunger and
disease. In addition, AGW will affect the nutritional content of staple crops such as rice and wheat; when
carbon dioxide (CO2) levels double relative to pre-industrial levels, an additional 175 million people may
be zinc deficient; 122 million, protein deficient (Smith and Myers, 2018). These points may interact with
each other, causing ecological cascade effects and co-extinctions. AGW will also increase the incidence
and magnitude of international conflicts including water wars (Petersen-Perlman et al., 2017). There is
an additional risk of “runaway” AGW, in which GMST continues to rise after anthropogenic emissions
stop—driven by natural positive feedback processes that are not canceled by negative ones: 1. When
ice melts, less radiated heat from the sun is reflected back into space, so more is absorbed, causing
more ice to melt (Albedo). 2. As the carbon content of oceans and soils increases, their ability to absorb
CO2 falls (Gattuso et al., 2015). 3. When permafrost (tundra) peat thaws, it releases CO2, methane
(CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O), causing more warming and melting (Voigt et al., 2017). Permafrost peat
contains about 1,700 Pg carbon—about twice as much as the entire atmosphere—of which 30% (68–508
Pg) could be released by 2100 (MacDougall et al., 2012). Atmospheric CH4 concentration has
unexpectedly accelerated in recent years (Nisbet et al., 2018). 4. Forests will dry out at the same time as
weather conditions that cause fires (dry soil, high temperature, low humidity, and high winds) become
more frequent. Fires produce CO2, causing more warming and drying (Gabbert, 2018; Reidmiller, 2018).
Forest dieback can be caused by a combination of drought and bark-beetle infestation, caused in turn by
AGW (Sangüesa-Barreda et al., 2015). Beetle-caused dieback can switch a forest from a carbon sink to a
carbon source (Hansen et al., 2013a). Between 1984 and 2016, the European forest area affected by
mortality doubled—largely due to AGW and land-use changes (Senf et al., 2018). 5. Extreme
temperatures caused by climate change will increase human energy consumption for heating and
cooling (International Energy Agency, 2019). When feedbacks are taken into account, the global carbon
budget for limiting AGW to 2 or 1.5°C is reduced by “several years of anthropogenic carbon dioxide
emissions at present rates” (Lowe and Bernie, 2018, abstract).

Climate change is already devastating people of color globally and in the US---inaction
is complicity and guarantees future Katrina’s. Environmental justice requires
expanding our spatial lens to account for distant others that are dying because of our
choices.
Pulido 12 – PhD, Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, researches race, environmental justice,
Chicana/o Studies, critical human geography, and Los Angeles (Laura, “The Future is Now: Climate
Change and Environmental Justice,” Social Text)
On one side of town, there would be ecological ‘haves,’ enjoying access to healthy, morally upstanding
green products and services. On the other side of town, ecological ‘have-nots’ would be languishing in
the smoke, fumes, toxic chemicals, and illnesses of the old pollution-based economy. [1]∂ The rich will
find their world to be more expensive, inconvenient, uncomfortable, disrupted and colourless; in
general, more unpleasant and unpredictable, perhaps greatly so. The poor will die. [2]∂ By focusing on
Phoenix and its environmental challenges, Andrew Ross’s Bird on Fire broadens our understanding of
environmental justice. In particular, the book shows how conceptions of environmental justice have
evolved and broadened to include diverse issues, including parkland, transportation, urban design,
energy, biodiversity, and climate change. This shift has occurred as part of the evolution of the
environmental justice movement as well as the dynamic nature of both the physical and social
environments. Changes in the physical environment have introduced new concerns, while
transformations in the social structure have impacted who we consider to be vulnerable, how certain
groups are affected, and societal responses. ∂ Phoenix, what Ross calls one of the least sustainable cities
in the world, illustrates how social inequalities are embedded in such things as green urban growth, the
distribution of water, air quality, heat, pollution, and green energy. For me, the take-home message
from Bird on Fire was that unless we get our collective act together, not only are we headed for some
very hard times in terms of global warming, but we are also heading towards a social formation
predicated on triage in which the more powerful and privileged will ensure their basic needs are met —
largely at the expense of the less powerful.∂ …if these initiatives do not take shape as remedies for social
and geographic inequality, then they are likely to end up reinforcing existing patterns of eco-apartheid.
If resources tighten rapidly, a more ominous future beckons in the form of triage crisis management,
where populations are explicitly selected out for protection, in eco-enclaves, or for abandonment,
outside the walls. The anti-immigrant mood that has sharpened during Arizona’s recessionary years
stands as a harbinger of the hoarding mentality that may well govern such a desperate future. [3]∂ ∂
Clearly, Ross is urging us to see the connection between social inequality and sustainability, and the
need to forge a new socio-ecological future. This idea of planning and changing in advance of global
warming is called, “anticipatory adaptation.” [4] While I fully concur with the need to invest in
anticipatory adaptation, I wish to challenge Ross’s assessment that triage may happen in the future. ∂ The
truth is, triage is already happening de facto in various places across the globe. This is not something
that may come in the future — the future is now and we have shown ourselves perfectly capable of
ignoring the suffering that climate change has caused others. Worse, we are continuing on the path that
led to this calamity in the first place (witness the current tar sands debate). [5]By expanding our spatial
lens beyond Phoenix we can see the consequences for the less powerful and how we, the relatively
more powerful — by virtue in living in the US — have responded. Or more accurately, how we have not.∂
Island nations are some of the first places that come to mind. Not only are they losing landmass due to
rising sea-levels, but they also are having problems accessing fresh-water. Participants’ low expectations
for the latest round of climate talks (COP17 in Durban) were borne out, partly because of US opposition.
In short, we have the option to support small island nations, but we choose not to. Or, consider the case
of Thailand, which recently suffered a deluge. Massive rain and flooding caused over 1000 deaths plus
thousands more displacements. Increasingly, researchers are linking such events to climate change.
[6]Closer to home is Hurricane Katrina. Here, the re-engineering of the Mississippi River erased land
masses (swamps, barrier islands, etc), which, combined with more intense hurricanes, led to the
devastation of New Orleans. [7]The deep racial inequalities that characterized the city became
abundantly clear in both the local and national response to the storm. [8]∂ There are two observations
that I would like to draw from such recent events. First, in most instances, there are multiple reasons for
such tragedies. They are not solely the result of climate change but rather the product of several
complex social and environmental processes — of which climate change is but one. This, in turn, partly
explains our reluctance to engage in anticipatory adaptation: It is difficult to isolate the impact of
climate change (or any other environmental factor) in causing death, harm, and social dislocation.
Indeed, this has been one of the ongoing challenges and debates within environmental justice discourse,
i.e.: can you prove that the incinerator caused her cancer? Given the dynamics of global capitalism and
the political culture of the US, the complexity of environmental processes is regularly used as an excuse
to do nothing.∂ The second observation I would draw is that these catastrophes are impacting primarily
people of color. If we employ Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s definition of racism, as “the state-sanctioned or
extralegal production and exploitation of group-differentiated vulnerability to premature death,”
[9]then we can see how the consequences of global climate change are indeed an extension of the
ideology and practices that have resulted in U.S. environmental racism. Research has indicated that
people living in low-latitude riparian and coastal environments will bear the greatest impact of global
warming — areas that are populated primarily by poor people of color. [10]While we don’t say it
explicitly, our actions show that we consider these places and peoples expendable. To do otherwise
would simply require too great of an inconvenience and hardship to us. While Ross suggests that
Arizona’s anti-immigrant environment may be a “harbinger” of things to come, it should be readily
apparent that nonwhite residents of poor places are already experiencing extreme hardship and death.
In short, Ross is right-on to connect inequality, climate change, and triage, but we need only look at the
migrants crossing the Arizona desert and dying of dehydration to know that an informal triage is already
at work.
 2ac Impact – Turns Set Col

Warming magnifies settler impositions

Whyte 16. Kyle Powys Whyte, Michigan State University Timnick Chair in the Humanities, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Community Sustainability
In Press. “Is it Colonial Déjà Vu? Indigenous Peoples and Climate Injustice” November 2016. . Humanities for the Environment: Integrating Knowledges, Forging New
Constellations of Practice. Edited by Joni Adamson, Michael Davis, and Hsinya Huang. Earthscan Publications. Pages 88-104. ckm-eg.

Climate change fits succinctly within this pattern. For this reason, many contemporary Indigenous peoples are concerned
about their vulnerability, or susceptibility to be harmed, by impacts associated with the observed rise of
global average temperature, or climate change. That is, they are concerned about climate risks as they are
increasingly confronted by change stemming from the carbon intensive economic activities of settler
and other colonial societies. Climate change impacts can be seen through the lens of forms of containment (among other forms of domination), this
time arising from settler contributions to increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Warming waters and receding

glaciers affect the fish habitats in Indigenous territories all over the world, such as on the Pacific coast of North America
where many Tribal nations harvest salmon for economic and cultural purposes (Bennett et al.). Sea level rise is pushing people living in the Village of Kivalina in
Alaska, the Isle de St. Charles in the Gulf of Mexico, and the Carteret Atoll in Papua New Guinea to relocate (Maldonado et al.). In these cases we see 8 both
shrinking habitats and relocation occurring again. The Loita Maasai peoples in Africa face droughts that affect the rain conditions required for performing many of
their ceremonies (Saitabu). Indigenous women, girls and two spirit persons in the Arctic and Great Plains regions are subject to greater sexual violence, abuse and
trafficking as work camps for oil and gas extraction, such as ‘fracking,’ bring in male contractors to profit from the resources found within Indigenous territories
(Sweet). Climate change impacts and drivers represent another form of inflicted anthropogenic
environmental change. Scientific reports confirm many of the threats just described. In 2014, the U.S. National Climate Assessment states that
Indigenous peoples face the ‘loss of traditional knowledge in the face of rapidly changing ecological
conditions, increased food insecurity… changing water availability, Arctic sea ice loss, permafrost thaw, and relocation from
historic homeland’ (Bennett et al. 2). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report claims Indigenous peoples face

‘challenges to post-colonial power relations, cultural practices, their knowledge systems, and adaptive
strategies’ (Adger et al.). Indigenous peoples’ own descriptions of climate risk indicate that settler and other colonial societies are imposing rapid
environmental change that generates otherwise preventable harms. The Mandaluyong Declaration quotes Miskito women in the Americas who say, in response to
changing environmental conditions, that “We now live in a hurry and daughters do not cook as grandmothers… We do not catch fish as before, do not cook as
before; we cannot store food and seeds as before; the land no longer produces the same; small rivers are drying up… I think that along with the death of our rivers,
our culture dies also.” (300-01). For many Indigenous peoples, these
rapid changes are experienced as a continuation of
settler colonialism and other forms of colonialism that they have endured for many years. For we have
experienced these types of environmentally-related impacts before— from dietary change to relocation to sexual violence—though caused by different factors,
such as multiple settler institutions of containment. Though institutions of containment represent just one limited example of a much more complex history with
settler colonialism. Anthropogenic
climate change is of a piece with forms of nonconsensual and harmful
environmental change inflicted on our societies in the pas t. Some Indigenous peoples look at futures of 9 rampant climate injustice
as looking to the cyclical history of settler and other colonial inflictions of anthropogenic environmental change on Indigenous peoples in order to instantiate
erasure. Yet what is more insidious about climate injustice against Indigenous peoples is that the
settler institutions such as those of
containment, that inflicted environmental change in the past, are the same institutions that fostered
carbon-intensive economic activities on Indigenous territories . That is, containment strategies, such as removal of Indigenous
peoples to reservations or the forced adoption of corporate government structures, all facilitated extractive industries, deforestation and large-scale agriculture.
What is more, and as I will discuss in more detail in later sections, these
are the same institutions that today make it hard for
many Indigenous peoples to effectively cope with climate change impacts. In this way, climate injustice
against Indigenous peoples refers to the vulnerability caused by ongoing, cyclical colonialism both
because institutions facilitate carbon-intensive economic activities that produce adverse impacts
while at the same time interfering with Indigenous people’s capacity to adapt to the adverse impacts
 2ac Impact – AT: Defense

Defense is wrong -- it’s existential.

Ng ’19 [Yew-Kwang; May 2019; Professor of Economics at Nanyang Technology University, Fellow of
the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and Member of the Advisory Board at the Global Priorities
Institute at Oxford University, Ph.D. in Economics from Sydney University; Global Policy, “Keynote:
Global Extinction and Animal Welfare: Two Priorities for Effective Altruism,” vol. 10, no. 2, p. 258-266;
RP]

Catastrophic climate change

Though by no means certain, CCC causing global extinction is possible due to interrelated factors of non‐
linearity, cascading effects, positive feedbacks, multiplicative factors, critical thresholds and tipping
points (e.g. Barnosky and Hadly, 2016; Belaia et al., 2017; Buldyrev et al., 2010; Grainger, 2017; Hansen and Sato, 2012; IPCC 2014; Kareiva
and Carranza, 2018; Osmond and Klausmeier, 2017; Rothman, 2017; Schuur et al., 2015; Sims and Finnoff, 2016; Van Aalst, 2006).7

A possibly imminent tipping point could be in the form of ‘an abrupt ice sheet collapse [that] could cause a
rapid sea level rise’ (Baum et al., 2011, p. 399). There are many avenues for positive feedback in global warming,
including:

 the replacement of an ice sea by a liquid ocean surface from melting reduces the reflection and increases
the absorption of sunlight, leading to faster warming;
 the drying of forests from warming increases forest fires and the release of more carbon; and
 higher ocean temperatures may lead to the release of methane trapped under the ocean floor, producing
runaway global warming.
Though there are also avenues for negative feedback, the scientific consensus is for an overall net positive feedback (Roe and Baker, 2007).
Thus, the Global Challenges Foundation (2017, p. 25) concludes, ‘The world is currently completely unprepared to envisage,
and even less deal with, the consequences of CCC’.

The threat of sea‐level rising from global warming is well known, but there are also other likely and more
imminent threats to the survivability of mankind and other living things. For example, Sherwood and Huber (2010)
emphasize the adaptability limit to climate change due to heat stress from high environmental wet‐bulb
temperature. They show that ‘even modest global warming could … expose large fractions of the [world]
population to unprecedented heat stress’ p. 9552 and that with substantial global warming, ‘the area of land
rendered uninhabitable by heat stress would dwarf that affected by rising sea level’ p. 9555, making extinction much
more likely and the relatively moderate damages estimated by most integrated assessment models unreliably low.

While imminent extinction is very unlikely and may not come for a long time even under business as usual, the main point is that we cannot
rule it out. Annan and Hargreaves (2011, pp. 434–435) may be right that there is ‘an upper 95 per cent probability limit for S [temperature
increase] … to lie close to 4°C, and certainly well below 6°C’. However, probabilities of 5 per cent, 0.5 per cent , 0.05 per cent or
even 0.005 per cent of excessive warming and the resulting extinction probabilities cannot be ruled out
and are unacceptable. Even if there is only a 1 per cent probability that there is a time bomb in the
airplane, you probably want to change your flight. Extinction of the whole world is more important to
avoid by literally a trillion times.
Solvency
 2ac Expands Protection / Increases Hydropower

Dam trading expands protections while preserving an expansion of hydropower

Owen & Apse, 15 --- *Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, AND **Freshwater
Conservation Advisor, The Nature Conservancy (February 2015, Dave Owen and Colin Apse, “Trading
Dam,” 48 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1043, Nexis Uni, JMP)

Highlight

Over the past forty years, environmental trading systems have emerged as one of the primary
innovations of American environmental law. In fields ranging from climate change mitigation to
wetlands protection, regulated entities may now proceed with otherwise proscribed activities in return
for providing extra protection at some other place or time. At their best, these trades achieve
environmental goals while increasing flexibility and lowering the economic costs of regulation . In
practice, that promise has not always been achieved, and the emergence of environmental trading
systems has at times been quite controversial. But they have become increasingly pervasive.

This Article considers environmental trading in a new context. The United States contains tens of
thousands of dams, and these dams have drastically altered river systems. While many of these dams
also provide important societal benefits, a major reconfiguration of America's dams would greatly
improve those dams' collective balance between benefits and harms. To date, that kind of major
reconfiguration has not taken place. But a restoration project on Maine's Penobscot River illustrates
how trading might create such change. By exchanging reduced environmental regulatory constraints and
increased energy generation in some locations for dam removals and other environmental
improvements elsewhere, the project will create major environmental improvements without any loss
of hydropower.

Using that project as a model, this Article analyzes how trading systems might facilitate better
reconciliation of the positive benefits and negative impacts of dams. Our conclusions are qualified; while
we argue that trading systems hold promise, applying them to dams will not be easy. Nevertheless, the
concept is worth pursuing, and we offer a series of legal reforms to that end. More broadly, the analysis
illustrates both the promise and the challenges that face environmental trading systems as they
continue their expansion through the field of environmental law.

Penobscot Project demonstrates the effectiveness of dam trading in producing

protection and sustaining hydropower
Owen & Apse, 15 --- *Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, AND **Freshwater
Conservation Advisor, The Nature Conservancy (February 2015, Dave Owen and Colin Apse, “Trading
Dam,” 48 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1043, Nexis Uni, JMP)

In 2004, the participants ultimately were able to strike a deal. 218 For between twenty-four and twenty-
six million dollars (the actual price would depend on the timing of the purchase), the environmental
partners would purchase three dams. 219 Two would be removed. 220 The third would remain in place
(upstream landowners were deeply attached to the flatwater impoundment it created) but it would be
decommissioned and an innovative fish bypass facility would be installed. 221 Another upstream dam
also would receive an additional fish bypass facility. 222 In return for these environmental benefits, the
environmental coalition agreed to withhold opposition to the renewal of hydropower licenses at six
remaining dams. Those dams would either [*1078] continue to produce hydropower at their current
rate or would receive hydropower upgrades. 223

The resulting environmental changes should be dramatic. While the exact amounts are difficult to
calculate, scientists anticipate that thousands of kilometers of river and stream habitat will become
more accessible to the stronger swimmers (like salmon and shad) in the river system. 224 For species
that cannot negotiate fish ladders and rapids, fewer additional river miles will become available, but the
percentage increase in habitat will actually be much larger. 225

Numbers of increased fish are even more uncertain, but The Nature Conservancy's preliminary
estimates suggest that dramatic changes are likely. 226 The potential changes also extend beyond
improved fisheries. The removal of the Edwards Dam improved water quality, revitalized property
values, and renewed community interest in the riverfront. 227 Towns along the Penobscot already are
anticipating, and planning for, similar changes. 228

On their own, those benefits would establish the Penobscot Project as one of the nation's most
ambitious environmental restoration projects. But what sets the Penobscot Project apart is its impact, or
lack thereof, on hydropower generating capacity. 229 Had this been a simple dam removal project,
approximately 100 megawatts of generating power would have come out. 230 That capacity might have
been made up through fossil fuel combustion or some other environmentally damaging source. But by
moving turbines from one of the decommissioned dams to one of the remaining dams, and by making
several other adjustments, the dam owners will avoid any significant [*1079] reduction in hydropower
generation. 231 In fact, recent calculations have found that generating capacity has slightly increased.
232

What happened in the Penobscot Basin is not entirely unique. FERC has a long history of ordering off-
site mitigation to compensate for the impacts of new hydropower projects, and in some ways, the
Penobscot project just represents a more sophisticated and ambitious application of that concept. 233
On a few other river basins, FERC also has considered multiple hydropower facilities in a single
proceeding. 234 Indeed, a major multi-dam proceeding might be nearing a resolution for the Klamath
River, which for over a decade has been one of the nation's most prominent water conflicts. 235 In the
wake of the Penobscot project, the federal government also has actively searched for other watersheds
where basin-scale analyses might generate more effective systems of watershed management. 236
Several agencies are currently pursuing a pilot project on the Deschutes River in Oregon and beginning
studies on the Connecticut and Roanoke River basins. 237 Finally, ambitious basin-scale sustainable
hydropower projects are underway on major river systems in Africa and Central and South America. 238
Nevertheless, [*1080] the Penobscot remains a gold standard. To date, no river-basin project has done
quite as effective a job of translating systemic planning into action, or at combining sustained
hydropower production with potentially huge improvements in environmental quality.

III. Dams and the Frontiers of Environmental Trading

To us, and to many observers, the Penobscot Project seems worthy of imitation. 239 The opportunity
for imitation also exists, at least as a matter of ecology and engineering. 240 The key questions, then,
are what legal and economic conditions would facilitate such replication; whether those conditions are
present for dams; and, if they are not present, what reforms, if any, could remedy their absence.

Our answers to these questions turn on a key premise. While the Penobscot is a distinctive project, its
tradeoff between environmental improvements in some locations and hydropower upgrades in others
reflects an increasingly familiar approach to environmental protection. On a small scale, the Penobscot
project created an environmental trading system. And while almost nothing has been written about
applying trading system concepts to dams, the Penobscot project illustrates the possibilities. 241 Our
premise, then, is that the lessons from several decades of environmental trading can help us assess
whether trading dams will be viable, and about what reforms might increase that viability. We therefore
begin this section with a background discussion of environmental trading systems, from which we
extract general lessons for dam trading, and we then focus on specific metrics of potential failure or
success.

Before launching into that discussion, however, we offer a few words about what we mean by trading
dams. The concept could apply in several different scenarios. In the simplest, a dam owner might obtain
authorization to build, or continue operating, a dam in one location in return for removing a dam
somewhere else. 242 Somewhat more [*1081] ambitiously, the trades could involve larger numbers of
dams, with sustained or increased dam operations in a larger set of locations traded for a larger set of
coordinated removal projects. 243 The Penobscot Project exemplifies that latter model. 244
Alternatively, the trades might involve using dam removals to mitigate environmentally damaging
activities, like wetlands filling or other forms of habitat destruction, that don't involve dams. 245 Finally,
and most ambitiously, dam removals might be integrated into watershed-scale, multi-activity trading
programs, in which a broad suite of environmental restoration activities, including dam removal, offsets
a broad range of economic activities, including but not limited to dam operations. 246
[*1082] Figure 1. A Simple Interbasin Trade

In return for constructing new Dam E on the river basin at the left, the construction company agrees to remove dam D, which previously blocked the river basin at right. Because the new dam E will be located above two other dams (which we assume, for purposes of illustration, already
block fish passage), its environmental harm will be more than balanced by the gain from opening up river system 2.

[SEE FIGURE IN ORIGINAL]

Before: Dams A, B, C, and D block fish passage on both rivers.

[SEE FIGURE IN ORIGINAL]

After: New Dam E has gone in, but old dam D has been removed, opening one whole river system to fish.

[*1083] Figure 2. Trading Dam Removals for Other Activities

In return for obtaining authorization to fill a wetland area, the factory owners agree to fund the removal of an upstream dam. If the value of increased river connectivity is greater than the damage done by the wetland fill, then the trade should lead to improved environmental and
economic outcomes.

[SEE FIGURE IN ORIGINAL]

Before: The dam blocks the river, and the factory owners want to expand into the wetland area.

[SEE FIGURE IN ORIGINAL]

After: The wetlands have been filled, and in return the factory owners fund dam removal.

[*1084] We also envision dam trading achieving a variety of goals. In a basin where improved
environmental conditions are the primary goal, selective trading could help minimize the energy loss
associated with achieving that goal; dam owners could obtain the right to continue operating in more
economically desirable locations by agreeing to remove less economically valuable dams. 247
Conversely, in places where government policy demands increases in hydropower capacity, dam trading
could help planners achieve their energy capacity goals, or at least most of them, while minimizing
negative environmental side effects. 248 In a place where increased renewable energy generation and
improved environmental quality both are important public policy goals, trading could help reconcile
these two otherwise conflicting priorities. In short, endorsing the possibility of a trading regime does not
imply an associated endorsement of a particular balance between hydropower generation and
environmental protection.
 2ac Efficient Dam Removal

A cap-and-trade system for water infrastructure will ensure efficient removal of costly
dams
 Avoids political fights or individual dam decisions

Workman, 7 --- adviser and consultant on water and natural resources issues to governmental and
nongovernmental organizations, including the World Commission on Dams (FALL 2007, JAMES G.
WORKMAN, “How to Fix Our Dam Problems; Thousands of aging dams should be repaired or destroyed,
at a cost of billions. A cap-and-trade policy could speed the process and help pay the bills,”
https://issues.org/workman-water-crisis-drought-fix-dams/, JMP)

California is the world’s eighth largest economy and generates 13% of U.S. wealth. Yet Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger says high temperatures, low rainfall, and a growing population have created a water
crisis there. A third of the state is in extreme drought and, if there’s another dry season, faces
catastrophe. The governor fears that his economy could collapse without a $5.9 billion program to build
more dams.

His concerns are widely shared in the United States—not to mention in dry Australia, Spain, China, and
India. Yet as California desperately seeks new dam construction, it simultaneously leads the world in old
dam destruction. It razes old dams for the same reasons it raises new dams: economic security, public
safety, water storage efficiency, flood management, job creation, recreation, and adaptation to climate
change. Dam-removal supporters include water districts, golf courses, energy suppliers, thirsty cities,
engineers, farmers, and property owners.

With 1,253 dams risky enough to be regulated and 50 times that many unregistered small dams,
California is a microcosm of the world. There are more than 2.5 million dams in the United States,
79,000 so large they require government monitoring. There are an estimated 800,000 substantial dams
worldwide. But within the next two decades, 85% of U.S. dams will have outlived their average 50-year
lifespan, putting lives, property, the environment, and the climate at risk unless they are repaired and
upgraded.

Neither dam repair nor dam removal is a recent phenomenon. What is new is their scale and complexity
as well as the number of zeros on the price tag. Between 1920 and 1956, in the Klamath River drainage
22 dams were dismantled at a total cost of $3,000. Today, the removal of four dams on that same river
—for jobs, security, efficiency, safety, legal compliance, and growth—will cost upwards of $200 million.

Which old uneconomical dams should be improved or removed? Who pays the bill? The answers have
usually come through politics. Pro-dam and anti-dam interests raise millions of dollars and press their
representatives to set aside hundreds of millions more tax dollars to selectively subsidize pet dam
projects. Other bills bail out private owners: A current House bill earmarks $40 million for repairs;
another one sets aside $12 million for removals. The outcome is gridlock, lawsuits, debt spending,
bloated infrastructure, rising risks, dying fisheries, and sick streams.

Dam decisions don’t have to work that way. Rather than trust well-intentioned legislators, understaffed
state agencies, harried bureaucrats, or nonscientific federal judges to decide the fate of millions of
unique river structures, there’s another approach. State and federal governments should firmly set in
place safety and conservation standards, allow owners to make links between the costs and benefits of
existing dams, and then let market transactions bring health, equity, and efficiency to U.S. watersheds .
Social welfare, economic diversity, and ecological capital would all improve through a cap-and-trade
system for water infrastructure. This system would allow mitigation and offsets from the vast stockpile
of existing dams while improving the quality of, or doing away with the need for, new dam construction.
 2ac Legal Authorization Key

Clear legal authorization is key to effective dam trading system

Owen & Apse, 15 --- *Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, AND **Freshwater
Conservation Advisor, The Nature Conservancy (February 2015, Dave Owen and Colin Apse, “Trading
Dam,” 48 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1043, Nexis Uni, JMP)

1. Authorization

Perhaps the clearest bar to an environmental trading system is the absence of legal authorization to
engage in trading. Almost any trading system will be implemented by government agencies, and those
agencies only can use the regulatory tools given unto them by law. That might seem like a rather
obvious point, but it remains an important one; in recent years, EPA has lost court cases because judges
were convinced that the agency's trading systems were contrary to governing statutes. 290

For dams, which are often embedded in complex legal webs constructed without any thought of trading,
this lesson might seem daunting. Nevertheless, there are few general prohibitions to trading in those
laws. Instead, many existing provisions and established practices could provide foundations for
increased use of dam trading. The Federal Power Act's mandate for license approvals to comport with
"comprehensive plans" provides an obvious foundation for the planning that would precede
development of trading systems. 291 Similarly, FERC's established, and occasionally used, practice of
consolidating multiple licensing proceedings would provide an opportunity for more systemic decision-
making. 292 Indeed, on future licenses, FERC could draw upon another existing practice, including
reopener clauses in licenses, to align the timing of licensing proceedings throughout a river basin. 293
FERC already allows off-site mitigation, and extending that practice to encompass dam-removal
mitigation banks also would be a logical next step. 294 For state-regulated dams, the potential toolbox is
even larger. And we have not uncovered any state [*1091] laws that would preclude state-regulated
dam owners from participating in trading systems.

The greatest complexities would likely arise with congressionally authorized, federally owned dams. If
Congress has authorized the creation of a dam for a specific purpose, then additional congressional
action might be necessary to authorize that same dam's removal. 295 But even that limitation would not
preclude the inclusion of federally owned dams in a trading scheme, for federal dam managers could
still compensate for the impacts of their dams by funding removals of other dams in other locations.
296 In fact, given the scale of the impacts caused by federal dams, those federal agencies could become
major buyers. 297
 2ac Cap Key to Successful Dam Trading

***Note when prepping file --- a version of this ev is also in one version of the 1ac
Solvency

The regulation mandated by the plan is critical to ensure an effective dam trading
system
Owen & Apse, 15 --- *Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, AND **Freshwater
Conservation Advisor, The Nature Conservancy (February 2015, Dave Owen and Colin Apse, “Trading
Dam,” 48 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1043, Nexis Uni, JMP)

b. Regulatory Leverage

While high stakes and disparities in value are necessary for a successful trading regime, they are by no
means sufficient. Potential traders will generally need additional incentives for participation, and those
incentives generally come from some combination of regulatory sticks and financial carrots. With dams,
some of those sticks and carrots exist, but the resulting incentives are mixed and uneven.

The importance of carrots and sticks arises from a simple problem: Often an activity that has high costs
for society as a whole does not have high costs for the people actually engaged in that activity, usually
because the actors are able to externalize those costs. Until those costs become the focus of either
regulatory limitations, positive financial incentives, or both, the actors will have little reason to
participate in a trading scheme. That simple principle explains why a regulatory cap is a key element of
most environmental trading schemes: it is the simplest, though by no means the only, way of creating
that regulatory push.

Dam management is by no means immune from this need for incentives. A high-environmental-impact,
low-value, non-powered dam might seem like an optimal candidate for participation in a trading scheme
designed to encourage upgrades or removals. But if the dam's owner does not bear the cost of those
environmental impacts, his participation in a trading scheme is unlikely. 307 The incentives are even
lower if the dam owner faces [*1094] no safety-related obligations, does not pay to insure the dam,
and (as is entirely plausible in some states) does not even need to provide public information about the
dam. 308 For that reason, some regulatory compulsion for dam owners to internalize the negative
impacts of their dams is a key element of a successful trading scheme. 309

Existing dam law does an uneven job of providing those incentives. No federal or state law creates an
overall cap on any of the environmental impacts of dams , and environmental limits instead derive
from a patchwork of legal obligations. Those obligations are strongest during FERC relicensing processes,
when the combination of extensive procedural requirements and multiple environmental law levers
creates a powerful incentive for dam owners to consider whether continued operation of a dam really is
worthwhile. 310 But even the FERC process contains countervailing incentives, including a default
preference toward preserving dams, and FERC itself has been reluctant to actually order dam removals.
311 Recent congressional changes have been designed primarily to weaken regulatory leverage over
dams, and those changes undermine dam owners' incentives to account for their projects' negative
effects. 312 In the long periods between licensing processes, the incentives toward maintaining the
status quo are even more powerful. 313 Unless FERC or another regulatory agency invokes a "reopener"
clause and reconsiders license terms, dam owners are largely exempt from regulatory reexamination
during those long interim periods. 314 Consequently, a set of moderately favorable incentives can exist,
but only once every several decades.

For federal dams that are not regulated by FERC, the incentives toward maintaining the status quo are
similar, if not more powerful. No relicensing process exists, and once Congress authorizes a federally
[*1095] owned dam, the default presumption is that it will remain in place. 315 Indeed, making
significant changes to dam operations might actually be precluded by the dam's authorizing legislation.
316 Nor does any statute prescribe a process for concurrently evaluating the status of multiple dams,
and therefore considering how multi-dam systems might be realigned. That does not mean that federal
dams, once built, are exempt from regulatory oversight. Perhaps most importantly, dam operations
remain subject to the ESA, and consultation processes may lead to significant new constraints. 317 But
both procedural and substantive levers for reconsidering dam operations are significantly weaker than
they are for FERC-regulated dams.

For state-regulated dams, those levers are generally weakest of all. As discussed above, few states have
any procedural requirement for re-examining the environmental impacts of existing dams - unless
someone proposes to make a change to the dam. 318 In many states, substantive environmental
constraints on those operations are similarly sparse; while a few states have potentially important
environmental requirements for existing dams, in many those dams' environmental impacts are largely
unregulated. 319 Safety regulation could be a substitute incentive, but in many states, that regulation
exists largely on paper. 320 That does not mean state dam owners are entirely immune to legal
leverage. Even absent coverage under regulatory programs, the potential tort liability associated with a
failing dam might be incentive enough for a landowner to take some action. 321 The willingness of
government agencies and environmental groups to pay for dam removal also provides an important
lever, though one limited by the sizes of government and private purses. 322 But the reality in many
states is that [*1096] the path of least resistance, even for a dam with high environmental impacts and
very little social value, is to simply leave it in place.

Incentives to upgrade dams, and add additional or new hydropower capacity, are stronger but still quite
uneven. The potential profits from electricity sales are one incentive, particularly where renewable
incentive programs elevate the price for that electricity. 323 Similarly, recent federal interest in new
hydropower capacity may spur some development. 324 But we found very few legal processes designed
to promote the positive externalities of hydropower. FERC, for example, does not tell its relicensing
applicants, "your equipment is old and underperforming, and we won't grant this license unless you
make changes to generate more hydropower." Nor do dams, or other renewable energy projects, get
any special treatment through NEPA or ESA processes because of their potential benefits for air quality
and climate. 325 Similarly, few, if any, states have programs designed to identify promising locations for
new hydropower installations or upgrades. 326 Consequently, dam owners' easiest course of action is
often to preserve not just the environmental but also the energy status quo.

The consequence of these uneven incentives is a fragmented regulatory terrain only weakly conducive
to trading. The FERC process does provide relatively strong incentives, and when the relicensing process
is impending or in progress, dam owners might be particularly interested in identifying other dam
removals that could serve as mitigation. 327 And there might be many other dams nearby that could be
part of an environmentally and economically sensible deal. But without substantial increases in, and
adjustments to, regulatory oversight, the other dam owners will have little regulatory incentive to
participate in such deals, even if their dams produce little economic or societal value, and are likely to
become involved only if the offering price is sufficiently high. Sometimes it may be, but both private and
public funds for environmental restoration are fairly limited. Consequently, while the Penobscot project
succeeded largely because many dams were part of the discussion, the existing regulatory system
misses most opportunities for recreating that circumstance.
 2ac AT: Cap-and-Trade Fails

***Note when prepping file --- a longer version of this in the 1AC Adv Climate v2.0

Cap-and-trade empirically works --- will become more effective as it evolves

Owen & Apse, 15 --- *Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, AND **Freshwater
Conservation Advisor, The Nature Conservancy (February 2015, Dave Owen and Colin Apse, “Trading
Dam,” 48 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1043, Nexis Uni, JMP)

Economic and environmental need alone will not be sufficient to ensure replication, however. Law
matters as well, and here, too, the Penobscot River Restoration Project shows promise as a model.
Though it applies that concept in a novel setting, the project reflects environmental law's growing
emphasis on trading systems. 24 Such systems now pervade conventional air quality regulation, and
they have assumed increasingly important roles in greenhouse gas regulation, [*1049] wetlands
protection, fisheries management, habitat protection, and a variety of other contexts. 25 Within those
many realms, trading systems come in a wide variety of forms. The archetypal trading system is a cap-
and-trade program, 26 in which trades are numerous, trading currencies are well-developed, and
transaction costs are low. But there are other programs in which governmental intervention is nearly
continuous and trades resemble bartered deals more than the outputs of a functioning market. 27 In all
of these contexts, trading systems share key common features. Most importantly, they involve trading
increased protection in some times or places for increased environmental degradation at others, and
they use those trades as means to provide greater flexibility and economic efficiency. 28 They also have
spawned an extraordinary volume of legal and economic research, and, in some circles, have become
almost synonymous with regulatory innovation. 29 Indeed, some prominent commentators argue that
trading systems are the economically and democratically optimal mode of regulation, and therefore
should be the central regulatory instrument of environmental law. 30 Dams, then, might seem like the
logical next frontier, and the Penobscot project, with its impressive balance of environmental [*1050]
improvement and sustained energy production, would seem to exemplify the possibilities. 31

Environmental law's forty-year experiment with trading systems, however, demonstrates that applying
trading concepts in this context would not be simple. While trading systems have succeeded in some
contexts, in others their track record is quite mixed. 32 Many theoretical and empirical critiques of
trading systems have helped explain their uneven record. 33 The history of environmental trading
systems therefore provides grounds for caution, and the cautionary tale clearly applies to dams. The
complexities of dams, and the rivers they occupy, will probably never allow for anything akin to the high-
volume, low-transaction-cost markets that exist for things like carbon or sulfur dioxide emissions. Even
more barter-like systems will be challenging to create. 34

But that cautionary note should not end the inquiry. A third lesson of environmental trading systems is
that they can be functional, and useful, even where they never will approach an economist's ideal
market. Trading systems also can become more effective as both regulators and the regulated learn
and adapt. 35 Even in contexts that never will be optimal for trading systems, they can succeed as
components of broader regulatory regimes. 36 These possibilities inform our core conclusions, which
are that more dam trading should occur; [*1051] reforms to facilitate trading should be implemented;
and the process of regulatory experimentation and learning should begin. 37

This Article's analysis proceeds as follows: Part I surveys the status of dams in the United States,
discussing their current and potential value, their environmental harms, and the complex legal regimes
to which they are subject. That analysis underscores the need for more projects like the Penobscot, as
well as the extent to which dams, which lately have lacked the legal-academic cachet of wind, solar, or
fracking, remain crucially important for energy and environmental law. Part II describes the Penobscot
River Restoration Project in more detail. Part III then draws on the history and literature of
environmental trading systems to evaluate their potential application to dams, and to identify factors
that could facilitate or discourage other projects like the Penobscot. Part IV builds on that evaluation to
recommend reforms that would make dam trading a more widespread option.

In describing those reforms, and in providing a broader analysis of the possibilities for dam trading, we
offer three primary contributions to the existing literature. Most importantly, we identify steps that
would help reconcile society's interest in reducing the massive environmental impacts of dams with its
need for non-fossil fuel energy. While many articles have focused on the former problem, 38 and some,
more recently, have considered hydropower's potential contributions to the latter goal, 39 none has
provided an in-depth analysis of the extent to which these seemingly opposing goals may be legally
reconciled. 40 Relatedly, [*1052] this Article provides the broadest analysis of which we are aware of
the legal incentive structures that drive or, more often, inhibit thoughtful management of our system of
dams. Our final contribution is to provide a window into a cutting edge of environmental trading
systems, which have evolved considerably since they first emerged in the 1970s and 1980s. 41 An
analysis of dams illustrates both emerging possibilities and continuing challenges.

Trading system can evolve to become more effective

Owen & Apse, 15 --- *Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, AND **Freshwater
Conservation Advisor, The Nature Conservancy (February 2015, Dave Owen and Colin Apse, “Trading
Dam,” 48 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1043, Nexis Uni, JMP)

A. The Evolution of Environmental Trading Systems

The reforms we advocate for dams can trace their intellectual roots to smokestacks and swamps. 249
Beginning in the early 1970s, regulators emphasized uniform standards for all analogous sources of
pollution. 250 But critics noted that uniform standards might be inefficient if, as is often the case,
compliance costs differ from source to source. 251 If regulators instead established overall caps on
levels of pollution, gave (or auctioned) regulated firms entitlements to pollute up to that cap, and
allowed those regulated firms to trade their entitlements, the same environmental outcomes might be
achieved with greater economic efficiency. 252 Firms [*1085] that could abate pollution more cheaply
could reduce their emissions more than they otherwise would have been required to, and then could
sell the "credits" created by the excess reductions to firms for which pollution abatement would be
more costly. 253 Compliance burdens, in other words, would be allocated through trading to those firms
that could shoulder those costs most cheaply.
In a relatively short time, this idea metamorphosed from a fringe critique into one of environmental
law's central policy innovations. 254 Regulators tested this concept at individual facilities, allowing
increases in pollution at one smokestack to be offset by reductions at another. 255 They soon expanded
the concept to allow trading among different and separately owned facilities. 256 They also allowed
"banking," which means allowing regulated entities to trade excess reductions of pollution in the short
term for more generous allowances in the future. 257 Trading initially was quite controversial; in
addition to concerns about its efficacy, many environmentalists worried that trading systems implied a
normative endorsement of pollution, or the creation of "rights" to pollute. 258 But air quality trading
programs became increasingly prevalent, and they also appeared to succeed. 259 Trading programs
have now become deeply entrenched, and broadly supported, in the field of air quality regulation, and
new regulatory programs for greenhouse gas emissions often place central reliance upon this approach.
260 They also have generated some of environmental law's most enduring academic debates.

[*1086] Meanwhile, habitat protection programs were evolving along a similar trajectory. 261
Offsetting, or "mitigating," habitat degradation at one place or time with environmental improvements
elsewhere had a long history in environmental regulation. With dams, for example, mitigation had been
widely (and often disastrously) used for decades, and dam builders often attempted to mitigate their
dams' impacts by constructing fish ladders and hatcheries. 262 But use of this approach accelerated with
the emergence of CWA Section 404, which prohibits unpermitted dredging and filling of wetlands and
waterways. 263

The national wetlands policy implemented under section 404 is somewhat like a cap-and-trade scheme.
The cap is a national policy against net loss of wetlands. 264 Pursuant to that policy, the Army Corps of
Engineers, which holds primary responsibility for implementing section 404, generally requires permit
applicants to avoid wetlands entirely, if possible, and to minimize any impacts that cannot be avoided.
265 For many development projects, however, some impact remains unavoidable, and stopping all of
those projects has never been a politically tenable option. The Army Corps instead has turned to
compensatory mitigation. 266 Sometimes that compensatory mitigation occurs through the permittee
itself constructing or restoring a substitute wetland, and sometimes it occurs through the payment of
fees (referred to as in-lieu fees) that support some other entity's wetland restoration work. 267 In other
circumstances, private wetlands mitigation "banks" create or restore wetlands and then sell credits to
future developers. 268 [*1087] In a relatively short time, wetlands mitigation has become a billion-
dollar industry. 269

While air quality and wetlands are the two most prominent examples of environmental trading systems,
variations on trading concepts now pervade environmental law. 270 Off-site mitigation, often involving
banking, is now central to the habitat conservation planning process under section ten of the ESA. 271
Transferable fishing quotas have become increasingly popular. 272 Advocates have argued that trading
systems can bring conservation into otherwise wasteful systems of water rights. 273 Many municipal
governments attempt to use tradable development rights to direct urban growth toward preferred
locations. 274 Though the trading systems vary considerably, the common foundation of nearly all of
these systems is a belief that allowing regulated entities to trade increased environmental degradation
in some locations for increased protection in others can be a more efficient and less intrusive way to
conduct environmental regulation. 275
Despite some successes, actual results have not always lived up to that theoretical promise. Wetlands
mitigation provides one prominent example: for years, plenty of trading occurred, but the constructed
or restored wetlands often offered poor compensation for the wetlands that had been lost. 276 In other
contexts, programs have failed to get started. The United States Environmental Protection Agency
("EPA") has been promoting water quality trading systems for years, but the few programs that even
exist have generated very low volumes of trading. 277 In others, [*1088] a lack of post-trade
monitoring makes the program difficult to evaluate. 278 And even with the programs most commonly
hailed as successes, debate continues about the extent of their success, and the reasons for it. 279

Trading also continues to generate more theoretical and normative critiques. One key objection is that
trading programs far too often involve trading things that are incommensurate, with environmental
protection typically on the losing end of the deal. 280 More broadly, some critics still argue that trading
entrenches a market-oriented worldview, in which environmental ethics are subordinated to utilitarian
calculations of profit. 281

Those critiques have force, but the history of trading systems offers a third key lesson: the world of
environmental trading systems is not rigidly divided between successes and failures. Trading systems
can improve, and perhaps the best example of this improvement is the wetlands mitigation system.
Originally, EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers favored compensation through construction of on-site
wetlands. 282 But the new wetlands often failed, in large part because their geographic isolation; a
constructed wetland surrounded by shopping mall parking is unlikely to thrive. 283 In response to those
failures, the Corps has moved toward systems that aggregate compensatory mitigation funds into larger
accounts and use those funds [*1089] to restore and protect higher-value wetlands. 284 Mitigation
experts generally agree that this approach holds more promise. 285 That is just one change, of course,
but the wetlands program also offers other examples, 286 and in many other contexts, trading programs
can improve as participants learn from experience. 287

For dams, then, the still-unfolding story of environmental trading systems offers economic promise,
warning, and the possibility of learning. The promise remains the theoretical flexibility and cost savings
associated with trading systems, as well as their track record of success in some circumstances. 288 The
warning stems from their struggles and, sometimes, failures in other realms. Trading systems are useful
tools, but not for every problem, and not unless they are designed and implemented with care. 289 And
the possibility of learning should provide some reassurance that dam trading, even if initially tentative,
limited, and sometimes unsuccessful, can evolve - if the first experiments begin.
 2ac AT: Dam Trading Not Possible / No Enforcement

Implementation and enforcement challenges are manageable --- scientists and

engineers can more effectively analyze rivers to prioritize dams for removal
Owen & Apse, 15 --- *Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, AND **Freshwater
Conservation Advisor, The Nature Conservancy (February 2015, Dave Owen and Colin Apse, “Trading
Dam,” 48 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1043, Nexis Uni, JMP)

3. Information

A third key element in the success of almost any trading scheme is governmental procurement,
management, and dissemination of information. For dam trading, that poses a serious challenge, and,
again, a potential focus for reforms.

The claim that trading systems necessitate information management may initially sound surprising, for
some of the early literature on trading suggested otherwise. Much like other market systems, the
thinking went, a trading system could draw upon the knowledge of many dispersed actors, significantly
reducing the knowledge burdens placed upon centralized government regulators. 328 Decades later,
however, the bloom is off that rose. Regulators have learned that setting the initial rules for trading
systems, determining whether trades actually would be environmentally protective, and verifying that
traders are following through on their commitments all can be information-intensive exercises. 329
Without the requisite information, a trading system can fail to fulfill its environmentally protective goals,
or can simply collapse. 330

The informational challenges of environmental trading systems derive largely from the necessity of
trading incommensurable things. 331 Most of the items that environmental traders deal are not fully
fungible. For air pollutants, for example, location usually matters; a decrease in emissions in a downwind
area may not offset an increase farther upwind, even if the amounts are exactly the same. 332 For
wetlands and habitat trading programs, the non-fungibility problems are even more acute. 333 No two
wetlands, forests, or meadows are exactly the same, and a wide variety of geographic, ecological, and
social factors will determine whether the habitat that is created or preserved offers reasonable
compensation for the habitat destroyed. 334 That creates a [*1098] potentially enormous challenge for
trading systems: how does one obtain and process the information necessary to determine whether
trades are adequate, or compensate for that information's absence?

Existing trading programs address these issues in several ways, each somewhat flawed. One is to
measure trades by using some simple currency - pounds of CO₂e, 335 for example, or acres of wetlands -
and to ignore any incommensurability that the currency fails to capture. 336 That approach lowers
transaction costs, but, unfortunately, it also can routinely place environmental protection on the losing
side of deals. 337 Alternatively, regulators can establish trading ratios - that is, they can require 10 acres
of protection for each acre of loss, to compensate for potential unevenness - or they can review each
trade to make sure it offers fair value. 338 Both approaches offer better assurances of environmental
protection, but the costs to regulated entities are higher. 339 Indeed, if the regulators' information
demands are sufficiently high, deals may not be worth pursuing at all.
These informational complexities raise a related challenge: addressing them often requires specialized
expertise. There are some environmental trading systems that function like an economist's idealized
market, with arms-length, low-transaction cost deals somewhat akin to traditional stock or bond trades.
340 But even those markets require tremendous effort to create. In other environmental trading
systems - wetlands again are a good example - each trade tends to require oversight and review. 341
That in turn creates the need for experience-based knowledge, both among the traders and the [*1099]
regulators. 342 Traders will need the ability to predict what sort of deal will be approved, lest the
system be untenably uncertain, and regulators will need some basis for judging quickly whether a trade
is satisfactory, lest they approve unreasonable deals or drive up costs by making slow decisions. These
problems are not insurmountable, but addressing them takes time and effort.

For dam trading, these informational challenges are potentially substantial. Each dam is embedded in a
unique context, and the significant effects, both positive and negative, of dam removals will generally
ensure the need for ample information about any potential trade. The intricacies of river ecology
contribute to those complexities, and the webs of human interests associated with dams also can take
time to sort out. Particularly in western states, where water is relatively scarce, dams are likely to be
embedded in complex legal regimes of property rights in water and land. 343 Even beyond those rights,
the normal human tendency to view a river or a reservoir as a community resource creates a need to
gather information about, inform, and respond to public preferences. 344 Dam trading also is an almost
completely new concept (and our recent emphasis on dam removal isn't much older), and that too
creates challenges. Agency guidance on dam trading is nearly non-existent, and the decades-long
learning processes that inform air quality and wetlands trading have barely begun to occur. 345 Even
with the Penobscot project as a potential model, any entity embarking on a dam trading exercise would
still be a pioneer.

Nevertheless, these challenges could become more manageable. Perhaps most importantly, scientists
and engineers can analyze river systems in ways that weren't possible twenty or thirty years ago. 346
[*1100] Using geographic information systems and computer-based modeling, water resource planners
have begun creating prioritization maps that identify dams that ought to be prime ecological candidates
for removal. 347 Other studies have moved beyond single-dam prioritization lists and developed
optimization systems, which are designed to identify what sequence of dam changes will best balance
competing goals. 348 Several more recent studies have broadened the scope of the analysis, attempting
to identify environmental and hydropower opportunities throughout entire river basins. 349 All of these
trends reflect water planners' increasing reliance on sophisticated basin-scale modeling, which can allow
planners to identify management approaches that optimize multiple competing goals . 350 The changes
also aren't just technocratic. As dam removals become increasingly prevalent, communities are
beginning to appreciate the values associated with restoring free-flowing rivers. 351

The resulting studies could benefit dam trading operations in multiple ways. Initially, they could help
identify dams that should be targets for mitigation or upgrades. 352 That identification might be done
by the potential traders themselves or by third-party advocacy organizations. Alternatively, regulators
might use basin-scale modeling to help pre-define the rules of a trading system. By identifying targeted
locations for mitigation projects, and by predetermining the credits [*1101] associated with those
projects, they could create greater certainty for future traders, lowering the transaction costs and
accelerating the operations of the trading system. 353 Alternatively, modeling might help regulators
define more sophisticated currencies for dam trading systems. By moving beyond relatively simple
metrics, like river miles, and instead using metrics that integrate multiple values, regulators might direct
system participants toward higher-value trades.

For trading to succeed, however, sophisticated informational tools are certainly not enough. Potential
traders also need guidance on how that information base would be integrated into regulatory decision-
making. Here, as well, some nascent efforts show promise. Perhaps the most intriguing comes from
North Carolina, where state environmental agencies and the Army Corps of Engineers have begun to
develop trading ratios when dam removal projects are used as mitigation for filling streams. 354 Their
initiative was limited (and short-lived); 355 they only contemplated trades in which dam removals would
create credits for filling streams, and not for other activities like maintaining other existing dams. 356
But the basic concept could be refined and extended to other forms of trades; for example, similar
guidance could govern trades in which dam removal compensates for other habitat-impacting activities.
357 These initial efforts are just a beginning; the decades-long and still-ongoing process of developing
the wetlands trading program demonstrates just how much guidance and experience may ultimately be
necessary. 358 But they still provide promising signs.

In conclusion, the need for information creates big challenges and important reform opportunities for
dam management. With rare [*1102] exceptions, existing informational systems are not robust enough
to support extensive trading. And some informational challenges probably always will remain;
environmental trades involving dams will always face more friction than those involving sulfur dioxide
emissions, for example, and the unique context of each dam will necessitate some site-specific tailoring
of each trade. But a combination of evolving information technology and increasing experience could
make information demands less of a barrier, particularly if regulators take active steps toward
developing a stronger informational base.

Plan produces better dam management even if trades don’t materialize

Owen & Apse, 15 --- *Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, AND **Freshwater
Conservation Advisor, The Nature Conservancy (February 2015, Dave Owen and Colin Apse, “Trading
Dam,” 48 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1043, Nexis Uni, JMP)

IV. Integrating Reforms: A Model Program

The preceding discussion identifies a variety of challenges and implies many reforms. To bring our
reform ideas into focus, we therefore close with a sketch of a model reform program. For several
reasons, we focus on states (though some analogous changes could occur at the federal level). First,
state dam laws have tremendous room for improvement. As discussed above, state dam law is often
highly underdeveloped, and what law exists is not always implemented in any meaningful way. 359
Second, in the literature on dams, states have received the least attention. Consequently, while we think
promising reforms could and should occur at the federal level, 360 the prescriptions that follow explain
what a thoughtful state might do with its dams.

If implemented, the reforms below should help facilitate the trading of dams. But, as we have discussed,
dam trading will still present [*1103] challenges, and improvements in dam management would be
possible even in the absence of trades. For that reason, we have emphasized reforms that would
encourage trading but would also produce more sensible dam management even if true trading systems
do not emerge.

The current stakes and mixture of dams make successful trading possible
Owen & Apse, 15 --- *Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, AND **Freshwater
Conservation Advisor, The Nature Conservancy (February 2015, Dave Owen and Colin Apse, “Trading
Dam,” 48 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1043, Nexis Uni, JMP)

2. Levers and Incentives

A more complicated story emerges from the incentive structures applicable to dam trading.
Environmental trades almost always occur because some combination of regulatory leverage and
financial incentives induces a redirection of environmentally harmful behavior. 298 But for dams, these
levers and incentives are limited. That need not preclude trading, but the negative signals make it less
likely and offer promising targets for reform.

a. Stakes

One of the most important sources of both leverage and incentive is the presence of high economic and
environmental stakes. Simply put, something that is not economically valuable is not likely to be traded.
Any such system creates transaction costs, and some economic value is necessary to make shouldering
those costs worthwhile. Similarly, if the environmental stakes are low, there will be little reason to
create the regulatory structures necessary to support a trading system.

[*1092] The importance of high stakes also may seem rather obvious, but it is worth emphasizing for a
simple reason. With dams, the economic stakes are not accidental byproducts of some invisible hand,
but instead are determined in large part by law. Energy markets are heavily subsidized and sometimes
heavily regulated, and the combination of subsidies, regulatory constraints, and regulatory exemptions
plays a significant role in determining prices. 299 If competing energy sources like coal and oil can
continue to externalize many of their environmental costs, their prices will remain relatively low, and
hydropower's competitive position will suffer. 300 But if climate regulation or even more traditional
Clean Air Act implementation leads to tougher controls on fossil fuel emissions, the economic appeal of
hydropower should rise. 301 Similarly, if more states adopt renewable portfolio standards or other
energy pricing incentives that include hydropower, then energy suppliers will be willing to pay a
premium for hydropower. 302 Those changes in turn should accelerate interest in upgrading dams and
other waterworks. 303 That could simply entrench existing dams, even if their environmental impacts
are substantial. But increases in the economic value of hydropower also could generate profits that then
could be tapped to support environmental mitigation. In short, the fate of dam trading is closely linked
to climate and energy policy more generally, and among the many potential benefits of more
progressive energy laws could be a more dynamic approach to dams.

The importance of high stakes does come with one caveat: for the trading system to work, those stakes
cannot be equally high everywhere. If every dam has a similar ratio of social benefit to environmental
harm, there will be little to gain from trades. 304 Only where significant disparities exist - in other words,
where some dams produce much more positive social value for each increment of environmental harm
than others - will there be an incentive to trade upgrades or maintenance at [*1093] the higher value
dams for removals at the lower-value sites. For dams, such disparities of value clearly do exist. 305 In
general, larger dams tend to produce more positive and negative impacts than smaller ones. But the
relationships are not uniform, and the American landscape is heavily populated with dams that produce
significant environmental impacts while providing few public benefits, if any at all. 306

In short, the stakes already weigh in favor of dam trading. And if energy and environmental law
generally move toward greater regulation of greenhouse gas emissions or conventional air pollutants,
the stakes could become even more favorable.
 2ac AT: Authors Advocate State Reforms

Authors agree reforms should occur at the federal level too

Owen & Apse, 15 --- *Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, AND **Freshwater
Conservation Advisor, The Nature Conservancy (February 2015, Dave Owen and Colin Apse, “Trading
Dam,” 48 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1043, Nexis Uni, JMP)

IV. Integrating Reforms: A Model Program

The preceding discussion identifies a variety of challenges and implies many reforms. To bring our
reform ideas into focus, we therefore close with a sketch of a model reform program. For several
reasons, we focus on states (though some analogous changes could occur at the federal level). First,
state dam laws have tremendous room for improvement. As discussed above, state dam law is often
highly underdeveloped, and what law exists is not always implemented in any meaningful way. 359
Second, in the literature on dams, states have received the least attention. Consequently, while we think
promising reforms could and should occur at the federal level, 360 the prescriptions that follow explain
what a thoughtful state might do with its dams.

If implemented, the reforms below should help facilitate the trading of dams. But, as we have discussed,
dam trading will still present [*1103] challenges, and improvements in dam management would be
possible even in the absence of trades. For that reason, we have emphasized reforms that would
encourage trading but would also produce more sensible dam management even if true trading systems
do not emerge.

***start of footnote #360***

While a full description of these recommendations is beyond the scope of this paper, we think several
federal reforms offer promise: (1) FWS and NMFS could issue guidance on using dam removals as
mitigation for impacts to endangered species; (2) FWS could use endangered species recovery planning
as a platform for developing basin-scale restoration plans. Those plans could identify opportunities - and
mitigation values - for dam removals, and could also identify overall caps on dam-related species
impacts; (3) The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could develop guidance documents on using dam removal
to mitigate the impacts of filling wetlands and waterways; (4) FERC could reserve authority to reopen
licenses whenever a basin-scale planning effort is underway; (5) FERC could adjust the duration of
licenses so that multiple facilities on the same river come up for relicensing at the same time; (6) FERC
could impose system benefits charges on all hydropower operators to create a funding base for basin-
scale planning; (7) Integrating and expanding upon the preceding ideas, FERC, other federal agencies,
and state agencies could create procedures for "general dam adjudications," which would concurrently
address the environmental impacts of dams throughout a river system; (8) FERC could create a revolving
planning fund, which would be replenished by charging a portion of the profits of dams allowed to
remain in place. We are indebted to Richard Roos-Collins for that last suggestion.

***end of footnote #360***

Workman says federal government should set standards too
Workman, 7 --- adviser and consultant on water and natural resources issues to governmental and
nongovernmental organizations, including the World Commission on Dams (FALL 2007, JAMES G.
WORKMAN, “How to Fix Our Dam Problems; Thousands of aging dams should be repaired or destroyed,
at a cost of billions. A cap-and-trade policy could speed the process and help pay the bills,”
https://issues.org/workman-water-crisis-drought-fix-dams/, JMP)

Dam decisions don’t have to work that way. Rather than trust well-intentioned legislators, understaffed
state agencies, harried bureaucrats, or nonscientific federal judges to decide the fate of millions of
unique river structures, there’s another approach. State and federal governments should firmly set in
place safety and conservation standards, allow owners to make links between the costs and benefits of
existing dams, and then let market transactions bring health, equity, and efficiency to U.S. watersheds.
Social welfare, economic diversity, and ecological capital would all improve through a cap-and-trade
system for water infrastructure. This system would allow mitigation and offsets from the vast stockpile
of existing dams while improving the quality of, or doing away with the need for, new dam construction.
 2ac AT: Removal => Sediment Discharge

Sediment stabilization is routinely part of dam removals

Waldman, 15 --- professor of biology at Queens College, NY, worked for 20 years at the Hudson River
Foundation for Science and Environmental Research (AUGUST 6, 2015, John, “Undamming Rivers: A
Chance For New Clean Energy Source; Many hydroelectric dams produce modest amounts of power yet
do enormous damage to rivers and fish populations. Why not take down these aging structures, build
solar farms in the drained reservoirs, and restore the natural ecology of the rivers?”
https://e360.yale.edu/features/undamming_rivers_a_chance_for_new_clean_energy_source, JMP)

One other issue facing the Conowingo Dam removal would be the sediments behind the dam that would
need to be stabilized. The reservoir itself is close to capacity, and current plans are to dredge the pool,
at an estimated cost of $48 million to $267 million annually. Those who are concerned for the ecological
health of the Chesapeake Bay fear that if the dam is removed, millions of tons of sediment, enriched
with nutrients and, potentially, toxic substances, could pour into the bay. But sediment stabilization is
routinely done in dam removals and could be safely accomplished with careful design and engineering.
 2ac AT: No Enforcement

States enforce national standards related to dams

Graf, 3 --- Professor of Geography at the University of South Carolina (NOVEMBER 2003, William L.
Graf, UNIVERSITIES COUNCIL ON WATER RESOURCES, WATER RESOURCES UPDATE, ISSUE 126, PAGES
54-59, “The Changing Role of Dams in Water Resources Management,”
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/William-Graf-
2/publication/49518263_The_Changing_Role_of_Dams_in_Water_Resources_Management/links/00b4
9534fd56fe69bb000000/The-Changing-Role-of-Dams-in-Water-Resources-Management.pdf, JMP)

States also enter the decision-making arena for dams via their management of water rights, but of
greater importance is the states’ role in application of the Clean Water Act. This act empowers the
federal government to set standards for water quality, for example, but the authority for monitoring and
enforcement of the standards is usually exercised by state agencies.

Additionally, the state dam safety officers periodically inspect dams and approve their continued
operations. A national Dam Safety Office coordinates standards and reporting, but most of the authority
related to dam safety resides at the state level.
CP Answers
 2ac CP States

The counterplans fails – 2 reasons

1. Federal dams are eco hubs that generate half of hydropower AND FERC separately
regulates 2,000 other hydro dams
2. Not including all dams under an overarching national policy creates an arbitrary
regulatory framework AND regional bias that undermine effective tech and skill
development necessary for U.S. competitive advantage to help other countries with
dam removal and mitigation. That’s Workman

Federal dams are critical --- states can’t regulate them, they generate over 50% of
hydropower, have significant environmental effects and undermine fish migrations
 Federal dams are the first some fish encounter when going up stream

Owen & Apse, 15 --- *Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, AND **Freshwater
Conservation Advisor, The Nature Conservancy (February 2015, Dave Owen and Colin Apse, “Trading
Dam,” 48 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1043, Nexis Uni, JMP)

2. Federally Owned Dams

While the FERC regulatory process dominates the legal-academic literature on dams, the federal
government also owns dams, and those dams are beyond FERC's jurisdiction . 149 Between them, seven
federal agencies own 171 hydroelectric dams. 150 Many of these dams are among the nation's largest -
collectively, they contain just over 50% of the nation's hydroelectric capacity - and they have some of
the farthest-reaching environmental and non-environmental effects. 151 They also are subject to a very
different legal regime.

The authorizing statute for each dam provides the primary legal blueprint for its management, with
subsequent water resource development acts providing additional overlays. 152 Those blueprints can be
complex, often specifying multiple purposes for management of the dam. 153 What they generally do
not do, however, is create administrative processes for reconsidering dam operations. Federally owned
dams therefore are not subject to a process like FERC relicensing, and the leverage that the FPA supplies
to other agencies and to environmental advocates is missing. Similarly, CWA section 401, [*1068]
which supplies states with significant leverage over FERC-regulated projects, does not apply. 154

That does not mean federally owned dams are free of regulatory constraint. In addition to authorizing
legislation, other federal statutes, like the ESA and NEPA, do still apply. 155 Indeed, ESA obligations
provide one of the primary legal levers that advocates can use to compel changes in federal dam
management, and on ongoing dispute on California's Yuba River, where the National Marine Fisheries
Service ("NMFS") recently attempted to compel a massive fish passage project, illustrates the
possibilities. 156 Congress also has often authorized, if not clearly obligated, changes designed to
mitigate the adverse environmental effects of federal water projects. 157 But the absence of a
relicensing process with a regulatory overseer creates a very different, and often weaker, leverage
structure than exists for FERC-regulated dams.

Because of these differences, environmental advocates and regulators generally have less influence
over federally owned dams than they do over federally regulated dams . That disparity in influence also
can produce some interesting side effects. On some river systems, the first dam anadromous fish
encounter as they migrate upstream is a federally owned dam, and upstream from that dam is a series
of FERC-regulated dams. 158 In that circumstance, the federally owned dam can serve as a [*1069]
partial regulatory shield, keeping protected fish populations, and the legal obligations that come with
them, from reaching the upstream dams.

Federal action is key --- FERC has jurisdiction over all non-federal hydropower dams ---
they have significant benefits and environmental costs
Owen & Apse, 15 --- *Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, AND **Freshwater
Conservation Advisor, The Nature Conservancy (February 2015, Dave Owen and Colin Apse, “Trading
Dam,” 48 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1043, Nexis Uni, JMP)

C. The Legal Regime

The central point of the preceding discussion is that our system of dams is enormous, influential, and
haphazardly matched to modern societal needs. Ideally, our response would be a broad program of
dam reform, in which many dams come out and others are re-operated to produce different benefits -
including, sometimes, more hydropower - and in which those adjustments follow careful planning
efforts designed to identify the best places for changes. The extent to which that response can occur,
however, depends partly upon law, and this section therefore reviews the laws of dams. It is necessarily
a brief overview, for these laws are much too complex to describe in detail in a few pages. Nevertheless,
even this brief summary should illustrate two overarching points. First, key parts of existing law create a
strong bias toward the status quo, and against any actions that would either generate new hydropower
or lead to dam removals. Second, while the system allows systemic reassessment of dams, it does
almost nothing to compel such analysis. It is, in short, a system suited primarily for sporadic, ad hoc
adjustments.

1. Federally-Regulated Hydropower Dams

The most extensive legal regime applies to hydropower dams that are licensed by the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission ("FERC"). 113 FERC has jurisdiction over all hydroelectric dams located on
waterways to which federal commerce clause or public lands authority extends. 114 Only a small
percentage of dams meet those criteria; because most dams do not generate hydropower, they fall
outside FERC's jurisdiction, as do the dams that the federal government itself owns. 115 Nevertheless,
hydropower dams are often relatively big, and FERC-regulated dams [*1063] therefore produce a
disproportionate share of social benefits and environmental costs. 116

The core statute governing FERC's hydropower licensing authority is the Federal Power Act ("FPA"). 117
The FPA contains detailed procedural provisions setting forth the requirements for licensing processes,
118 defines the substantive standards FERC must use to evaluate license applications, 119 and also
defines the boundaries between state and federal authority over hydropower systems. 120 For decades,
FERC interpreted and applied those provisions in ways that favored strong federal authority and
expanding hydropower, and the agency was widely perceived as closely aligned with, and perhaps
captured by, the industry it was charged with regulating. 121 Congress often encouraged that alignment.
Even in the 1970s, after the dawn of the environmental law era, an energy-hungry Congress continued
to create incentives for aggressive hydropower development. 122

In the 1970s and 1980s, however, the tide began to turn, and a series of legal changes turned the FPA
into a more environmentally protective statute. 123 Some of those changes were internal to the FPA.
Congress made environmental protection one of the core goals of the licensing process, and it also
empowered other government agencies to demand that FERC condition licenses upon environmental
protection measures, including the installation of facilities to allow fish passage. 124 Some [*1064]
derived from other environmental statutes. Most importantly, FERC must comply with the National
Environmental Policy Act ("NEPA"), which requires detailed assessments of the environmental impacts
of licensing decisions; 125 the Endangered Species Act ("ESA"), which prohibits FERC from approving
actions that would "jeopardize" the continued existence of protected species or adversely modify their
"critical habitat," and also limits "take" of protected species; 126 and section 401 of the Clean Water Act
("CWA"), which obligates license applicants to obtain certifications that their proposed operations will
be consistent with state water quality standards. 127 FERC initially resisted these requirements, but
federal court decisions in the 1980s and 1990s made clear that each was mandatory. 128 These
requirements give environmental regulators and advocates ample influence on licensing, and sometimes
that influence produces dramatic changes. 129 Nearly every FERC license includes conditions designed
to provide environmental protection, and occasionally the proposed conditions are sufficiently costly
that dam owners elect to cease operation or, at least, to enter negotiations over possible dam removals.
130

Nevertheless, there are other ways in which the FERC process limits environmental regulators' and
activists' leverage. Perhaps the most important is the duration of the licenses. FERC typically issues
licenses for forty-year terms, and sometimes for longer. 131 While some legal [*1065] obligations apply
throughout the term of the license, and while FERC often includes "reopener" clauses allowing it to
initiate proceedings to adjust the license terms, 132 the federal agency action necessary to trigger CWA
section 401, NEPA, or section 7 of the ESA is absent in the period between licensing proceedings. 133
The FPA's relicensing requirements also favor the status quo in other ways. If a license expires without
being replaced, which can happen if the relicensing proceeding becomes protracted, the default
outcome is to replace the old license with a one-year license on the same terms. 134 That provides
licensees with a favorable fallback option, particularly if, as is often the case, the proposed new license is
likely to have more environmentally restrictive terms. Similarly, in 2005, Congress amended the FPA's
procedural requirements to allow licensees to request evidentiary hearings on proposed fish-protection
conditions. 135 The apparent intent of these amendments was to make the imposition of environmental
constraints more procedurally difficult for the regulating agencies. 136 Preliminary anecdotal evidence
suggests that Congress succeeded in achieving that goal. 137

The net result of all of these legal provisions (and others not summarized here) has been to turn FERC
licensing into one of the most complex processes in all of environmental law. To try to rationalize and
accelerate the process, and to provide a better format for integrating input from the many other
agencies, advocacy groups, and members of the public that typically participate, FERC has developed an
"alternative licensing process" and, more recently, an "integrated licensing process." 138 FERC also
encourages stakeholders to reach settlements [*1066] before the formal FERC proceeding begins. 139
But even with those innovations, the process can be contentious and long. FERC demands that licensees
begin preparing for relicensing at least five years before the old license's expiration date, and many
licensing processes take at least that long. 140

These legal changes also have changed FERC's role. Once widely perceived as an active promoter of the
hydropower industry, FERC now often occupies a role more akin to a judge facilitating a settlement in a
complex civil case. 141 It rarely imposes its own vision on the proceedings, and instead now occupies a
largely reactive and facilitative role. 142

That complexity has contributed to another distinctive feature of the FERC licensing process. FERC tends
to make decisions one project at a time. 143 The FPA doesn't mandate that approach; in fact, it
specifically states that FERC's should approve only projects that "will be best adapted to a
comprehensive plan for improving or developing a waterway or waterways … ." 144 With the consent of
a license applicant, FERC also will occasionally consolidate multiple licensing proceedings. 145 But FERC
has essentially rejected its planning mandate, with the acquiescence of the courts, 146 and multi-
project proceedings, [*1067] while not unheard of, are rare. 147 The usual consequence is project-by-
project decision-making. 148

Congress key --- has to authorize removal of a federal dam OR federal agencies have to
fund other removals to compensate for their own dams [in trading scheme]
Owen & Apse, 15 --- *Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, AND **Freshwater
Conservation Advisor, The Nature Conservancy (February 2015, Dave Owen and Colin Apse, “Trading
Dam,” 48 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1043, Nexis Uni, JMP)

1. Authorization

Perhaps the clearest bar to an environmental trading system is the absence of legal authorization to
engage in trading. Almost any trading system will be implemented by government agencies, and those
agencies only can use the regulatory tools given unto them by law. That might seem like a rather
obvious point, but it remains an important one; in recent years, EPA has lost court cases because judges
were convinced that the agency's trading systems were contrary to governing statutes. 290

For dams, which are often embedded in complex legal webs constructed without any thought of trading,
this lesson might seem daunting. Nevertheless, there are few general prohibitions to trading in those
laws. Instead, many existing provisions and established practices could provide foundations for
increased use of dam trading. The Federal Power Act's mandate for license approvals to comport with
"comprehensive plans" provides an obvious foundation for the planning that would precede
development of trading systems. 291 Similarly, FERC's established, and occasionally used, practice of
consolidating multiple licensing proceedings would provide an opportunity for more systemic decision-
making. 292 Indeed, on future licenses, FERC could draw upon another existing practice, including
reopener clauses in licenses, to align the timing of licensing proceedings throughout a river basin. 293
FERC already allows off-site mitigation, and extending that practice to encompass dam-removal
mitigation banks also would be a logical next step. 294 For state-regulated dams, the potential toolbox is
even larger. And we have not uncovered any state [*1091] laws that would preclude state-regulated
dam owners from participating in trading systems.

The greatest complexities would likely arise with congressionally authorized, federally owned dams. If
Congress has authorized the creation of a dam for a specific purpose, then additional congressional
action might be necessary to authorize that same dam's removal. 295 But even that limitation would
not preclude the inclusion of federally owned dams in a trading scheme, for federal dam managers could
still compensate for the impacts of their dams by funding removals of other dams in other locations.
296 In fact, given the scale of the impacts caused by federal dams, those federal agencies could become
major buyers. 297
 1ar CP States – Federal Dams / Congress Key

The lower Snake River dams are controlled by the federal government
Geranios, 20 (5 October 2020, NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS, Associated Press Newswires, “Critics vow to
continue efforts to remove Snake River dams,” Factiva database, Document
APRS000020201005ega500ha9, JMP)

The four dams are part of a vast and complex hydroelectric power system operated by the federal
government in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. The 14 federal dams on the Columbia and
Snake rivers together produce 40% of the region’s power — enough electricity for nearly 5 million
homes.

But the dams have proven disastrous for salmon that hatch in freshwater streams, then make their way
hundreds of miles to the ocean, where they spend years before finding their way back to mate, lay eggs
and die.

The dams cut off more than half of salmon spawning and rearing habitat, and many wild salmon runs in
the region have 2% or less of their historic populations, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.

On the way to the ocean, juvenile salmon can get chewed up in the dams’ turbines.

Only congress can remove federal dams

Crossley, 21 (April 2021, Trista Crossley, “Who has final say? Only Congress can authorize breaching
the lower Snake River dams,” https://wheatlife.org/p_0421_Simpson_authorization.html, JMP)

To anyone following the controversy about the lower Snake River dams, it feels like judges hold a
significant amount of sway over them. That raises the question, does a judge have the authority to order
the dams breached? The short answer is no, only Congress can do that.

In the Columbia River System Operations Final Environmental Impact Statement released in 2020, the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) stated that “significant modifications to completed projects…
require authorization by Congress.” Because breaching one or more of the lower Snake River dams
would result in major structural or operational changes, that action is considered a significant
modification and would require congressional authorization, a lengthy, multistep process, said Kristin
Meira, executive director of the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association (PNWA). PNWA is a nonprofit
trade association of ports, businesses, public agencies and individuals who support navigation, energy,
trade and economic development throughout the Pacific Northwest. Their members work closely with
the Corps and advocate for funding to ensure federal navigation projects can operate safely and reliably.

States can’t solve federally owned dams or those under the jurisdiction of FERC
Walls, 20 --- senior fellow at Resources for the Future and former associate professor in the
Department of Economics at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand from 1996 through 2000
(October 2020, Margaret, “Aligning Dam Removal and Dam Safety: Comparing Policies and Institutions
across States,”
https://media.rff.org/documents/Aligning_Dam_Removal_and_Dam_Safety_wmTZmC8.pdf, JMP)

2.1. Jurisdictional Dams

The first step in the process is to determine which dams are subject to the state regulations, or
jurisdictional dams. This is based primarily on dam size, both height and impounding capacity. Minimum
heights in most states range between 10 and 25 feet and storage capacities between 15 and 50 acre-
feet, though there are differences on either end. Many states exempt agricultural dams if they are small
enough that flood risks do not go beyond farm boundaries. Federally owned dams and hydropower
dams in most states are nonjurisdictional because they are regulated by federal agencies.2

States don’t have jurisdiction over federal dams

Larson, 17 --- Director Emeritus of Association of State Floodplain Managers (March 1, 2017, Larry A.
Larson, CFM, P.E., “TESTIMONY Flood Control Infrastructure: Safety Questions Raised by Current
Events,” Before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works,
https://www.epw.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/7/1/717df5ce-453b-4ea3-b431-
47dfaf13199f/39D4F7024B035AEE878F1FB5D3857109.larson-witness-testimony-03.01.2017.pdf, JMP)

State Role in Dam and Levee Safety

Only states have the authority to enforce dam and levee standards directing owners to repair or remove
non-federal dams or levees. The Corps and other federal agencies must operate and maintain the dams
they own, but have no authority to force other entities to properly build or maintain those dams. There
are some effective state dam safety programs, but all states need such programs.

Federal dams aren’t effectively regulated now

Owen & Apse, 15 --- *Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, AND **Freshwater
Conservation Advisor, The Nature Conservancy (February 2015, Dave Owen and Colin Apse, “Trading
Dam,” 48 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1043, Nexis Uni, JMP)

For federal dams that are not regulated by FERC, the incentives toward maintaining the status quo are
similar, if not more powerful. No relicensing process exists, and once Congress authorizes a federally
[*1095] owned dam, the default presumption is that it will remain in place. 315 Indeed, making
significant changes to dam operations might actually be precluded by the dam's authorizing legislation.
316 Nor does any statute prescribe a process for concurrently evaluating the status of multiple dams,
and therefore considering how multi-dam systems might be realigned. That does not mean that federal
dams, once built, are exempt from regulatory oversight. Perhaps most importantly, dam operations
remain subject to the ESA, and consultation processes may lead to significant new constraints. 317 But
both procedural and substantive levers for reconsidering dam operations are significantly weaker than
they are for FERC-regulated dams.
 1ar CP States – Technical Data

Federal government key --- technical data

Larson, 17 --- Director Emeritus of Association of State Floodplain Managers (March 1, 2017, Larry A.
Larson, CFM, P.E., “TESTIMONY Flood Control Infrastructure: Safety Questions Raised by Current
Events,” Before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works,
https://www.epw.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/7/1/717df5ce-453b-4ea3-b431-
47dfaf13199f/39D4F7024B035AEE878F1FB5D3857109.larson-witness-testimony-03.01.2017.pdf, JMP)

Appropriate Federal Role with Regard to Dams and Levees

The federal government has a role to help develop and oversee national standards and to provide
technical assistance for the proper design, construction, operation and maintenance of dams and
levees. Maintaining an inventory of dams and levees at the national level is a key data need.

Even if states could EVENTUALLY acquire the necessary expertise in the short term
there is a need for federal technical assistance to avoid flooding
Larson, 17 --- Director Emeritus of Association of State Floodplain Managers (March 1, 2017, Larry A.
Larson, CFM, P.E., “TESTIMONY Flood Control Infrastructure: Safety Questions Raised by Current
Events,” Before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works,
https://www.epw.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/7/1/717df5ce-453b-4ea3-b431-
47dfaf13199f/39D4F7024B035AEE878F1FB5D3857109.larson-witness-testimony-03.01.2017.pdf, JMP)
***Note – ASFPM = Association of State Floodplain Managers

Other Ways the Federal Government Can Help

While mapping flood risk areas and investing in flood risk reduction infrastructure are two major ways
the federal government can help with reducing flood risk in the nation, there are other important ways
the federal government can help.

First is to focus on building state-capability to manage flood risk. One trend we are seeing overall is that
while the federal and local governments (and some states) are investing in flood risk management,
many other states are not. ASFPM believes federal programs that help build state capability such as the
National Dam Safety Program, National Levee Safety Program and the Community Assistance
ProgramState Services Support Element (CAP-SSSE) should be not only funded to their full authorized
amounts, but also ensure they are being administered in such a way to incentivize states to bring as
much as possible to the table. As stated earlier in this testimony, states have the ultimate authority over
land use (it is often delegated by states to communities) and many flood risk reduction programs are
coordinated at the state level.

Second is providing technical assistance. FEMA’s CAP-SSSE program helps build state capability by using
states to provide technical assistance to communities. The Corps’ Silver Jackets program is an innovative
way of bringing the technical know-how of the federal family of agencies to states. Finally, small
technical assistance programs like the USACE’s Planning Assistance to States (PAS) and Floodplain
Management Services (FPMS) are often oversubscribed, yet allow the Corps expertise to be applied in
states and communities nationwide. ASFPM also supports the newly introduced Digital Coast Act (S.
110), which provides data and tools to coastal managers dealing with flooding and other coastal risks.

 ASFPM recommends that technical assistance programs of the USACE (FPMS, PAS, and Silver
Jackets) be expanded to meet demand from states and communities
 2ac CP Reform Dams – Removal Key to Save Fish

Removal is key --- other workarounds fail

Leslie, 19 --- book on dams, Deep Water: The Epic Struggle Over Dams, Displaced People, and the
Environment, won the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award for its "elegant, beautiful
prose”(OCTOBER 10, 2019, JACQUES LESLIE, “On the Northwest’s Snake River, the Case for Dam
Removal Grows; As renewable energy becomes cheaper than hydropower and the presence of dams
worsens the plight of salmon, pressure is mounting in the Pacific Northwest to take down four key dams
on the lower Snake River that critics say have outlived their usefulness,”
https://e360.yale.edu/features/on-the-northwests-snake-river-the-case-for-dam-removal-grows, JMP)
***Note --- Anthony Jones is an independent economist at Rocky Mountain Econometrics who has
studied Bonneville’s finances for more than two decades

In 1993, environmental groups sued Bonneville and other federal agencies for violating the Endangered
Species Act in their treatment of Snake River salmon, beginning a cycle of litigation that continues to this
day. On at least five occasions, federal judges ordered the agencies to consider removing the lower
Snake River dams, and each time the agencies responded with delay and diversions, once going so far as
to call the dams immutable parts of the landscape and therefore not subject to the Endangered Species
Act.

Instead of removing the dams, the agencies have installed screens to prevent smolts from being
pummeled by the dams’ turbines. They have placed water tanks inside barges and trucks and
transported smolts in them to bypass the dams. They have built water-filled fish elevators to improve
the survival of adult salmon swimming upstream. And they have installed at least seven hatcheries that
release millions of smolts each year into the Snake. None of this has significantly helped native salmon
recover. As Jones told me, dam removal is the one untried option, and the only one with high promise
of benefiting both salmon and Bonneville’s finances.

Bonneville is deeply entrenched in the activities of the region’s outdoors-minded residents, as it funds
Congressionally-mandated programs for dams, hatcheries, river restoration, Native American tribes, and
a nuclear power plant. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican Congress member from eastern
Washington, spoke for many of Bonneville’s supporters in July, when she said, “For me, dam breaching
is off the table… Bottom line: dams and fish coexist.” She denounced the ECONorthwest report as
“another example of Seattle-based interests seeking to disrupt our way of life in Central and Eastern
Washington.”

For now, Snake River dam removal faces long odds, but for the first time there’s a growing sense that it
will happen sooner or later, once Bonneville comes to terms with the dams’ diminished worth. Whether
that will occur in time to avert orca and salmon extinctions remains unknown.
Dam removal is the most effective way to restore fish populations --- other
workarounds fail
Waldman, 15 --- professor of biology at Queens College, NY, worked for 20 years at the Hudson River
Foundation for Science and Environmental Research (AUGUST 6, 2015, John, “Undamming Rivers: A
Chance For New Clean Energy Source; Many hydroelectric dams produce modest amounts of power yet
do enormous damage to rivers and fish populations. Why not take down these aging structures, build
solar farms in the drained reservoirs, and restore the natural ecology of the rivers?”
https://e360.yale.edu/features/undamming_rivers_a_chance_for_new_clean_energy_source, JMP)

More than a half-century of modern attempts to allow fish to traverse what often are sequences of
dams that block access to their historical spawning reaches in eastern U.S. rivers presents a dismal
record. Highly unnatural conveyances such as fish ladders are often only marginally helpful to fish on
their upstream spawning runs, which is one reason why some migratory fish runs have fallen as much as
five orders of magnitude. Take Atlantic salmon, a revered game and food fish that once may have
numbered a half-million in U.S. rivers. In 2014, fewer than 400 attempted to reach their New England
spawning grounds. Such relict populations are often protected from harvest, yet are still not
meaningfully restored.

No other action can bring ecological integrity back to rivers as effectively as dam removals. Yet such
efforts may come at the cost of a loss of hydropower. And so what many hoped would be a precedent-
setting breaching of the Edwards Dam on Maine’s Kennebec River in 1999 — which had yielded only 3.5
megawatts of power — has not been followed by the dismantling of other, higher-wattage dams on the
East Coast.

Yet, the efficacy of dam removal to restore migratory fish was shown in the Kennebec after the Edwards
Dam fell; for the first time in more than a century-and-a-half, alewives, a species of herring, were able to
access an upriver tributary, the Sebasticook. Within just a few years the Sebasticook’s run of alewives
swelled from non-existent to almost three million, supporting scores of bald eagles and an “alewife
festival” that celebrates the Sebasticook’s extraordinary renewal.
 1ar Fish Ladders Fail

Dams and fishways driving salmon to extinction --- removal is key to rebound
Palpini, 13 (April 09, 2013, Kristin, “UMass professor’s research casts doubt on fish ladders,”
https://www.gazettenet.com/Archives/2013/01/fishways-hg-020113, JMP) ***Note – Adrian Jordaan is
a UMass assistant professor of fish population, ecology and conservation and one of the researchers
on the paper

What’s wrong with fishways

There are several types of fishways: pool and weir, rock-ramp, baffle, elevator and vertical slot. Once
installed, one fishway has to work for a variety of fish, which hurts their effectiveness. What works for a
sturgeon may not work for an eel or a herring.

Jordaan said it’s not clear why fishways aren’t better at moving fish over dams, hence the need for more
research. It could be fishways are being poorly designed. Predators may be staking out entrance points
where fish gather to go up and over dams. Or fish may not be interested in entering concrete
passageways, a foreign-looking path to many aquatic animals.

The sheer number of dams and fishways, however, is playing a role in the decline of migratory fish
populations, Jordaan said. The removal of smaller dams on tributary streams to major rivers could
significantly help some fish populations rebound. Jordaan said his research suggests that with each
dam a fish has to pass, the number of fish that gets through decreases until the diminished group makes
it to the main-stem dam and few get across.

“It shows that after you pass the first [dam], you’re already down to a really low percentage,” Jordaan
said.

Other federal agencies have noted the unhealthy effects of dams on fish populations. A U.S. Food and
Drug Administration report on the genetic engineering of Atlantic salmon notes, for example, the
salmon are extinct in 84 percent of the rivers in New England that historically supported them . They’re
in “critical” condition in the remaining 16 percent of rivers. This decrease is most likely due to dam
building, but overfishing, pollution and climate change played a role, too, the FDA states in “An overview
of Atlantic salmon, its natural history, aquaculture, and genetic engineering.”

Can’t solve – because dams themselves are bad – block fish and sediment
 In-stream turbines are an alternative
 Other renewables can provide clean electricity

Diehn, 20 (Jun. 26, 2020 08:57AM EST, Sonya Angelica Diehn, Deutsche Welle, “Five Ways Mega-Dams
Harm the Environment,” https://www.ecowatch.com/mega-dams-2646269103.html, JMP) ***Note -
Emilio Moran is a professor of geography and environment at Michigan State University

So What Are the Alternatives?

The evidence is damning. But if mega-dams have so many harmful environmental effects, what are the
alternatives? Although some green groups point to small hydropower as being more ecologically sound,
Moran is skeptical. "A dam is a dam - it's blocking the fish, it's blocking the sediment."

He pointed to the need to consider not just how to maximize energy production, but also maintain
ecological productivity. One option he cited is the use of in-stream turbines.

And many environment advocates agree that other renewable energies such as solar and wind can
provide clean electricity at a far lower environmental cost.

Fish ladders aren’t sufficient --- dam removal superior

Graf, 3 --- Professor of Geography at the University of South Carolina (NOVEMBER 2003, William L.
Graf, UNIVERSITIES COUNCIL ON WATER RESOURCES, WATER RESOURCES UPDATE, ISSUE 126, PAGES
54-59, “The Changing Role of Dams in Water Resources Management,”
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/William-Graf-
2/publication/49518263_The_Changing_Role_of_Dams_in_Water_Resources_Management/links/00b4
9534fd56fe69bb000000/The-Changing-Role-of-Dams-in-Water-Resources-Management.pdf, JMP)

The run-of-river dams that are barriers to fish passage pose different problems with regard to
reconciling economic and ecosystem values. The installation of fish ladders has aided some fish
populations, but more radical solutions are becoming common. Many run-of-river dams were built for
mills or small hydroelectric projects that are no longer economically viable. In many cases in the
Midwest and East, owners of these dams are unknown, or owners are saddled with unwanted liability
for obsolete dams. The removal of such dams is an increasingly common solution (Heinz Center, 2002).
Because the original economic incentive for the structures is now absent, the ecosystem values of dam
removal and river restoration are great enough to justify public investment. Over the past decade, more
than 500 dams have been removed from critical locations, thus restoring passage for endangered
species.
 2ac CP Reform Dams – AT: Designer Flow

1nc authors admit dams block fish reservoirs emit methane

Chen, 18 --- mathematician, ecologist, and environmental writer based in Seattle (April 19, 2018,
William Chen, “We Can Make Large Dams More Friendly to the Environment; We're unlikely to tear
them all down, but math can help us figure out how to reduce their ecosystem impact,”
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/we-can-make-large-dams-more-friendly-to-the-
environment/, JMP+TZ)

No amount of clever design will eliminate the impact that dams have on freshwater ecosystems. Fine-
tuning the flow of water downstream, as we propose, will not single-handedly address how dams block
fish movement, create reservoirs that emit striking amounts of methane into our atmosphere, and
promote invasive species that thrive in altered freshwater environments . But we and other scientists
are working to minimize the harmful environmental impacts of large dams while recognizing that
modern society relies on these structures.

Just in modeling phase and its untested

Ma, 17 (December 18, 2017, Michele Ma, Science Daily, University of Washington, “Fish to benefit if
large dams adopt new operating approach,”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171218090920.htm, JMP+TZ) ***Note --- Julian Olden
is a UW professor of aquatic and fishery sciences

This work is still in the modeling phase, and the researchers want to look next at how these water-
release practices could potentially benefit other aspects of dammed river systems, such as restoring
shoreline vegetation, benefiting aquatic insects and even bolstering river recreation by manipulating the
water releases to encourage formation of large sandbars. Ultimately, the researchers hope to test their
designer flows in a real river system, in cooperation with dam operators, engineers and water users.

"Let's be honest: Carefully tweaking dam operations all year round to implement a designer flow regime
would require a giant leap of faith, but anything new we do in water resource management involves
some risk," Olden said. "If we don't try, we'll never know how much better we actually could do."

Changing water flows won’t save salmon --- requires dam removal
Geranios, 20 (5 October 2020, NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS, Associated Press Newswires, “Critics vow to
continue efforts to remove Snake River dams,” Factiva database, Document
APRS000020201005ega500ha9, JMP)
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Environmental groups are vowing to continue their fight to remove four dams on the Snake River in Washington state they say are killing
salmon that are a key food source for endangered killer whales.

But instead of working with federal agencies, conservationists intend to seek removal of the dams through the political
or legal systems.
Agencies of the
U.S. government announced in late July that the four huge dams will not be removed to help
salmon migrate to the ocean. That decision was finalized Tuesday in a so-called Record of Decision.
The decision thwarts the desires of environmental groups that fought for two decades to breach the dams.

``This is definitely not the end,'' said Robb Krehbiel of Defenders of Wildlife. ``I don't see how this doesn't end up in court.''

But he is also encouraged by signs that governors of Northwest states, particularly Democrats in Oregon and Washington, are looking for a negotiated solution.

``To say we need a new approach, that we need leadership from our elected representatives, and that we need to find a solution that works for all of us is to state
the obvious,'' said Todd True, an attorney for Earthjustice.

The ROD was

issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation and Bonneville Power
Administration, and sought to balance the needs of salmon and other interests .

The plan calls for spilling more water over the dams at strategic times to help endangered salmon
migrate faster to and from the ocean, a tactic that has already been in use.

Dam critics have panned the Trump administration plan as inadequate to save salmon, an iconic Northwest species. They contend the dams must go if
salmon are to survive.

``To us, the lower Snake River is a living being,'' said Shannon K. Wheeler, chair of Idaho's Nez Perce Tribe.
``We are compelled to speak the truth on behalf of this life force and the impacts these concrete
barriers on the lower Snake have on salmon, steelhead, and lamprey.''
The tribe will go to court, to Congress and to state capitols to find a way to restore the river, Wheeler said.

Scientists warn southern

resident orcas are starving to death because of a dearth of chinook salmon that are
their primary food source. The Pacific Northwest population of orcas — also called killer whales — was placed on the endangered species list in 2005.
The dams have many defenders, including Republican politicians from the region, barge operators and other river users, farmers and business leaders.

Republican members of Congress from the Northwest hailed the recent federal decision.

``Federal water infrastructure makes our way of life possible throughout the West,'' said U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., as part of a joint statement that
included similar sentiments from Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, Rep. Russ Fulcher, R-Idaho, and Rep. Greg Walden, R-
Ore.

The Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, made up of river users, also defended the dams.

``Salmon, orcas and other wildlife are threatened by climate change,'' said Executive Director Kristin Meira. ``The clean power and efficient commerce provided by
the system’s hydroelectric dams and navigation locks are key to our region’s ability to reduce our carbon footprint.''

The four hydroelectric dams were built from the 1960s to the 1970s between Pasco and Pomeroy, Washington. Since then, salmon populations have plunged.

The dams have fish ladders that allow some salmon and other species to migrate to the ocean and then back to spawning grounds. But the
vast majority of the fish die during the journey, despite $17 billion spent so far on efforts to save them.
The 100-foot (30 meter) tall dams generate electricity, provide irrigation and flood control, and allow barges to operate all the way to Lewiston, Idaho, 400 miles
from the Pacific Ocean.

The federal agencies concluded that removing the four dams would destabilize the power grid, increase overall greenhouse emissions and more than double the risk
of regional power outages.

The four dams are part of a vast and complex hydroelectric power system operated by the federal government in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. The 14
federal dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers together produce 40% of the region’s power — enough electricity for nearly 5 million homes.

But the dams have proven disastrous for salmon that hatch in freshwater streams, then make their way hundreds of miles to the ocean,
where they spend years before finding their way back to mate, lay eggs and die.

The dams cut off more than half of salmon spawning and rearing habitat, and many wild salmon runs in
the region have 2% or less of their historic populations, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
On the way to the ocean, juvenile salmon can get chewed up in the dams’ turbines.

In all, three
federal judges have thrown out five plans for the system over the decades after finding they
didn’t do enough to protect salmon.
The most recent case occurred in 2016, when a federal judge in Portland, Ore., ordered dam managers to consider removing or altering the four dams. That order
led to Tuesday's record of decision.

``The differences between the plan adopted by these agencies today and the plan the court rejected in
2016 are hard to discern,'' True said Tuesday. ``And the plan the court rejected in 2016 was not materially different from plans the court had rejected
in 2003, 2005, 2009 and 2011.''

The Save Our Wild Salmon coalition contended federal agencies cannot deliver a comprehensive solution. Rather, the effort must be led by stakeholders, tribes,
politicians and citizens, the coalition said.
 2ac CP Reform Dams – Removal Solves Dam Failure

Removal is best way to prevent high risk collapse of some dams – permutation solves
best
Smith, 18 --- graduate of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University,
research assistant for Professor Marcus King on environmental security issues in the MENA region
(August 21, 2018, Olivia Smith, “Big Dams, Big Damage: The Growing Risk of Failure,”
https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2018/08/big-dams-big-damage-growing-risk-failure/, JMP)

Protecting Dams From Natural and Human Threats

Following the September 11 attacks, the United States launched the National Infrastructure Protection
Plan, which includes interagency task forces and information-sharing mechanisms, such as Homeland
Security’s Dams Portal. The plan’s counter-cyber operations complement FEMA’s National Dam Safety
Program, which orchestrates regulation and best practices on dam design and risk management across
several agencies. If they work together, these federal programs could help make U.S. dam infrastructure
more resilient to both natural and human threats.

Another critical step in protecting critical infrastructure is decommissioning old dams. The average age
of a U.S. hydroelectric dam is 64 years, and many are classified as being high risk. Decommissioning
aging, high-risk dams could help avert disaster–and has the additional benefits of improving ecosystems
by allowing rivers to run freely and support the return of aquatic species and plants.

Finally, we need to repair dams that can be fixed. As Puerto Rican communities struggle to recover from
Hurricane Maria, the Guajataca Dam is patched and 114 displaced families are back in their homes.
However, the dam has not been hardened against severe storms, and the U.S. Army Corps estimates
that it will be working until July 2019 to stabilize the dam and spillway. It will take even longer before
Guajataca is resilient to the ever-increasing extreme weather events that climate change has in store.
 2ac CP Reform Dams – Removal Superior to Repair

Removal is superior to other alternatives but its only occurring in limited numbers in a
few states
Walls & Gonzales, 20 --- *senior fellow at Resources for the Future, AND **Research Analyst at
Resources for the Future (OCT. 22, 2020, MARGARET A. WALLS AND VINCENT GONZALES, “Dismantling
Dams Can Help Address US Infrastructure Problems,” https://www.resources.org/archives/dismantling-
dams-can-help-address-us-infrastructure-problems/, JMP)

Dam Removal

Removing an obsolete or deteriorating dam can often be a better option than repairing it. In many
cases, removal is less costly than repair, and if the dam no longer provides services of sufficient value,
spending money on repairs makes little sense.

Removing a dam can have many environmental benefits. Dam removal restores a river’s natural
function, improving water quality and conditions for aquatic habitat by increasing flows and reducing
water temperatures, and provides passage to and from the ocean for anadromous fish species such as
salmon. Most dam removals on the West Coast have been motivated by the need to improve passage
for salmon and steelhead trout, several populations of which are listed as threatened or endangered
under the Endangered Species Act.

The removals have ranged from very small dams, such as the 81 dams removed from the Cleveland
National Forest in Southern California, to large dams with removal costs in the tens of millions of dollars,
such as the 106-foot-tall San Clemente Dam in California and the Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams in
Washington. On the East Coast, removals of dams such as the Edwards Dam on the Kennebec River in
Maine and the Embrey Dam on Virginia’s Rappahannock River have benefited oceangoing species such
as American shad, alewife, blueback herring, and American eel (a catadromous species that lives in
freshwater and returns to the ocean to breed).

Dam removal also can create new river recreation opportunities by providing unimpeded boat passage
and restoring whitewater conditions. The removal of three dams on the Cuyahoga River in Ohio was
motivated by concerns over water quality, but removing the dams actually spurred growth in the local
outdoor recreation economy by producing Class 5 rapids in downtown Cuyahoga Falls. The final dam
slated to come down on the Cuyahoga River, the 60-foot-tall Gorge Dam, is expected to reveal a buried
200-foot natural waterfall.

The removal of certain kinds of dams can improve river safety. Low-head (or “run-of-the-river”) dams,
which lie across the width of a river or stream and typically form only a minimal reservoir, create
underwater circulating hydraulics that have caused hundreds of drowning deaths. After six deaths in one
summer at low-head dams in Iowa, the state launched the Water Trails and Low-head Dam Mitigation
Program, which focuses on removing and reengineering low-head dams around the state while
providing canoe and kayak trails to enhance river recreation.

Despite these success stories, as of January 2020, only an estimated 1,700 dams have been removed in
the United States. Numbers are on the rise—nearly half of the removals have taken place in the last ten
years—but are low relative to the total number of dams. Moreover, a mere five states account for half
of all removals: Pennsylvania (343), California (173), Wisconsin (141), Michigan (94), and Ohio (82).
Figure 2 shows dam removals by state in five-year increments from 1980 to 2020.

Removal is best for many reasons --- 3 to 5 times less expensive than repair
Chouinard, 14 --- founder of Patagonia and executive producer of the documentary ''DamNation'' (8
May 2014, Yvon Chouinard, The New Your Times, “Tear Down 'Deadbeat' Dams,” Factiva database,
Document NYTF000020140508ea5800079, JMP)

VENTURA, Calif. -- OF the more than 80,000 dams listed by the federal government, more than 26,000
pose high or significant safety hazards. Many no longer serve any real purpose. All have limited life
spans. Only about 1,750 produce hydropower, according to the National Hydropower Association.

In many cases, the benefits that dams have historically provided -- for water use, flood control and
electricity -- can now be met more effectively without continuing to choke entire watersheds.

Dams degrade water quality, block the movement of nutrients and sediment, destroy fish and wildlife
habitats, damage coastal estuaries and in some cases rob surrounding forests of nitrogen. Reservoirs can
also be significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions.

Put simply, many dams have high environmental costs that outweigh their value. Removing them is the
only sensible answer. And taking them down can often make economic sense as well. The River Alliance
of Wisconsin estimates that removing dams in that state is three to five times less expensive than
repairing them.
 1ar Removal Best

Removal is superior to trying to improve dams

Walls & Gonzales, 20 --- *senior fellow at Resources for the Future, AND **Research Analyst at
Resources for the Future (OCT. 22, 2020, MARGARET A. WALLS AND VINCENT GONZALES, “Dismantling
Dams Can Help Address US Infrastructure Problems,” https://www.resources.org/archives/dismantling-
dams-can-help-address-us-infrastructure-problems/, JMP)

Dam failure, though rare, can cause catastrophic destruction of property and lives. Repairing hazardous
dams can help, but simply removing them can be a better, more cost-effective option with
accompanying environmental benefits. Why, then, do so few dam owners and decisionmakers consider
removal as an option?

The United States has an aging infrastructure problem. The country’s roads and bridges, drinking water
and wastewater facilities, ports, levees, dams, and more are in need of upgrades and repairs. The
American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has given US dam infrastructure a D grade, noting that the
number of dams in poor condition is on the rise. This grade for dams is even lower than the D+ that the
organization gave US infrastructure as a whole in its 2017 “Infrastructure Report Card.” In 2019, the
Association of State Dam Safety Officials (ASDSO) estimated that $66 billion is needed to repair all
deficient dams in the United States.

A more affordable option could be to remove, rather than repair, the most hazardous dams—but dams
continue to deteriorate in place across the United States.

Built to hold back and control the flow of water, dams are physical barriers across streams, rivers, and
waterways. They vary in size and type, from small earthen embankments to high concrete structures,
and serve a diverse set of functions that include flood protection, water storage, hydroelectric power
production, irrigation, ponds for farm livestock and fire protection, and recreation. Unlike most other
kinds of infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, the vast majority of dams are privately owned.

Most dams in the United States were built decades ago, and some are more than a century old. The
average age of the 91,500 dams in the US Army Corps of Engineers’ National Inventory of Dams (NID), a
database that includes relatively large (at least 25 feet tall) and “high-hazard” (posing a risk to human
life if they fail) dams, is 57 years old.

The failure of two dams in Michigan in May 2020 illustrates what can happen in some situations when
dam deficiencies go unaddressed. After five inches of rain in two days, on top of saturated ground from
earlier rainfall, the Edenville Dam on the Tittabawassee River collapsed, sending torrents of floodwaters
downstream and causing a second dam, the Sanford Dam, to also fail. The town of Midland, Michigan,
and surrounding communities were inundated, and approximately 40,000 people evacuated. No one
died in the event, but property damages totaled $175 million.

The Edenville Dam was a 54-foot-tall earthen dam used for hydropower production until September
2018, when its license was revoked by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The owner of
the Edenville Dam, Boyce Hydro Power LLC, had been ordered by FERC, which licenses and regulates all
hydropower dams in the United States, to increase the dam’s spillway capacity in 2004. The company
failed to comply.

Fourteen years later, after many additional problems had developed at the dam, FERC finally revoked
the license, and Boyce Hydro Power stopped producing power. Nonetheless, the dam remained in the
river. Regulatory authority was transferred from FERC to the state of Michigan’s Dam Safety Program.
And this year, the dam failed.

Catastrophic dam failure of this type is rare. A 2018 report by Stanford University’s National
Performance of Dams Program tallies 1,645 dam failures in the United States between 1848 and 2017,
but most of these failures happen at dams much smaller than the Edenville Dam; thus, the failures cause
less flooding and property damage. Climate change is expected to cause many regions of the United
States to become wetter, however, and extreme precipitation events to happen more frequently. This
change in weather conditions—in combination with aging dam infrastructure and population growth
that increases the number of people at risk—has heightened concerns about potential dam failures.
Politics
 Cap-and-Trade Controversial

The plan will face initial backlash

Workman, 7 --- adviser and consultant on water and natural resources issues to governmental and
nongovernmental organizations, including the World Commission on Dams (FALL 2007, JAMES G.
WORKMAN, “How to Fix Our Dam Problems; Thousands of aging dams should be repaired or destroyed,
at a cost of billions. A cap-and-trade policy could speed the process and help pay the bills,”
https://issues.org/workman-water-crisis-drought-fix-dams/, JMP)

A CAP-AND-TRADE SCENARIO

Suppose, for example, that a worried governor determines to cap at one-third below current levels all
state dam effects: methane emissions, sedimentation rates, evaporative losses, aquatic species declines,
habitat fragmentations, artificial warming, reduced oxygen content, and number of downstream safety
hazards. He wants these reductions to happen within seven years and is rigorous in enforcing the ceiling.
That’s the stick, but here’s the carrot: He would allow dam owners to decide how to get under that
ceiling on their own.

At first, dam owners and operators, public as well as private, could reliably be expected to howl. They
would label the policy environmentally extreme and say it was sacrificing water storage, energy, food,
and flood control. But eventually, innovative dam owners and operators would see the policy for what it
really is: a flexible and long-overdue opportunity with built-in incentives to become efficient and even to
realize higher returns on existing idle capital. They would seize a chance to transform those fixed
liabilities into liquid assets.
 Dam Removal is Controversial

Removing federal dams requires congress --- passage will be time consuming and can’t
be part of the infrastructure bill
 Can’t be included in the infrastructure bill

Crossley, 21 (April 2021, Trista Crossley, “Who has final say? Only Congress can authorize breaching
the lower Snake River dams,” https://wheatlife.org/p_0421_Simpson_authorization.html, JMP)

To anyone following the controversy about the lower Snake River dams, it feels like judges hold a
significant amount of sway over them. That raises the question, does a judge have the authority to order
the dams breached? The short answer is no, only Congress can do that.

In the Columbia River System Operations Final Environmental Impact Statement released in 2020, the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) stated that “significant modifications to completed projects…
require authorization by Congress.” Because breaching one or more of the lower Snake River dams
would result in major structural or operational changes, that action is considered a significant
modification and would require congressional authorization, a lengthy, multistep process, said Kristin
Meira, executive director of the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association (PNWA). PNWA is a nonprofit
trade association of ports, businesses, public agencies and individuals who support navigation, energy,
trade and economic development throughout the Pacific Northwest. Their members work closely with
the Corps and advocate for funding to ensure federal navigation projects can operate safely and reliably.

Even legislation to breach the dams would likely not have an easy or quick passage through Congress. In
the case of Rep. Mike Simpson’s (R-Idaho) proposal, Meira pointed out that one of the most challenging
aspects of it is that many of the actions it proposes to take are essentially individual major policies or
projects, and each of them would require significant study and review.

“Most of them (the policies and projects) would require essentially a two-step process through
Congress, meaning authorization through one set of congressional committees, and if that process is
successful, then a whole separate process to go through appropriations to actually fund new activities,
meaning new policies and new projects,” she explained. “That’s how it works for any modifications that
are proposed for Corps of Engineers projects. That’s one of the things that makes the Corps the kind of
agency that typically garners strong support for its projects, the very lengthy and methodical way in
which the projects have to be pursued through that two-step process.”

All Corps’ projects are authorized through a bill called the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA).
WRDAs have been passed every two years since 2014; the last one was passed in December of 2020.
Meira explained that before a project ever makes it into a WRDA, it is extensively studied and publicly
reviewed. And even if a project is proposed for a WRDA, there’s no assurances it will actually make it
into the bill, get through the House and Senate and get signed by the president.

“I can say there are many, many projects and other proposals that do go through WRDA bills but never
garner support in the appropriations process, meaning Congress never decides to fund them,” she said.
And the likelihood that congressional authority to breach the dams might be included in another piece
of legislation is slim.

“The idea that new construction or a major modification to an existing (Corps) project could be shuttled
through an infrastructure package simply is not how the process in D.C. works,” Meira said. “The Corps
of Engineers, they need to always refer back to their authorities, meaning what Congress has given them
a permission slip to do. In this case, there is no permission slip. There is no blueprint to do what
Congressman Simpson is proposing, so the first step is to actually try to do the blueprint, and that is a
years-long process.”

***Note when prepping file --- this describes Congressman Simpson’s bill that includes
federal dam removal – it’s the basis for some of the claims in the Crossley ev

Even a dam removal proposal that tries to create compromise is still controversial ---
Simpson proves
Capital Press, 21 (Mar 25, 2021, Editorial, “Editorial: Simpson gains consensus on dam removal plan,”
https://www.capitalpress.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-simpson-gains-consensus-on-dam-removal-
plan/article_812fc1f4-8b2f-11eb-8630-0386395dc0f5.html, JMP)

In crafting his plan for the removal of the dams on the lower Snake River, Rep. Mike Simpson has
managed to forge consensus between farm, shipping and environmental interests on his idea. They all
hate it.

Blessed are the peacemakers. They may be children of God, but often find surprisingly little support at
home.

Simpson, R-Idaho, has not proposed legislation, but on Feb. 7 released a $33.5 billion concept for
salmon recovery, which includes removing the Lower Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monumental and Ice
Harbor dams on the lower Snake River in 2030 and 2031.

It is a bold plan, a grand compromise that seeks to address the competing needs of those who want the
dams removed and those who depend on the status quo for their livelihoods, electrical energy,
transportation and irrigation.

In short, Simpsons plan would:

• Require that the electrical power generated by the dams be replaced, and that the new infrastructure
would be operational before the dams are breached.

• Provide money for river restoration, the development of transportation infrastructure to replace barge
traffic, economic development for communities impacted by the breaching, watershed projects and
irrigation infrastructure.

• Require that all other dams in the Columbia Basin that generate more than 5 megawatts of electricity
be granted an automatic 35-year license extension.
• Prohibit for 35 years any litigation related to anadromous fish within the Columbia River system under
the Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act or the Clean Water Act, and stay any
ongoing litigation.

As we said, a grand compromise, but one that none of the major stakeholders will accept.

Despite promises that their concerns will be addressed, farmers and ranchers worry about whether they
will get the water they need, or will be able to ship product. Electric utilities worry they won’t have a
reliable source of power and barge interests worry about their jobs disappearing.

Environmental interests love the idea of breaching the dams, but leaving the others unchallenged for 35
years is crazy talk. And filing lawsuits is their raison d’etre.

A group of 17 environmental organizations says Simpson’s plan would speed up salmon extinction and
harm human health, calling it “untenable.”

In releasing the plan, Simpson said he didn’t draft legislation because an ambitious concept such as he
proposed needs to involve all the stakeholders and the states impacted.

We don’t think the plan as proposed ever had a chance, but Simpson should be given credit for starting
a conversation. Does anyone want to talk?

We know what everyone doesn’t want and what they won’t accept, but what do they want and what
will they accept?

Elwha Dam removal proves there will be bitter opposition from industry
Fisher, 20 (July 30, 2020, Lawrence M. Fisher - writes about business for The New York Times and
other publications, “To Dam or not to Dam?” https://www.milkenreview.org/articles/to-dam-or-not-to-
dam, JMP)

In 2011, the Elwha River in northwestern Washington State became the site of the largest dam removal
in American history. In her 2013 book, Elwha, A River Reborn, reporter Lynda Mapes tells the story of
how the initial dam was built in 1910 with no permit and without even the minimal environmental
mitigation, required by the laws of the day, of including a fish ladder. Located just five miles from the
river mouth, the Elwha Dam blocked 93 percent of spawning habitat for ocean-going fish. A larger dam
upriver, the Glines Canyon Dam, was built in 1926, this time with a permit but again without a fish
ladder. Washington’s state fish commissioner allowed the dam builder to donate land for a hatchery
instead. But the hatchery soon failed, and the state did not pursue the matter.

With the “Niagara of the Pacific” producing huge amounts of cheap power, nearby Port Angeles became
a boom town. The Elwha River dams, along with the timber, paper and pulp mills they supported, were
celebrated by all except the indigenous people who saw their burial grounds desecrated and the
obliteration of the salmon runs that had long been their livelihood. Elders spoke of salmon so prodigious
a person could walk across the river on their backs. Some of the fish weighed over 100 pounds each. In
2010, only 500 fish came back to the river to spawn, a record low.
But the expiration of the dam’s license gave the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe an opening. Between 1986
and 1988, the tribe joined forces with environmental groups, including the Seattle Audubon Society,
Friends of the Earth, the Sierra Club and Olympic Park Associates, to fight relicensing. Their cause was
aided by a court ruling that denied FERC jurisdiction because the Elwha passes through a national park.

President George H.W. Bush filled the regulatory void, authorizing removal of the dam when he signed
the Elwha River Ecosystem and Fisheries Restoration Act of 1992. But removal was bitterly opposed by
industry groups, who labeled the effort “a virgin Earth” cult; the dams survived another 20 years.

Removing hydropower dams is controversial – they are entrenched

Fisher, 20 (July 30, 2020, Lawrence M. Fisher - writes about business for The New York Times and
other publications, “To Dam or not to Dam?” https://www.milkenreview.org/articles/to-dam-or-not-to-
dam, JMP)

Taking Them Out

In the view of conservationists, there is something special about dams, something – as conservation
problems go – that is disproportionately and metaphysically sinister. The outermost circle of the Devil’s
world seems to be a moat filled mainly with DDT. Next to it is a moat of burning gasoline. Within that is
a ring of pinheads each covered with a million people – and so on past phalanxed bulldozers and
bicuspid chain saws into the absolute epicenter of Hell on earth, where stands a dam.

—John McPhee (1971)

McPhee was writing about David Brower, who resigned as president of the Sierra Club to start the more
militant Friends of the Earth in 1969. He went on to found a number of environmental organizations
before his death in 2000, and many of his acolytes have pursued dam removal. Hydroelectric dams tend
to be among the largest and the most entrenched enterprises in local economies, providing jobs and
cheap power. So efforts to remove them encounter greater resistance.

Many of these dams are privately owned, and whether the dams are still productive or not, their owners
are typically loath to remove them. But privately owned dams must be licensed, and when those
licenses come up for renewal, there is an opportunity for environmental groups, Native American tribes
and others to seek modifications or mitigation

There is significant support for dams – especially from Republicans

Geranios, 20 (5 October 2020, NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS, Associated Press Newswires, “Critics vow to
continue efforts to remove Snake River dams,” Factiva database, Document
APRS000020201005ega500ha9, JMP)

The dams have many defenders, including Republican politicians from the region, barge operators and
other river users, farmers and business leaders.

Republican members of Congress from the Northwest hailed the recent federal decision.
``Federal water infrastructure makes our way of life possible throughout the West,'' said U.S. Rep. Dan
Newhouse, R-Wash., as part of a joint statement that included similar sentiments from Reps. Cathy
McMorris Rodgers and Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, Rep. Russ Fulcher, R-Idaho, and Rep. Greg
Walden, R-Ore.

The Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, made up of river users, also defended the dams.

``Salmon, orcas and other wildlife are threatened by climate change,'' said Executive Director Kristin
Meira. ``The clean power and efficient commerce provided by the system’s hydroelectric dams and
navigation locks are key to our region’s ability to reduce our carbon footprint.''

The four hydroelectric dams were built from the 1960s to the 1970s between Pasco and Pomeroy,
Washington. Since then, salmon populations have plunged.
 Dam Removal Opposed by Farm Lobby

Farm lobby strongly opposes dam removal

IFBF, 21 (Feb 9, 2021, IDAHO FARM BUREAU FEDERATION, “Farm Bureau strongly opposes dam
removal plan,” https://www.postregister.com/farmandranch/water_and_irrigation/farm-bureau-
strongly-opposes-dam-removal-plan/article_79a741f7-789f-5fcf-b114-e2d7da623678.html, JMP)

Idaho Farm Bureau Federation, the state’s largest farm organization, is strongly opposed to a proposal
that would result in the removal of four lower Snake River dams that provide amazing benefits to Idaho
and the entire Pacific Northwest region.

Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, last week floated a $33 billion plan that he believes could help endangered
salmon populations. The highlight of Simpson’s proposal calls for the removal of the four lower Snake
River dams.

This marks the first time a member of the PNW congressional delegation has formally raised the
prospect of breaching dams.

The lower four dams on the Snake River produce a significant amount of cheap and environmentally
friendly hydroelectric power to the region and are a critical part of a system on the Columbia and Snake
rivers that allows wheat farmers, as well as producers of many other commodities, to export their
product to the world.

Removing the dams would make the Columbia-Snake River system unnavigable for barges that move
wheat, barley and other products to Portland for export.

Barging is the most cost-effective and environmentally friendly way of getting wheat from Idaho and
other states to market and the Columbia-Snake system is the third largest grain export gateway in the
world.

“These dams are the lifeblood of agriculture in Idaho, Washington, Montana and Oregon,” said IFBF Vice
President Richard Durrant, a farmer from Meridian.

The river, combined with its system of dams and locks, provides for the environmentally friendly ability
to transport wheat, pulse and other crops to Portland so they can be shipped across the world, he said.

The system also provides for the efficient transportation of fuel, fertilizer and machinery back up the
river, which reduces freight costs to businesses and residents in the region.

“As a producer and marketer of Idaho agriculture products, I find it very disheartening to hear that an
Idaho congressman would consider breaching the four lower Snake River dams,” Durrant said.

On July 31, three federal agencies – U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and
Bonneville Power Administration – reaffirmed their opposition to breaching of the four dams in a final
environmental impact statement.

A federal judge ordered the agencies that operate the Columbia-Snake River system to review all
reasonable options for operating it in order to minimize the impact on endangered salmon.
Breaching of those dams has long been supported by some environmental groups and that idea has also
been long opposed by farm and other groups.

IFBF policy, which was developed by its members at the grassroots level, supports “the continued
existence and current usage of all dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers” and opposes “any efforts to
destroy or decrease production of those dams.”

IFBF President Bryan Searle, a farmer from Shelley, said the proposal attempts to put a price tag on the
region’s way of life.

Searle said Farm Bureau applauds the congressman for attempting to find a solution that would assist
salmon populations but IFBF believes this particular plan is not the right one and would cause significant
harm to the PNW economy and way of life.

Idaho Farm Bureau Federation, which represents 80,000 member-families across the state, including at
least 11,000 people actively involved in agriculture, stands in opposition to the congressman’s proposal,
Searle said.

“Despite what supporters of the plan claim, make no mistake, this is a drastic measure that would
forever alter our way of life in the Pacific Northwest, and not for good,” he said. “Idaho Farm Bureau
members are adamantly opposed to this proposal.”

While most news stories about Simpson’s proposal were positive toward the idea, the reality is that
removal of those dams is opposed by a significant number of organizations and individuals in Idaho,
Oregon and Washington.

In response to the proposal, the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, a non-profit group that
represents a diverse coalition of 135 members in Idaho, Washington and Oregon, released a statement
saying that “funding for salmon recovery and new energy technologies should not be tied to an extreme
measure like breaching the Snake River dams, which provide over 95% effective fish passage and are a
critical part of the region’s energy portfolio.”
 Dam Removal Bipartisan

The plan is popular --- dam advocates and environmentalists are more willing to
cooperate
Plumer, 20 (13 October 2020, Brad Plumer, NYTimes.com Feed, “Environmentalists and Dam
Operators, at War for Years, Start Making Peace,” Factiva database, Document
NYTFEED020201013egad002gx, JMP)

WASHINGTON — The industry that operates America’s hydroelectric dams and several environmental
groups announced an unusual agreement Tuesday to work together to get more clean energy from
hydropower while reducing the environmental harm from dams, in a sign that the threat of climate
change is spurring both sides to rethink their decades-long battle over a large but contentious source of
renewable power.

The United States generated about 7 percent of its electricity last year from hydropower, mainly from
large dams built decades ago, such as the Hoover Dam, which uses flowing water from the Colorado
River to power turbines. But while these facilities don’t emit planet-warming carbon dioxide, the dams
themselves have often proved ecologically devastating, choking off America’s once-wild rivers and killing
fish populations.

So, over the past 50 years, conservation groups have rallied to block any large new dams from being
built, while proposals to upgrade older hydropower facilities or construct new water-powered energy-
storage projects have often been bogged down in lengthy regulatory disputes over environmental
safeguards.

The new agreement signals a desire to de-escalate this long-running war.

In a joint statement, industry groups and environmentalists said they would collaborate on a set of
specific policy measures that could help generate more renewable electricity from dams already in
place, while retrofitting many of the nation’s 90,000 existing dams to be safer and less ecologically
damaging.

The two sides also said they would work together to accelerate the removal of older dams that are no
longer needed, in order to improve the health of rivers. More than 1,000 dams nationwide have already
been torn down in recent decades.

The statement, the result of two years of quiet negotiations, was signed by the National Hydropower
Association, an industry trade group, as well as environmental groups including American Rivers, the
World Wildlife Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists. Another influential organization, The Nature
Conservancy, listed itself as a “participant,” signaling that it was not prepared to sign the full statement
but would stay engaged in the ongoing dialogue over hydropower policies.

Bob Irvin, the president of American Rivers, which has long highlighted the harm that dams cause to the
nation’s waterways, said that growing concern over global warming had caused some environmentalists
to reassess their longstanding opposition to hydropower.
“The climate crisis has become a lot more acute and we recognize that we need to generate carbon-free
energy whenever and wherever we can,” Mr. Irvin said. “And we do see that hydropower has a role to
play there.”

Mr. Irvin emphasized that his group would still oppose any effort to build new dams on rivers. But that
still left plenty of room for compromise.

As an example, he pointed to the Penobscot River in Maine, where environmentalists, energy companies
and the Penobscot Indian Nation reached a landmark agreement in 2004 to upgrade several dams in the
river basin while raising money to remove two other dams that had blocked fish from migrating inland
for more than a century. The result: The hydropower companies on the Penobscot ended up producing
at least as much clean electricity as before, while endangered Atlantic salmon have returned to the
rivers.

“The rhetoric has definitely shifted and is becoming more thoughtful,” said Malcolm Woolf, president of
the National Hydropower Association. “We’re now willing to talk about removing uneconomic dams,
and environmentalists are no longer talking about all hydropower being bad.”

Dam removal increasingly popular

Honea, 20 --- Assistant Professor of Science, Emerson College (May 29, 2020 8.24am EDT, Jon Honea,
The Conversation, “When dams cause more problems than they solve, removing them can pay off for
people and nature,” https://theconversation.com/when-dams-cause-more-problems-than-they-solve-
removing-them-can-pay-off-for-people-and-nature-137346, JMP)

Across the United States, dams generate hydroelectric power, store water for drinking and irrigation,
control flooding and create recreational opportunities such as slack-water boating and waterskiing.

But dams can also threaten public safety, especially if they are old or poorly maintained. On May 21,
2020, residents of Midland, Michigan were hastily evacuated when two aging hydropower dams on the
Tittabawassee River failed, flooding the town.

I’m an ecosystem scientist and have studied the ecology of salmon streams in the Pacific Northwest,
where dams and historical over-harvest have drastically reduced wild populations of these iconic fish.
Now I’m monitoring how river herring are responding to the removal of two derelict dams on the
Shawsheen River in Andover, Massachusetts.

There’s growing support across the U.S. for removing old and degraded dams , for both ecological and
safety reasons. Every case is unique and requires detailed analysis to assess whether a dam’s costs
outweigh its benefits. But when that case can be made, dam removals can produce exciting results.

Pros and cons of dams

It’s relatively easy to quantify the benefits that dams provide. They can be measured in kilowatt-hours of
electricity generation, or acre-feet of water delivered to farms, or the value of property that the dams
shield from floods.
Some dam costs also are obvious, such as construction, operation and maintenance. They also include
the value of flooded land behind the dam and payments to relocate people from those areas.
Sometimes dam owners are required to build and operate fish hatcheries to compensate when local
species will lose habitat.

Other costs aren’t borne by dam owners or operators, and some have not historically been recognized.
As a result, many were not factored into past decisions to dam free-flowing rivers.

Research shows that dams impede transport of sediment to the oceans, which worsens coastal erosion.
They also release methane, a potent greenhouse gas, as drowned vegetation beneath dam reservoirs
decomposes.

One of dams’ greatest costs has been massive reductions in numbers and diversity of migratory fish that
move up and down rivers, or between rivers and the ocean. Dams have driven some populations to
extinction, such as the iconic Baiji, or Yangtze River dolphin, and the once economically important
Atlantic salmon on most of the U.S. east coast.

Old dams under stress

As dams age, maintenance costs rise. The average age of U.S. dams is 56 years, and seven in 10 will be
over 50 by 2025. The American Society of Civil Engineers classifies 14% of the nation’s 15,500 high
hazard potential dams – those whose failure would cause loss of human life and significant property
destruction – as deficient in their maintenance status, requiring a total investment of US$45 billion to
repair.

Like the failed Michigan dams, which were built in 1924, older dams may pose growing risks.
Downstream communities can grow beyond thresholds that determined the dams’ original safety
standards. And climate change is increasing the size and frequency of floods in many parts of the U.S.

These factors converged in 2017, when intense rainfall stressed the Oroville Dam in Northern California,
the nation’s tallest dam. Although the main dam held, two of its emergency spillways – structures
designed to release excess water – failed, triggering evacuations of nearly 200,000 people.

Benefits from free-flowing rivers

As dam owners and regulators increasingly recognize the downsides of dams and deferred maintenance
costs mount, some communities have opted to dismantle dams with greater costs than benefits.

The first such project in the U.S. was the Edwards Dam on the Kennebec River in Augusta, Maine. In the
mid-1990s when the dam was up for relicensing, opponents provided evidence that building a fish
ladder – a step required by law to help migratory fish get past the dam – exceeded the value of the
electricity that the dam produced. Federal regulators denied the license and ordered the dam removed.

Since then, the river’s river herring population has grown from less than 100,000 fish to more than
5,000,000, and the fish have drawn ospreys and bald eagles to the river. This project’s success catalyzed
support for removing more than 1,000 other dams.
Dam removal is bipartisan
Workman, 7 --- adviser and consultant on water and natural resources issues to governmental and
nongovernmental organizations, including the World Commission on Dams (FALL 2007, JAMES G.
WORKMAN, “How to Fix Our Dam Problems; Thousands of aging dams should be repaired or destroyed,
at a cost of billions. A cap-and-trade policy could speed the process and help pay the bills,”
https://issues.org/workman-water-crisis-drought-fix-dams/, JMP)

Dams have always been politically charged and often the epitome of pork-barrel projects. For the same
reasons, dam removal can get bipartisan support from leading Democrats and Republicans alike. The
switch from the Clinton to Bush administrations led to attempted alterations of many natural resource
policies, but one thing did not change: the accelerating rate of dam removals. In 1998, a dozen dams
were terminated; in 2005, some 56 dams came down in 11 states. Yet despite bipartisan support, there
has never been any specific dam policy in either administration. A dam’s demise just happened, willy-
nilly, here and there. Dams died with less legal, regulatory, or policy rationale than accompanied their
birth.
 Congress Supports Upgrading Dams

Congress supports upgrading existing dams to increase hydropower

Owen & Apse, 15 --- *Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, AND **Freshwater
Conservation Advisor, The Nature Conservancy (February 2015, Dave Owen and Colin Apse, “Trading
Dam,” 48 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1043, Nexis Uni, JMP)

Even with these removals, however, the Penobscot remains a dammed river, and hydropower at some
of its remaining dams actually is slated to increase. 5 This, too, reflects a larger story. The United States
is the [*1046] world's leader in dam removals, 6 but the overwhelming majority of its dams remain in
place, with no plans for removal. 7 Hydropower continues to generate more electricity than all other
sources of renewable energy 8 combined. 9 Many energy policy advocates, as well as many members of
Congress, want more hydropower, particularly at the many dams that currently generate no
hydropower or that could be upgraded to generate more. 10 In the United States, enthusiasm for
building new dams has waned, 11 but in many other nations it remains strong. 12 The environmental
accounting of dams has also evolved, and dam supporters increasingly can draw upon arguments that
ought to resonate with their traditional adversaries. Often - though, importantly, not always -
hydropower is a relatively clean energy [*1047] source, with low emissions of conventional air
pollutants and greenhouse gases. 13
DA Answers
 2ac DA Politics Infrastructure

Dam removal has bipartisan support and can be included in the infrastructure bill
Kiernan, 21 --- president and CEO of American Rivers, a national river conservation organization
(5/25/21 04:00 PM EDT, Tom Kiernan, “Rivers, hydropower and climate resilience,”
https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/555296-rivers-hydropower-and-climate-resilience,
JMP)

Leaders from the 12 Columbia Basin tribes, led by the Nez Perce, have called for a collaborative
legislative solution. U.S. Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), members of
Congress on opposite sides of the political spectrum , are encouraging the region to support a federal
legislative package that includes breaching the four lower Snake River dams and investing to replace
their services to agriculture and power generation. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) recently released a
statement with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), calling for “action and a resolution that restores salmon
runs and works for all the stakeholders and communities in the Columbia River Basin.”

The time for action is now. The infrastructure package that Congress is developing with the Biden
administration is the perfect opportunity to prioritize immediate investments on an aggressive timeline
that will reduce environmental harms and cultural injustices, and provide climate resilience, all while
providing much needed jobs and economic stimulus for the region.
 2ac DA Federalism

Federal constitutionally mandated responsibility

Graf, 3 --- Professor of Geography at the University of South Carolina (NOVEMBER 2003, William L.
Graf, UNIVERSITIES COUNCIL ON WATER RESOURCES, WATER RESOURCES UPDATE, ISSUE 126, PAGES
54-59, “The Changing Role of Dams in Water Resources Management,”
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/William-Graf-
2/publication/49518263_The_Changing_Role_of_Dams_in_Water_Resources_Management/links/00b4
9534fd56fe69bb000000/The-Changing-Role-of-Dams-in-Water-Resources-Management.pdf, JMP)

Who Will Decide the Future of Dams?

The adaptation of dams to new roles in water resources management means that some structures might
be physically modified, others removed, and still others managed under adjusted operating rules.
Decisions about these alternatives in planning and management are complex, involving not only the
environmental outcomes, but also the economic and human social outcomes (Heinz Center, 2002). The
structure of water policy and its execution in the United States insures that the answer to the question
“who will decide the futures of dams?” is likely to be “almost everyone.” Federal, state, tribal, and local
governments have direct policy connections to decisions about dams. Thus, it is necessary to consider all
levels of government.

Dams are critical components of international agreements concerning water in North America.
Agreements with Canada (particularly related to the Columbia River in the West and the Great Lakes in
the East) depend partly on international approaches to dam operations. Similarly, water agreements
with Mexico determine dam operations on the Colorado River and the Rio Grande. Adjustments in dam
operations to account for endangered species in the United States, therefore, are not simple internal
decisions. Rather, they must take into account issues related to water quality and quantity for delivery
to or from other nations.

Federal involvement in decisions about dams derives from constitutionally mandated responsibilities
for interstate commerce and the management of endangered species. States and other authorities do
not have the right to infringe on interstate commercial activities related to water. Since almost all water-
related commerce in the nation is interstate in some form another, the federal government has a
regulatory responsibility that has been tested in Supreme Court cases. Moreover, the Endangered
Species Act directs the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to review management plans for air, land, and
water resources that might affect endangered species. A host of other laws assigns the federal
government with responsibilities related to water. In fact, more than 25 separate federal agencies have
some statutory responsibility for rivers and watershed management (National Research Council, 1999).
It is particularly important that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers maintain the authority to regulate both
physical alterations to channels as well as the introduction of sediment into them. These are both vital
aspects of dam operations and modifications, and in some cases, removals.
 2ac DA Hydropower Good

The plan would retain a sufficient amount of hydropower – Penobscot proves. That’s
Owen & Apse. And, it would it would expand more environmentally friendly hydro –
that’s Plumer.

Removal of high hazard dams causes shift to more sustainable hydropower and
doesn’t compromise climate goals
Olson, 20 --- was a climate and energy analyst at Breakthrough Institute (Oct 1, 2020, Erik Olson,
“Bringing Down Dams Doesn’t Have to Threaten Climate Goals,”
https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/climate-and-dams, JMP)

The cheapest path to decarbonization relies on firm and clean electricity to support variable renewable
energy. As I’ve written previously, geothermal could be one such clean energy technology, but
hydroelectricity is the largest source of renewable firm generation in both the US and the world today
and has been for half a century. But the dams required to make hydroelectricity are controversial — so
much so that a diverse coalition of environmentalists, outdoors enthusiasts, tribes, and agricultural
interests have all called for some level of dam removal. If met, their desire could have serious climate
implications. Just how far back would bringing down American hydroelectric dams set climate progress?

I analyzed the problem and found that dam removal and meeting clean energy goals are not
necessarily at odds — that the apparent tradeoff between hydro's climate benefits and costs is less than
what it might seem. While the most hazardous US dams make up most of our hydroelectric capacity,
many of them are quite small, and their removal wouldn’t substantially threaten clean energy goals.

Hydroelectricity is a major part of the modern energy system, but it comes at a great cost. Dam
construction has displaced millions of people globally, often from disadvantaged communities and often
in unjust ways. Dams also create very modern risks and serious ecological disruption, both of which
could be exacerbated by climate stressors. When poorly maintained dams fail or are threatened by
flooding, as detailed recently in Michigan and China, thousands more can be displaced or at risk of
death.

Only 3% of the nearly 80,000 dams on US rivers actually produce electricity — most are for irrigation,
flood control, recreation, or other purposes. Those electricity-producing dams have a nameplate
capacity of over 103GW and produce 20% of our emissions-free electricity, about as much as wind
energy.

The Army Corps of Engineers collects data on most of these power-producing dams in the National
Inventory of Dams (NID). If they are large or dangerous enough, they are listed in the NID and ranked by
hazard level — high, significant, and low. Around half of the 2600 power-producing dams are deemed
high hazard (shown in the figure below).

[map of U.S. dams and their hazard categorization omitted]

The hazard status indicates what types of damage would occur if the dam were to fail — a “high” hazard
status means the loss of human life in addition to environmental and economic damage (the condition
for significant hazard) is likely to occur upon dam failure. This high hazard is not to be confused with the
condition of the dam. The “loss of human life” standard means a dam could be deemed highly
hazardous simply by its size or proximity to towns or other buildings, even if its condition is pristine. It
also means that there is likely a wide range of hazard — some dams might threaten a single structure or
dwelling, others may threaten thousands.

The bad news is that the highest-hazard hydroelectricity plants generate a substantial portion of US
electricity. By cross-referencing NID dams with Energy Information Administration (EIA) data, I found
that high-hazard dams make up over 70% of the total US hydroelectric capacity. After resolving
inconsistencies and repeated values in the NID and EIA datasets, breaking down the remaining 600 high-
hazard dams by size reveals that the average nameplate capacity of these dams is fairly large at 119MW.
That means a single dam could power a small city (~100k homes). This fact is unsurprising given how
hazard is defined — the dams that produce the most electricity will tend to be larger, and therefore
more likely to cause enormous impacts on failure. They also could be considered a shortlist of the
potentially most environmentally and ecologically destructive dams that produce electricity.

This is the apparent challenge. Removing high-hazard dams makes sense, but they also make up the
majority of firm and emissions-free hydroelectricity.

So is dam removal a nonstarter for climate action? Not really. Going deeper into the data shows that this
average and the total capacity of the high-hazard dams is misleading and that the vast majority are
actually quite small.

In fact, half of all high-hazard dams in the dataset are smaller than 20MW, totaling less than 2GW of
capacity. Almost a quarter were smaller than 5MW, making up a mere 0.5% of the total high-hazard
dam capacity. And, though less than 20% of the total capacity, dams smaller than the simple average
(119MW) are 80% of the total dams in the dataset. Conversely, the 16 dams over 1GW in capacity
represent one-third of the total high-hazard dam capacity (26GW).

When charted (shown below), a clear trend emerges: as dam size goes up, their frequency goes down
while their share of the total capacity goes up.

[graph of dams omitted]

This analysis has an obvious takeaway — even if the US dismantled a significant number of dams, its
clean energy supply would be only marginally impacted.

Perhaps, just as importantly, the removal of every small, high-hazard dam could be compensated for
with newer, less hazardous, and less ecologically damaging hydroelectricity. The Department of Energy
(DOE) predicts that it is possible to have as much as 50GW of new hydroelectricity by 2050. Though any
new dams are likely to face strong opposition and difficult financial prospects, solutions as simple as
making existing hydroelectric dams more efficient or adding ways to make electricity from the ~77,000
dams that don’t produce any are available. With these steps alone, we could squeeze 12GW from
already existing dams, an increase of 12% over the existing 103GW of US hydroelectric capacity. When
adding in new pumped storage or innovative solutions like generating electricity from the water flowing
in pipes underneath cities and towns or smaller and lower impact “standard modular hydropower,” we
could create more than 50GW of new hydroelectricity.

Selective dam removal won’t compromise climate solutions

Olson, 20 --- was a climate and energy analyst at Breakthrough Institute (Oct 1, 2020, Erik Olson,
“Bringing Down Dams Doesn’t Have to Threaten Climate Goals,”
https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/climate-and-dams, JMP)

The benefits of removing the Glen Canyon Dam probably outweigh the costs. Nonetheless, it illustrates
how complicated dam removal can be. Even if not strictly “necessary” from a clean energy perspective,
removal must be weighed against other human impacts beyond just decarbonization.

But the analysis demonstrates there are many dams that are even less beneficial than the GCD. Though
megadams like GCD are an obvious target, progress on dam removal can be made while also minimizing
the hit to clean energy. And, though unlikely to play a significant role in the US, hydroelectricity’s
flexibility — sometimes operating as baseload, sometimes as peaker, sometimes as storage — will allow
easier integration of variable renewables and make it a useful part of the energy system for decades to
come. From a climate perspective, bringing down all dams would not be wise, but bringing down some
of the smaller, more hazardous, dams would not really be that risky .
 2ac DA Hydropower Bad

Hydropower is not inherently bad --- it can be implemented in a way to expand low
carbon electricity without undermining the environment
Fisher, 20 (July 30, 2020, Lawrence M. Fisher - writes about business for The New York Times and
other publications, “To Dam or not to Dam?” https://www.milkenreview.org/articles/to-dam-or-not-to-
dam, JMP)

Finding Common Ground

That’s not the whole story, however. Some longtime dam opponents say climate change is so dire a
threat that they are coming to terms with hydropower. “The irony is you have this very large source of
energy that is both a solution to climate change and an environmental problem ,” says Dan Reicher, the
executive director of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University.

Reicher was an assistant secretary of energy in the Clinton administration and is on the board of the
advocacy group, American Rivers. With these credentials, Reicher has been able to bring hydro industry
leaders and environmental groups together to seek common ground. “There are several things the
industry can do to advance U.S. hydropower and address climate change,” he says, including refitting
existing powered dams with more efficient turbines , which could increase lowcarbon electricity output
20 to 30 percent; powering non-powered dams; and building pumped storage. Closed-loop pumped
storage, a newer technology, is built off the river, so the environmental impacts are much reduced
compared to existing facilities.

“There has long been a place for environmental groups and the energy industry to come together,”
Reicher adds. For example, hydroelectricity dams are such a big source of “storage capacity that the
wind and solar industries are interested in seeing this happen as well.”

Halting New Construction

Outside the United States, environmentalists and indigenous groups have in some cases aligned to block
new construction, which can otherwise seem an unstoppable juggernaut. Consider Laotian leaders’
ambitions, egged on by China, to become the “battery of Asia,” despite cataclysmic side effects – such as
one dam failure that killed some 800 people. A few particularly ill-considered projects have been
sidelined, like the Grand Inga in the Republic of Congo, which, at a proposed 39,000 megawatts, would
have been the largest hydro project in the world. Its future has been on hold since the Spanish firm ACS
Group dropped out in January 2020, leaving the project to ACS’s Chinese and German partners.

In Chile, meanwhile, HidroAysén, a megaproject to build five hydroelectric dams, two on the Baker River
and three on the Pascua River, has hit a wall of popular opposition. HidroAysén was a joint venture
between Endesa, a subsidiary of the Italian conglomerate ENEL, and Colbun, a Chilean utility company.
“When the dams were approved in 2011, there were huge protests in the streets almost weekly,” says
Amanda Maxwell, Latin America Project Director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which
joined a coalition of Chilean NGOs in fighting the project. “This was the predecessor to the student
protests, the first time people united together and got out in the streets.”
Some South America countries “tout their huge renewable portfolios, and that’s largely due to large
hydro,” acknowledges Maxwell. “But due to climate change, we can no longer rely on precipitation. You
have El Niño, La Niña, drought. The idea that hydroelectric dams are a stable source of electricity is not
accurate.”

Hydro and the Resource Curse

When economists speak of a “resource curse,” they are usually referring to petroleum and natural gas,
resources that one would assume would drive prosperity, but sometimes perversely impede growth by
increasing corruption and crowding out industries needed for balanced development. Kathleen Hancock,
a political scientist at the Colorado School of Mines, wonders if the same forces are at work with
hydropower. “There’s a tendency for people to think renewables are wonderful,” she says,

Hydroelectric dams supply at least 50 percent of electricity in more than 60 countries and more than 90
percent in some 20 countries, Hancock notes. In states as diverse as Bhutan, Norway, Paraguay, and
several African countries, essentially all commercial electricity comes from hydro. But too often, there
are negative side effects ranging from unstable energy supply (as pointed out above, it’s gotta rain) to
“enclave economics,” where the benefits all go to foreign investors and big industries rather than the
local economy.

Enclave economics were evident in the 2,400-megawatt Bakun Hydroelectric Project on the island of
Borneo in Malaysia, which started operating in 2011. Construction created boom-and-bust cycles,
inflationary pressures and shortages. The electricity from the completed project went primarily to
power smelters rather than to the local population, and the project offered no permanent jobs or skills
training to the villagers it displaced.

The 2,700-megawatt Yacyretá Dam between Argentina and Paraguay, which generates about half of all
the electricity consumed by both countries, is an example of what economists call “rent seeking” — in
this case, a polite term for allowing builders and government officials to skim off the cream. Hancock
and her co-author explain that the cost of the project, originally expected to be $1.5 billion, ballooned to
$15 billion, primarily due to financial shenanigans. The consortium that won the contract for the dam,
led by French and Italian firms, was accused of disbursing hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes. Much
of the paltry $27 million intended to compensate villagers for relocation was instead funneled to
contractors and assorted interests.

Then there’s the issue of unstable generation capacity. Water levels behind the dam vary with the
seasons, but are also subject to longer-term trends driven by climate change. In the Democratic Republic
of the Congo, where hydropower supplies more than 99 percent of electricity, supply has been erratic,
often fluctuating by double-digit percentages.

Consider, too, that waters rich in minerals or with high levels of chemicals from agricultural runoff can
corrode the turbines, while debris from logging and deforestation can increase silt.

“The hydroelectric curse is not a given,” Hancock says. “It depends on the government and
institutions.” And too much of the investment in hydro is in huge dams . “If you took all this money going
to mega-dam projects and instead put it toward micro-hydro, wind and solar, you could do as much. The
World Bank stopped funding big dams because of the corruption, but went back to funding them
because Africa is so behind on electricity,” she says. “The feeling was we just have to live with this.”
Other researchers say that large dams often exacerbate the very problems they were intended to solve
— or create new ones. The world has spent an estimated $2 trillion on dams in recent decades to supply
water for irrigation and burgeoning cities, or to generate hydroelectricity. But as Ted Veldkamp, at the
Institute for Environmental Studies at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, told New Scientist, that activity has
left 23 percent of the global population with less water, compared with only 20 percent who have
gained. “Water scarcity is rapidly increasing in many regions,” she said. “Building more dams might
mitigate tomorrow’s climate change impacts for a certain group while putting others under pressure
today.”

Veldkamp’s research included the Yellow River in arid northern China; the Ganges, where upstream
activity in India has damaged livelihoods in downstream Bangladesh; the Euphrates, where Turkish dams
cause drought in Iraq; and the Colorado River, where U.S. withdrawals leave little water for Mexico. A
2019 study, which claimed to be Europe’s first inventory of hydropower, found that 8,507 new plants
are planned for the coming years, adding to the 21,387 already on the continent. A further 278 plants
are under construction. The dams are part of a so-called European green deal whose goal is reducing
greenhouse emissions to net-zero by 2050.

“We must understand that the already high demand for water resources, especially in southern Europe,
will be exacerbated by such large-scale hydropower exploitation,” Steven Weiss of the Karl-Franzens
University of Graz told the Guardian.

Mitigate, Don’t Eliminate

Despite hydroelectric dams’ well-documented problems, the fact remains they provide more renewable
energy than any other source. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that “the
significant increase in hydropower capacity over the last 10 years is anticipated in many scenarios to
continue in the near-term (2020) and medium-term (2030), with various environmental and social
concerns representing perhaps the largest challenges to continued deployment if not carefully
managed.”

That scenario has prompted some longtime dam foes to seek a middle ground. American Rivers
partnered with the Center for Resource Solutions to create the Low Impact Hydropower Institute, which
rates dams according to a variety of environmental and cultural criteria.

Passing the test — 167 have made the cut thus far — gives dam owners a leg up in selling their power to
utilities that are under pressure to go greener. “You can include hydro in a renewable portfolio while
also insisting that they respect the environment ,” concludes Shannon Ames, the institute’s executive
director. “They’re not mutually exclusive.”

•••

In any event, opponents of hydro sometimes err by forgetting that the best can be the enemy of the
good. Benjamin Sovacool of Sussex University, who is the lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change’s next Assessment Report, notes that all electricity generation technologies have
negative externalities. “Coal and oil are the ‘worst,’ solar and wind the ‘best,’” Sovacool says. But these
rankings reflect priorities as well as location and the different technologies’ inherent characteristics.
“You can make dams that are very low impact, very low carbon, as gentle as hiking, in theory. Dams are
neither good nor bad, it’s how they’re designed and run. It’s as much about governance and policy as
technology.”
 2ac DA Agriculture – No Link

Dam removal that is part of a larger compromise could include upgraded

transportation and irrigation to help farmers
Whitworth, et. al, 21 (April 23, 2021, 3:37 PM, Kayna Whitworth,Alyssa Pone, andHaley Yamada,
“Snake River among top 10 most endangered rivers in the US, conservation group says; A series of dams
is threatening the local salmon population,” https://abcnews.go.com/US/snake-river-top-10-
endangered-rivers-us-conservation/story?id=77277094, JMP)

Currently, Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson wants to have $33.5 billion from President Joe Biden’s
infrastructure plan earmarked to save the Snake River. His plan includes removing the earthen part of
the dams to clear the waterways, replacing the energy produced at the dams, and upgrading the
transportation and irrigation services that the dams provide, hoping to make the communities that the
river serves, like the farmers, whole until they can supplement shipping methods .
 2ac DA Agriculture – Time-Drip Irrigation

Plan spurs expansion of time-dripped irrigation and trading in water rights

Workman, 7 --- adviser and consultant on water and natural resources issues to governmental and
nongovernmental organizations, including the World Commission on Dams (FALL 2007, JAMES G.
WORKMAN, “How to Fix Our Dam Problems; Thousands of aging dams should be repaired or destroyed,
at a cost of billions. A cap-and-trade policy could speed the process and help pay the bills,”
https://issues.org/workman-water-crisis-drought-fix-dams/, JMP)

Another effect would be an innovation revolution in the kinds of tools and technologies that are already
in the works but that have lacked a national incentive to really flourish. These include new kinds of fish
passages, dredging techniques, low-flush toilets, and timed-drip irrigation, along with a more aggressive
use of groundwater that pumps reservoir water underground as soon as it is trapped. The range of tools
would also include financial instruments; in the West, they might accelerate the trading in water rights
between agricultural, industrial, urban, and environmental users that has begun in Oregon, Montana,
Washington, and California

Expanding time-drip systems could cut costs, lowers water consumption and boosts
crop yield 90%
 Helps farmers get out of the cycle of poverty

Chu, 17 (April 19, 2017, Jennifer Chu, “Watering the world; New design cuts costs, energy needs for
drip irrigation, bringing the systems within reach for more farmers,” https://news.mit.edu/2017/design-
cuts-costs-energy-drip-irrigation-0420, JMP)

Many farms in drought-prone regions of the U.S. rely on drip irrigation as a water-saving method to
grow crops. These systems pump water through long thin tubes that stretch across farm fields.
Hundreds of dime-sized drippers along the length of each tube trickle water directly onto a plant’s base.
A farmer can control the timing and amount of watering, delivering only as much water as a crop
requires.

Drip irrigation can reduce a farm’s water consumption by as much as 60 percent and increase crop yield
by 90 percent, compared with conventional irrigation methods. But these systems are expensive,
particularly in off-grid environments where they cost farmers more than $3,000 per acre to install.

Now engineers at MIT have found a way to cut the cost of solar-powered drip systems by half, by
optimizing the drippers. Furthermore, these new drippers can halve the pumping power required to
irrigate, lowering energy bills for farmers. The team modified the drippers’ dimensions in a way that
significantly reduces the pressure required to pump water through the entire system, while still
delivering the same amount of water.

The team, led by Amos Winter, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, plans to further modify
the system upstream, optimizing the tubing, filters, pumps, and solar power system to ultimately make
drip irrigation affordable for farmers in developing regions of the world.
“Many small farmers in India make only a few hundred dollars a year, so a drip irrigation system is way
outside their price point,” Amos says. “Low-cost drip systems could help them increase their yield and
income, so they can get out of the cycle of poverty.”

The team has published its engineering theory on dripper design in PLOS One. The paper’s co-authors
are lead author and graduate student Pulkit Shamshery, former MIT postdoc Ruo-Qian Wang, and
undergraduate Davis Tran.

“The silver bullet”

Today, farmers in India and other developing parts of the world mainly grow crops using flood irrigation,
an ancient, low-tech method that involves flooding fields with redirected river or groundwater. While
this method is inexpensive, farmers have little control over when and how much to water their crops.
Flood irrigation is also inefficient, as most of the water not taken up by plants either evaporates or
drains away.

“The silver bullet here is drip irrigation … but it’s exorbitantly expensive,” Winter says. “The main cost
driver is the pump and power system. That laid the foundation for our research project: Could we make
drippers that operate on much lower pressures, and thus cut the pumping power and the capital costs?”

To do this, the researchers set out to characterize the behavior of existing “pressure compensating”
drippers — drippers designed to maintain a constant flow rate, regardless of the initial water pressure
that is applied. Such a feature enables every dripper along a tube to deliver the same water flow
throughout a farm field, regardless of how far away an individual dripper is from the central pump.

Most conventional drip irrigation systems are designed to operate the drippers at a pressure of at least 1
bar. To maintain this pressure requires energy, which constitutes the main capital expense in off-grid
drip irrigation systems, and the primary recurring cost in on-grid systems. Winter and Shamshery aimed
to design pressure-compensating drippers to operate at 0.1 bar — one-tenth of the pressure of
commercial systems. This reduction can halve both the power required to pump water through the
drippers and the capital cost of an off-grid drip system.

Evolving drip

The team set out to characterize the features in drippers that produce a pressure-compensating effect.
To do this, they first generated a model of a conventional pressure-compensating dripper in MatLab, a
numerical computing program that enables researchers to change the dimensions of a model to produce
a change in behavior. In this case, Shamshery studied the dynamics of water flowing through the
modeled dripper, and then came up with a mathematical description to explain how a dripper’s internal
features affect fluid flow and water pressure.

Shamshery then coupled the mathematical model with a genetic algorithm — a computer program that
simulates evolution of, in this case, various parameters in a dripper. For instance, the team selected a
range of dimensions for certain features and tested their flow behavior in simulation. They discarded
those dimensions that produced undesirable water pressure, and kept the better performers, which
they fed back into the algorithm with a new set of dimensions.
“We let this evolve through multiple generations,” Shamshery explains. “You end up expressing the
features and geometries that give you good performance, and you kill off the features that give you bad
performance.”

They evolved the dripper’s dimensions to a geometry that produced an optimal flow rate with an initial
pressure as low as 0.15 bar. Using these optimal dimensions, the team fabricated a few dripper
prototypes and tested them in the lab, with results that matched their simulations.

Going solar

Winter is now working with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Jain
Irrigation, a major manufacturer of drip irrigation systems, to test the optimized drippers in Morocco
and Jordan, where he says there is a push to shift farmers to drip irrigation.

“With these drippers, poor farmers can now grow higher-value crops, like off-season crops that they
couldn’t grow unless they had rain, and make more money to try and get out of poverty,” Winter says.
“In places like California, with a history of blackouts, this means not only less water consumption, but
less energy [used] for agriculture.”

Next, the team plans to optimize the rest of the drip irrigation system, which will further reduce the
system’s cost. The researchers will pilot solar-powered drip irrigation systems in Jordan and Morocco
with USAID in the coming two years.

“It turns out there is a massive untapped market in off-grid situations,” Winter says. “If you look at the
developing world, there are about half a billion small farms with 2.5 billion people. For them, this
technology could be a game-changer.”

This research was supported in part by USAID, Jain Irrigation, and the MIT Tata Center for Technology
and Design.
 1ar Drip Irrigation Turn

Still lots of growth opportunity for drip irrigation in agriculture --- changing water
rights can fuel its expansion
DRTS, 17 (October 30, 2017, Drip Research Technology Solutions (DRTS) is an international industry
leader providing drip irrigation and pipe extrusion machinery with over 35 years of experience in the
field, “The State of Drip Irrigation in the US: Insights from Doron Mamo Ahead of the 2017 Irrigation
Show,” https://drts.com/state-of-drip-irrigation-in-the-us/, JMP)

The irrigation industry is coming together on November 8-10 for the 2017 Irrigation Show in Orlando,
Florida. Ahead of the show we asked Doron Mamo, CEO of DRTS to share his insights about the current
state of the US irrigation market, as well as some thoughts for the future.

The irrigation business in the US is divided between three major industries. The first is landscaping,
including golf courses, universities, hotels, and sports fields. The second is agriculture, which remains a
slower growing sector for drip irrigation but is still a significant market. The third sector is mining, which
is turning into an impressive market as heap leach (HL) efficiencies increase and precious metal prices
continue to provide healthy margins.

Manufacturing Drip Irrigation Products

“In the 1980s when I first started working in drip irrigation, agriculture in the US used drip irrigation
methods for about 12% of crops,” Mr. Mamo shared. “This has grown to around 35%, but compared to
other countries, implementation is still low meaning there is plenty of room for market growth. There
are a handful of major players and smaller players in the drip irrigation market providing mainly two
types of agricultural products: long term dripline and short term tape.”

The long-term pipe is mainly used in applications such as trees or fruit where the tubing stays on the
ground in the same place for five to ten years and is nourishing the same crop year after year. While
more expensive than seasonal tape, this product provides a higher rate of flow and is cost-effective for
long-term installation.

For seasonal crops such as tomatoes or cucumbers, short-term slit tape products have a thin wall and
thus use 90% less material to manufacture. They also have a lower flow rate. Tape is the fastest growing
segment of the drip irrigation market as its price point and speed of installation make it easier for
farmers to implement. Farmers run tape along crop rows on the ground, use it for the season, harvest
the crop, pull up the tape, and then do it all over again with new tape the following season.

US Adoption of Drip Irrigation in Agriculture

“One major reason the agricultural market in the US is so slow to adopt drip irrigation has to do with the
way the water right laws are structured,” Mr. Mamo explained. “If, for example, a farmer has a certain
allotment of water, they must use their entire allotment for the year or lose it in the future. This is why,
for so many farms, the main form of irrigation is still flooding.”

Without any incentive to use drip irrigation on smaller farms, the main market is currently the large
production corporate farms that understand and benefit from the value drip irrigation brings in
efficiency and automation when applied to larger volumes of crops. Other countries have incentivized
the installation of drip irrigation systems by offering subsidies or, in Australia, allowing farmers to sell
their extra water allotment.

Recently, droughts in California have highlighted the problems in production that arise when there is a
reduced availability of water for flood irrigation. Farmers are simply taking acres of their land out of
production because they do not have access to enough water to continue to grow the volume of crops.
Under a system like Australia’s, a drought condition would simply mean farmers would have less spare
water to sell, but production would remain consistent.
 2ac DA Agriculture – Dams Hurt Disrupt Agriculture

Dams reduce water for agriculture and trigger massive sediment loss that undermines
fertile lands downstream
Diehn, 20 (Jun. 26, 2020 08:57AM EST, Sonya Angelica Diehn, Deutsche Welle, “Five Ways Mega-Dams
Harm the Environment,” https://www.ecowatch.com/mega-dams-2646269103.html, JMP)

Dams are often touted as environmentally friendly. Although they do represent a renewable source of
energy, a closer look reveals that they are far from green. DW lays out the biggest environmental
problems of mega-dams.

1. Dams Alter Ecosystems

Water is life — and since dams block water, that impacts life downstream, both for ecosystems and
people. In the case of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which is being built in Ethiopia and
is set to be Africa's largest source of hydroelectric power, Egypt is concerned it will receive less water
for things like agriculture.

Downstream ecosystems rely not only on water, but also on sediment, both of which are held back by
big dams. As solid materials build up in a manmade reservoir, downstream land becomes less fertile and
riverbeds can become deeper or even erode away. Emilio Moran, a professor of geography and
environment at Michigan State University in the US, described sediment loss of 30 to 40% as a result of
large dams.

"Rivers carry sediment that feeds the fish, it feeds the entire vegetation along the river. So, when you
stop sediment flowing freely down the streams, you have a dead river."

And ecosystems may have adapted to natural flooding, which dams take away.

Mega-dams also often have a large footprint on land upstream. Aside from displacing human
communities, flooding to create a reservoir also kills plants, and leaves animals to drown or find new
homes. Reservoirs can also further fragment valuable habitat and cut off migratory corridors.
 1ar Dams Disrupt Agriculture

Dams disrupt agriculture in the short term as land and people are displaced
Miller, 20 --- B.A. from UT Austin, seasoned writer who has written over one hundred articles, which
have been read by over 500,000 people (Mar 13, 2020, Brandon Miller, “17 Biggest Advantages and
Disadvantages of Dams,” https://greengarageblog.org/17-biggest-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-
dams, JMP)

List of the Disadvantages of Dams

1. Dams can displace a significant number of people.

An estimated 500 million people have been displaced by dams in the last two centuries because of the
reservoirs that form behind each structure. As the surrounding dry areas get flooded, we no longer have
the option to use land that was previously accessible for a variety of purposes. That means local
agricultural activities go through a disruption process, even though the eventual increase in available
water supports more irrigation.
 2ac DA Agriculture – Dam Failure Hurts Dams

Dam failure will overwhelm farms and livestock facilities

Maixner, 20 (06/03/20 6:20 AM, Ed Maixner, “Thousands of aging dams need 'urgent and extensive'
attention,” https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.agri-pulse.com/articles/13806-aging-dams-
risks-loom-out-of-sight-out-of-
mind&sa=D&source=hangouts&ust=1623183875811000&usg=AFQjCNFV3UNGPig-
DR6c8NUoRsD9wD_UuA, JMP)

Last Sunday, as National Dam Safety Awareness Day came and went, few Americans pondered a possible
disaster looming in an aging dam upstream from them.

In fact, the country’s reservoirs, large and small, pose an escalating threat of engulfing or damaging
towns, homes, farmsteads, processing plants, livestock facilities , highways, bridges, and any other parts
of rural America downstream from many of the nation’s 91,500 dams.

But lately, nature has lobbed a few large-caliber warning shots. 

 In May, torrents of rain pouring into Wixon Lake in Michigan overtopped the 95-year-old
Edenville Dam, causing another downstream dam to fail and requiring the evacuation of
thousands of people. Dam safety officials had long warned of the dam’s inadequate spillway
capacity.

 In March 2019, a surging ice flow on Nebraska’s Niobrara River overtopped and destroyed the
century-old Spencer Dam and its hydropower plant, drowning a homeowner, inundating
buildings and damaging several bridges downstream.

 In February 2017, two spillways of California’s Oroville Dam, the nation’s tallest at 770 feet,
frayed and then collapsed, bringing the whole 50-year-old dam to near failure, causing
evacuation of 200,000 downstream residents, requiring $1.1 billion in repairs, and generating at
least $1 billion in lawsuits by home and business owners.

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) sums up its appraisal of the condition of U.S. dams with a
grade of D and declares the country’s dams need urgent and extensive attention. Their average age is 56
years, and in five years 70% of them will be over 50 years old. One in six is classified as high hazard,
which means people are living below a large reservoir restrained by a high dam. Another one in eight of
the dams pose “significant hazard potential,” threatening significant economic losses to downstream
infrastructure, including farms.

The U.S Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) estimates that no emergency action plan (EAP) has been done
for nearly 20% of the high-hazard dams.

Nor is the challenge of fixing dams going to wait. Climate experts’ outlook, including the 2018 White
House National Climate Assessment, point to the rising frequency of record-setting rains and other
severe weather events. The White House report warns that deteriorating dams “represent an increasing
hazard when exposed to extreme or, in some cases, even moderate rainfall.”
The near catastrophe at the Oroville Dam made that point clearly to the nation’s dam safety officials.

Liza Whitmore, a California Department of Water Resources official, says the Feather River watershed
above the dam had record rainfall in the two months preceding the spillway's failure, which sent “an
entire year’s average runoff – 4.4 million acre-feet – in 50 days” into the reservoir.

She explains that the dam is listed as high hazard solely because of the large downstream population,
and it is inspected annually to ensure it meets all ACE safety standards. But the DWR has done “an in-
depth assessment” and revisions to its dam safety program since the 2017 event, she says, and
reconstructed the 50-year-old dam using today’s top engineering practices, which “has left Oroville Dam
with two of the most robust flood outlets in the world.”

Across the nation, “there has been great success in the periodic inspection of dams, especially high-
hazard potential dams … and many dams are successfully upgraded and repaired every year,” reports
Katelyn Riley, communications manager for the Association of State Dam Safety Officials (ASDSO). “But
there still are over 2,300 high-hazard potential dams … with a condition rating of either poor or
unsatisfactory” in the ACE’s National Inventory of Dams, she says.

Further, all sorts of development and population growth continue below most dams of significance, and
the ACE says those downstream population increases have added 1,600 dams to the high-hazard
category in just the last decade.

Despite the mounting risks with big dams, many small dams on farms and ranches across the country fail
every year but cause no fatalities or big disasters.

“We do have dams that fail every year: smaller dams on ranches and … farm ponds,” or small ones
managed by irrigation districts, towns or other local entities, says Tim Gokie, chief engineer for the Dam
Safety Section of the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources.

“Unfortunately, for most people, when it comes to their dams … it’s always been there, out there in the
pasture, and I don’t know that they pay attention to it,” he says.

But folks do face personal losses and lose their water supply, Gokie says, because the typical spillways
for small dams – a big corrugated metal pipe under the dam's earthen embankment – have not been
checked and are rusting out.

The pipes usually rust out along the bottom, and the reservoir forces water through the rusted holes at
the bottom of the pipe, Gokie explains. “Once that process starts, it doesn’t take very long … until you
have a hole all the way through the dam on the outside of the pipe. It can unravel really quickly and you
get a dam failure,” he says.
 2ac DA Agriculture – AT: Snake River Dam Removal Hurts Irrigation

Snake river removal won’t significantly impact irrigation --- cheap to compensate
those that suffer
Malarkey, 19 --- senior fellow at Sightline Institute, has helped implement large-scale projects in
infrastructure, technology, and energy in Washington for nearly thirty years (September 18, 2019,
Daniel Malarkey, “FEW WOULD LOSE FROM REMOVING SNAKE RIVER DAMS; And making whole the
irrigators and grain barging companies would cost little,” https://www.sightline.org/2019/09/18/few-
would-lose-from-removing-snake-river-dams/, JMP)

Breaching the lower Snake River dams and restoring the river would not come cheap. The cost could
exceed a billion dollars. (The value of wild salmon make that expense worthwhile, I argued in the first
article of this series.) But making whole the irrigators and grain barging companies that are the principal
beneficiaries of the dams would be surprisingly affordable. In some cases, paying them for their losses
would cost less than continuing to operate the dams as at present.

You would not guess it from the words of conservative political leaders along the Snake, though. When
in late July, the consulting firm ECONorthwest (ECONW) released its study on the economic tradeoffs of
removing the dams on the lower Snake River, US Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Dan Newhouse,
both Republicans from Eastern Washington, immediately branded the report “a slap in the face of our
state’s agricultural economy” adding that “billions of dollars in infrastructure improvements that would
be needed for irrigation and transportation hardly come across as a ‘public benefit.’”

The ECONW study took a bean counter’s approach to weighing the pros and cons of dam removal. In the
case of agriculture, it showed that the increased costs to irrigators and grain growers are surprisingly
modest. Let’s take them in turn.

Irrigation after the Dams

Using water permit data from the Department of Ecology, ECONW identified 41 surface water diversions
and 84 groundwater wells that could be affected by the drop in water levels if the dams were removed.
In total, just 125 water sources out of 230,000 statewide permits managed by Ecology would be
affected. Policymakers could choose to engineer water replacement solutions at no cost to the
irrigators using those sources (rather than consider alternative water sources, compensate irrigators
financially, invest in water conservation, or let irrigators suffer some from restoring the river—after all,
water rights do not entitle anyone to massive federally subsidized dams).

But an irrigation specialist estimated that it would cost $148 million to plan, permit and replace the 41
diversions at the new water level after the dams were breached and $12 million extra to deepen or
replace the 84 wells. These combined costs are about 12 percent of the estimated costs of removing the
dams—not small numbers but certainly within the range of mitigation costs that have been part of other
large public projects.
 2ac DA Agriculture – AT: Snake River Dam Removal Hurts Barging

Minimal cost to change shipping --- modifying government subsidies can prevent
increase
Malarkey, 19 --- senior fellow at Sightline Institute, has helped implement large-scale projects in
infrastructure, technology, and energy in Washington for nearly thirty years (September 18, 2019,
Daniel Malarkey, “FEW WOULD LOSE FROM REMOVING SNAKE RIVER DAMS; And making whole the
irrigators and grain barging companies would cost little,” https://www.sightline.org/2019/09/18/few-
would-lose-from-removing-snake-river-dams/, JMP) ***Note --- ECONW = consulting firm
ECONorthwest that released its study on the economic tradeoffs of removing the dams on the lower
Snake River

Grain hauling after the Dams

Downriver grain shipment makes up the majority of barge traffic on the lower Snake River. Grain
growers have recently averaged annual shipments of about 2.2 million tons per year downriver. If the
dams were breached, those grain shipments would either travel by truck to Pasco for barge loading or
travel by train to Portland. The shift from barge to truck or train would increase costs for some grain
growers. To estimate how much more they would pay, ECONW analyzed the average annual barge
loadings at the ports along the Snake River and reallocated them to trucks or trains given the relative
costs for each mode.

Using local data on the costs per ton-mile to move grain by barge, train, and truck, ECONW estimated
that growers would pay an additional $6.2 million per year in shipping costs. Remarkably, the annual
budget for operating the locks at the four dams is $21 million per year; the federal government spends
one dollar operating the locks so grain shippers can save 30 cents on shipping. Better to pay the grain
growers the 30 cents directly and let federal taxpayers keep the remainder .

If grain growers were forced to absorb higher shipping costs, the increase looks small in the context of
the regional grain market. The average annual market value of Washington’s wheat and barley crops for
the last ten years is $862 million. A $6.2 million increase in transportation for those who barge their
grain represents an average cost increase that is less than one percent of the region’s grain revenues.

In the last 10 years, the revenue per acre of wheat has an average year to year variation of more than
20 percent as crop yields and prices swing in response to weather and market forces. Any cost increase
matters to farmers and the increased shipping costs would fall more heavily on some than others, but
policymakers should understand that shifts in transportation costs on the order of one percent are just
one star in a broad constellation of forces that determine planting choices and profitabilit y.

Given the alternatives for moving grain from the Palouse, wheat and barley would still find their way to
market without barges on the lower Snake River. If the federal subsidy for barging shifts to trucks and
trains, growers’ transportation costs need not increase at all.

All told, on the most generous assumptions, holding irrigators and grain haulers harmless and applying
the savings from ending lock operations would cost roughly $80 million or about 7% of the cost of
removing the dams. In spite of the howls of protest over the ECONW report, the face of agriculture in
Eastern Washington would go unmarred if the dams came down.
 1ar Snake River Dam Removal Boosts Jobs / Economy

Dam removal will boost net jobs and economy --- any job losses can be quickly
absorbed
Malarkey, 19 --- senior fellow at Sightline Institute, has helped implement large-scale projects in
infrastructure, technology, and energy in Washington for nearly thirty years (September 19, 2019 at
5:00 am, Daniel Malarkey, “RESTORING THE SNAKE RIVER IS A JOBS PROGRAM; Removing the dams
would boost the economy,” https://www.sightline.org/2019/09/19/restoring-the-snake-river-is-a-jobs-
program/, JMP)

“Breaching Snake River dams could save salmon and orcas, but destroy livelihoods” reads a March 24,
2019 cover story of the Sunday Seattle Times Pacific NW magazine. Such headlines reinforce the
misperception that removing the dams would deal a blow to the economy of Eastern Washington . The
recent economic impact analysis by ECONorthwest (ECONW) shows just the opposite: a river recovery
project would add hundreds of jobs to the lower Snake River basin.

In 2002, the Corps estimated the costs of breaching the dams and restoring the river would total $860
million in 1999 dollars or $1.6 billion in 2018 dollars. This influx of spending for engineering,
construction, and environmental mitigation during and long after removal would increase employment,
income, and output through the region. According to the modeling by ECONW, a capital project of this
size would add over 300 jobs per year in the counties adjacent to the river for more than 30 years.

Restoring the lower Snake River would also bring more recreational visitors to enjoy white water
recreation and other riverside activities. ECONW projects that by 2040 annual visitors would increase by
1 million compared with a baseline of 1.4 million visitors if the dams remain. Assuming visitor spending
amounts in Asotin County from a 2016 study, those new visitors would spend an additional $80 million
per year.

More jobs overall but some job loss

These increases in spending and net employment would boost the economy in southeastern
Washington, but not every person in the region would benefit from breaching. The photo essay that
accompanied the Seattle Times article offered a portrait of the work lives of the barge operators who
could lose their jobs if barge traffic stops in Pasco, Washington, instead of continuing up the Snake River
to Lewiston, Idaho.

But policymakers should keep any potential losses in perspective. According to state reports, inland
water freight employed 248 people in all of Washington in 2017. None of these employers were located
in the seven counties that comprise the southeastern corner of Washington where the lower Snake
River is: Asotin, Benton, Columbia, Garfield, Franklin, Walla Walla, and Whitman. Tidewater, the leading
barge operator, is headquartered far downriver in Vancouver, Washington.

Employers that do locate in the seven southeastern counties together employed over 175,000 people in
2017. National statistics show that monthly layoffs and discharges now average 1.2 percent per month.
If southeast Washington follows that national average, then 25,000 people in those seven counties lose
their jobs each year. Most are rehired after a job search of a few months. Every job is important to the
person who holds it, but the larger context is important, too: the region has a dynamic economy where
employers constantly add and subtract jobs from the labor market.

More specifically, the Kennewick-Pasco-Richland area has recently added about 3,000 net new jobs per
year, an annual employment growth rate of 2.1 percent since 2000. That rate is well above the state
average of 1.2 percent. Any individual job losses from breaching the dams could be absorbed in an
already dynamic local economy that would surge from a boost of new spending.

Far from destroying livelihoods, as the Seattle Times fears,  breaching the dams and restoring the river
would boost the economy that centers on the lower Snake.  Agricultural production would continue
much as it is now with a boost to transportation employment as some grain shipments move from
barges to trucks and trains.  Hundreds of people would work on removing the dams and, once the river
is restored, hundreds of thousands of new fishers and rafters and their spending would visit the river
basin.  The economic prospects of the region are brighter without the dams.

Economics says it is time to restore the Snake River

In this case, as in the three previous cases in this series, the recent ECONW report makes clear that
breaching the dams on the lower Snake River is a win for the Northwest: 

 Northwesterners place a high value on improving the prospects for threatened and endangered
salmon in the Snake River.

 Hydropower from the dams isn’t so cheap anymore; it may cost less to generate power from
new, carbon-free resources like wind and solar.

 Even a river restoration project with a relatively modest mitigation fund  could make farmers
whole, offsetting nearly all of the increased cost of irrigation and grain hauling 

 The costs and disruptions to jobs from breaching the dams are small compared with the benefits
and the net new jobs the project would create.

The argument over the fate of the dams will continue to unfold in lunch counters, editorial pages,
hearing rooms, and courts.  A growing body of evidence now weighs in favor of breaching the dams and
returning the lower Snake River to a natural state.
 2ac DA Agriculture – AT: Dams Prevent Floods

Dams make floods more destructive

 Cause false sense of security
 Reduce capacity of upstream watersheds to absorb sudden storms

Workman, 7 --- adviser and consultant on water and natural resources issues to governmental and
nongovernmental organizations, including the World Commission on Dams (FALL 2007, JAMES G.
WORKMAN, “How to Fix Our Dam Problems; Thousands of aging dams should be repaired or destroyed,
at a cost of billions. A cap-and-trade policy could speed the process and help pay the bills,”
https://issues.org/workman-water-crisis-drought-fix-dams/, JMP)

Worse, as climate change accelerates, U.S. dams will struggle to brace for predicted drought and deluge
cycles on a scale undreamed of when the structures were built. This brings us to the fourth danger.
Dams initially designed for flood control may actually make floods more destructive. First, they lure
people to live with a false sense of security, yet closer to danger, in downstream floodplains . Then they
reduce the capacity of upstream watersheds to absorb and control the sudden impact of extreme
storms. Looking only at mild rainstorms in October 2005 and May 2006, three states reported 408
overtoppings, breaches, and damaged dams. Only half of the nation’s high-hazard dams even have
emergency action plans.
 2ac DA Agriculture – Food Insecurity Doesn’t Cause War

Food insecurity is unlinked from war.

Cliffe 16 – Sarah F. Cliffe, the director of New York University’s Center on International Cooperation,
International Relations and International Economic Policy MA at Columbia University. [Food Security,
Nutrition, and Peace, 4-3-16, https://cic.nyu.edu/news_commentary/food-security-nutrition-and-
peace]//BPS

However, current research does not yet indicate a clear link between climate change, food insecurity and
conflict, except perhaps where rapidly deteriorating water availability cuts across existing tensions and weak institutions. But a series of
interlinked problems – changing global patterns of consumption of energy and scarce resources, increasing demands for food imports (which
draw on land, water, and energy inputs) can create pressure on fragile situations.

Food security – and food prices – are a highly political issue, being a very immediate and visible source of popular welfare or popular
uncertainty. But their link to conflict (and the wider links between climate change and conflict) is indirect rather than direct.
What makes some countries more resilient than others?

Many countries face food price or natural resource shocks without falling into conflict. Essentially, the two
important factors in determining their resilience are:

First, whether food insecurity is combined with other stresses – issues such as unemployment, but most fundamentally
issues such as political exclusion or human rights abuses. We sometimes read nowadays that the 2006-2009 drought was a factor in the Syrian
conflict, by driving rural-urban migration that caused societal stresses. It may of course have been one factor amongst many but it would be
too simplistic to suggest that it was the primary driver of the Syrian conflict.

Second, whether countries have strong enough institutions to fulfill a social compact with their citizens, providing help
quickly to citizens affected by food insecurity, with or without international assistance. During the 2007-2008 food crisis,
developing countries with low institutional strength experienced more food price protests than those with higher institutional strengths, and
more than half these protests turned violent. This for example, is the difference in the events in Haiti versus those in Mexico or the Philippines
where far greater institutional strength existed to deal with the food price shocks and protests did not spur deteriorating national security or
widespread violence.
 1ar Food Insecurity Doesn’t Cause War

Use a better research method.

Post et al. 15 – Riley Post, major in the US Army Special Forces, US Special Operations Command.
Darren Hudson, a professor, Combest Endowed Chair, and the Director of the International Center for
Agricultural Competitiveness at Texas Tech University. Patrick Bell, Economics Professor at the United
States Military Academy. Arie Perliger, Security Studies Professor at the University of Massachusetts-
Lowell. Ryan Williams, Agricultural and Applied Economics Professor at Texas Tech University.
[Rethinking the Water-Food-Climate Nexus and Conflict: An Opportunity Cost Approach, Applied
Economic Perspectives and Policy, 38(4),
https://academic.oup.com/aepp/article/38/4/563/2528241#47363706]//BPS
Complex Adaptive Systems and Institutions

Because context matters, a discussion of opportunity costs in conflict indirectly brings us back to the broader question of the causal link
between hunger and conflict. Hunger and conflict do not happen in a vacuum—they are societal outcomes that
must be understood in their broader political, economic, and social contexts (Tilly 1978). For the past twenty or
more years, the majority of the conflicts around the world have taken place in poor countries—countries that are also chronically food insecure.

Hunger and conflict appear to be symptoms of deeper problems associated with broken institutions
and a dysfunctional political system (Collier et al. 2003; Blattman and Miguel 2010). Does the relationship between food and
human insecurity reflect a condition of amplifying existing failure? For example, the drought in the Tuareg region of Mali created significant
hardship, but it was the government's reported theft of donated food aid that drove many to take up arms (Benjaminsen 2008). The more
fragile the society, the more likely food insecurity is to lead to violence (Bora et al. 2010) because food insecurity and fragile societies ultimately
decrease the opportunity cost of conflict. Strong grievances and few alternatives potentially drove hundreds of thousands of people to the
streets in the MENA region in 2011and eventually to take up arms against their governments.

Our figure 2 depicts a complex system of multiple sources of changing conditions, feedback, and compound/countervailing factors. People
adapt and evolve as conditions change. But, while systems are complex, they need not be complicated (Holland 1992). That is, complex systems
have a nearly unlimited supply of stimuli, but follow fairly simple decision rules. In our case, people face an almost infinite set of conditions but
condense decisions down into a simple opportunity cost calculation. It is the almost infinite set of conditions that make the effective prediction
of conflict difficult at best, and most likely fruitless. Further, focusing on simple
linear causality and prediction can often lead to
erroneous policy prescriptions because they fail to recognize the interconnectedness of causal factors.
Rather, focusing on research that creates adaptive systems is likely more productive.

Borrowing Taleb’s terminology, the outcome of this opportunity cost calculation reflects fragile, robust, or anti-fragile states. In an anti-fragile
world, the stressors created by actions inside the three pathways lead to new opportunities where individuals can thrive, thereby leading to a
choice of some other, more positive alternative action. But, more likely, the state is either robust or fragile. In a robust (or resilient) state, for
example, government security or social services are just enough to offset the costs imposed by a reduction in economic well-being or migration
resulting in a status quo choice by individuals. But in a fragile state, the opportunity cost of conflict is less than the perceived marginal benefits
because the system cannot adapt and absorb shocks, and conflict ensues (Taleb 2014).

While the existing literature

that directly links food prices to conflict, or poverty to conflict, provides insights on the statistical
association, they are less informative about how to alter the potential risk of conflict. For example, knowledge of
the impact of government social services on relative depravation would help inform policy-makers of the cost/benefit ratio of government
services versus the probability of conflict. Thus, understanding the relationships between the nodes, as opposed to between food security and
conflict directly, should be our focus of research.

This opportunity cost focus opens up obvious avenues for research in behavior and/or game theoretic fields. A few obvious examples: Do
information cascades (especially through social media) change the opportunity cost calculations, and, therefore, increase the probability of
migration and/or conflict? How do people perceive the relative risk of conflict versus the outcome of stasis? What is their level of risk/loss
aversion in this context? How do risk preferences or calculations change when under the stress of food shortages, migration, or economic
hardship? What are the roles/impacts of information asymmetries in their opportunity cost calculations? What are their perceptions of the
relative power/commitment of the potential combatants (or more simply, how do they “pick sides” in a potential conflict)? The existing
research base can be useful in placing values on choices in a game theoretic explanation or providing parameters and hypotheses for behavioral
research, but clearly many of the questions require a new empirical vein of research for effective answers.

Food Security and Conflict in Practice

Turning our attention to the needs of practitioners and policy-makers, the

original question is whether shocks in the WCF
nexus lead to conflict? The answer is no, per se. That is, climate change, for example, is just one of many
potential beginning points in causal chains that can lead to breakdowns in fragile systems and result in conflict. Climate change
is neither necessary nor sufficient . But is climate change as postulated by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (2007)
an impact multiplier? That is, climate change may exacerbate the existing biological uncertainty of food production and may amplify the effects
of failed/fragile governmental institutions in handling natural disasters and population migration. As such, consideration of climate change (and
the WCF nexus, in general) as a stressor or precursor is relevant. But practitioners and policy-makers would be better served by focusing on the
opportunity cost of individuals as the best course of addressing system fragility and devising policies to avoid conflict.

And empirics
Steven Pinker 11, Prof @ Harvard, Steven Pinker: Resource Scarcity Doesn’t Cause Wars,
http://www.globalwarming.org/2011/11/28/steven-pinker-resource-scarcity-doesnt-cause-wars/

Once again it seems to me that the appropriate response is “maybe, but maybe not.” Though
climate change can cause plenty of
misery… it will not necessarily lead to armed conflict. The political scientists who track war and peace, such as Halvard
Buhaug, Idean Salehyan, Ole Theisen, and Nils Gleditsch, are skeptical of the popular idea that people fight wars
over scarce resources. Hunger and resource shortages are tragically common in sub-Saharan countries
such as Malawi, Zambia, and Tanzania, but wars involving them are not. Hurricanes, floods, droughts,
and tsunamis (such as the disastrous one in the Indian Ocean in 2004) do not generally lead to conflict. The American dust bowl
in the 1930s, to take another example, caused plenty of deprivation but no civil war. And while temperatures have
been rising steadily in Africa during the past fifteen years, civil wars and war deaths have been falling.
Pressures on access to land and water can certainly cause local skirmishes, but a genuine war requires that
hostile forces be organized and armed, and that depends more on the influence of bad governments,
closed economies, and militant ideologies than on the sheer availability of land and water. Certainly any connection to
terrorism is in the imagination of the terror warriors: terrorists tend to be underemployed lower-middle-class men, not subsistence farmers. As for genocide, the
Sudanese government finds it convenient to blame violence in Darfur on desertification, distracting the world from its own role in tolerating or encouraging the
ethnic cleansing. In
a regression analysis on armed conflicts from 1980 to 1992, Theisen found that conflict was
more likely if a country was poor, populous, politically unstable, and abundant in oil, but not if it had suffered
from droughts, water shortages, or mild land degradation. (Severe land degradation did have a small effect.) Reviewing
analyses that examined a large number (N) of countries rather than cherry-picking one or toe, he concluded,
“Those who foresee doom, because of the relationship between resource scarcity and violent internal
conflict, have very little support from the large-N literature.”

No resource conflict – countries cooperate.

Agha Bayramov 18. PhD candidate and lecturer at the department of International Relations and
International Organization of the University of Groningen. “Review: Dubious nexus between natural
resources and conflict.” Journal of Eurasian Studies 9(1): 72-81. Emory Libraries.

The arguments of scarcity adherents have been challenged by a number of scholars in terms of
qualitative and quantitative findings. According to Stern (2016) the assumptions underpinning the
scarcity notion are illogical due to the exaggeration of threats arising from oil ownership from
misperceptions of market information. Furthermore, Koubi et al. (2013) explain that despite their strong
empirical explanations, scarcity scholars have weak quantitative research results ones that fail to prove
the link between resource scarcity and intrastate or interstate conflict . The reason for this is that some
large-N findings contradict early results, which illustrate that the scarcity-conflict nexus is more
complicated than scarcity scholars would have us believe. Dinar (2011), meanwhile, argues that natural
resource scarcity may in fact be an important force for cooperation between states. However, scholars
of natural resource scarcity have hitherto ignored the ways in which scarcity can spur cooperation
(Deudney, 1999).

Considering these findings, three conclusions can be drawn from this section. First, scarcity is a complex
term and it should not be equated with only natural resources. As it is explained by Kester (2016) some
countries may suffer from scarcity of technical, knowledge and human capacity rather than natural
resources. In light of this, without a proper capacity it is also possible to have scarcity within abundancy
of resources. While supporting the scarcity argument, Andrews-Speed (2015) offer an alternative
explanation that natural resources are not physically scarce but there are indeed economic, political,
environmental and equity barriers that can lead to a scarcity of natural resources. Due to the strong rule
of law, decent neighbourly relations and existence of strong norms for compromise and of multilateral
institutions, the North Atlantic countries are highly unlikely to utilize force against or declare war to
each other. However, these dimensions and buffers are currently lacking in the Middle East, Africa and
Asia. As such, the U.S and Europe should work closely with these regions to prevent any resource
disputes erupting (Andrews-Speed 15). Similarly, Gleditsch (1998) explains that some highly developed
countries have population density, clean water, and land degradation problems but they still do not
suffer from environmental violence. Thus the main issue might be that poor economic development,
rather than environmental scarcity, leads to conflict. Kester (2016) names this situation as “second-
order-scarcity” which refers to a lack of technology, economic capacity, and knowledge to stop resource
scarcity. In this regard, it may be scarcity, itself, rather than natural resources that leads to conflict.

Second, conflict can be defined differently based on different dimensions. However, the common
consensus is that conflict consists of multiple dimensions (political, economic, environmental, historical,
cultural, and geographical etc.) rather than single factor. In this regard, scarcity of natural resources is
not strong enough, by itself, to induce either interstate or intrastate conflict. It needs in fact to interact
with other variables. Finally, related to the previous reasons, scarcity of natural resources might be a
contributing or marginal reason for rather than the root cause of a given conflict. In other words, it
needs to interact with non-resource factors in order to cause violence.

Stabilizing forces outweigh competition.

Patrick L. KINNEY AND Kate BURROWS 16. **Professor of environmental health sciences,
Columbia. **PhD student, climate change and health, Yale; MPH, climate and health, Columbia.
“Exploring the Climate Change, Migration and Conflict Nexus.” International Journal of Environmental
Research and Public Health 13(4): 8-10. Emory Libraries.

Thus, despite the added cultural and socioeconomic stress of migration, conflict is not inevitable or even
likely in well-established political states. Democracies, in particular, have been shown to be protective
against conflict because these states are accountable to their populations and, due to this responsibility,
may take steps to conserve water and land in the event of resource depletion [17]. Thus, even with the
added stress on resources, a state can perform stabilizing functions to help maintain peace. This
directly challenges the neo-Malthusian model, which fails to account for stabilizing forces, such as
political and economic stability, that may outweigh competition for resources and thus limit conflict
[61]. This echoes the findings that democratic states and institutions have the capacity to regulate
environmental degradation and preserve peace [17, 67]. Additionally, it has been suggested that human
ingenuity and technology have the potential to outweigh the potential dangers of environmental
degradation [1].
Kritik Answers
 AT: K Set Col

Dams are colonialist --- displaces millions of indigenous and vulnerable people
Benson, 21--- Masters of Environmental Policy Candidate (MAY 16, 2021, Jen Benson, “The Murky
Ethics and Complicated Environmental Claims of Big Hydro,” https://www.bard.edu/cep/blog/?p=12930,
JMP)

Colonialism and Social Justice

The construction of dams both in modern and historical moments has resulted in the relocation of
communities, causing disruption of livelihoods, cultural and social resources, space, and property.
During the second half of the twentieth century, millions of indigenous people across the global south
were displaced to build large-scale hydroelectric reservoirs.

And not only are communities living in the basin of any new dam reservoir displaced, those living
downstream who rely on riverine resources are secondarily displaced by losing income sources. In
addition to indigenous populations, the people displaced globally by hydroelectric projects are often the
most vulnerable and those with the least wealth.

A 2016 article published in the Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies categorized eight specific
displacement risks for indigenous populations: landlessness, joblessness, homelessness, marginalization,
food insecurity, increased morbidity, lost access to common resources, and community dislodgement.
T Answers
 AT: T Water Resources

Dams governed by water resource policy

Graf, 3 --- Professor of Geography at the University of South Carolina (NOVEMBER 2003, William L.
Graf, UNIVERSITIES COUNCIL ON WATER RESOURCES, WATER RESOURCES UPDATE, ISSUE 126, PAGES
54-59, “The Changing Role of Dams in Water Resources Management,”
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/William-Graf-
2/publication/49518263_The_Changing_Role_of_Dams_in_Water_Resources_Management/links/00b4
9534fd56fe69bb000000/The-Changing-Role-of-Dams-in-Water-Resources-Management.pdf, JMP)

During the last three decades, however, there has been a perceptible shift in how some of the general
public views dams, and this shift has been reflected in federal legislation as well as state administration
of rivers and water resources. By the end of the twentieth century, it became obvious that the benefits
generated by dams were associated with environmental costs that planners had not foreseen. Aquatic
habitats downstream from dams experienced changes in water quality, temperature, and sediment
content, while riparian vegetation communities changed their species composition and aerial coverage.
The 1977 Clean Water Act (with subsequent amendments) established as federal policy the restoration
and maintenance of the physical, biological, and chemical integrity of the nation’s water courses, thus
launching massive efforts to reverse the degradation of water quality and the trends toward highly
artificial streams. The 1973 Endangered Species Act established as federal policy the protection of
species threatened with extinction as a result of human activities. The Endangered Species Act has
turned out to be especially important to water managers because about half of all the species on the
federal endangered list have been negatively affected by dams and diversions (Losos et al., 1995).

This brief review both of dams and the shift in national attitudes toward a greater emphasis on
environmental quality raises two questions that are explored in subsequent paragraphs:

• What new roles will dams play in the future of American rivers and water resources?

• Who will decide the role of dams in water resources management and river restoration?

New Roles for Dams

Paradoxically, dams are constructed to bring about beneficial changes in the hydrologic regime of rivers
downstream, but those same changes cause damage to environmental systems. For example, structures
created for irrigation storage contain most of the Spring high discharges in their reservoirs, therefore
saving the water for later distribution to downstream users during dry growing seasons. The
environmental cost, however, has been that downstream reaches experience flows in only a fraction of
the former range of annual low and high flows. Aquatic habitats are, therefore, much less varied across
and along the river channel, thus restricting the variety, number, and size of ecological niches. The
simplified river offers a restricted and less-varied set of habitats, often to the detriment of native species
of aquatic and riparian organisms (Figure 3). Flood control dams store enough water to allow them to
suppress the damaging peak flows that might endanger life and property downstream through over-
bank flows. An ancillary cost, however, is that plant species that once flourished on periodically
inundated flood plains cannot survive or reproduce with their pre-dam efficiency. Small run-of-river
structures (Figure 4) permit navigation and diversion of water to off-stream uses, but they are amazingly
effective barriers to fish passage, and they severely stress populations of anadromous species (those
that spawn in freshwater rivers but live part of their life cycle in salt water oceans).
 AT: T Protection – Dam Trading is Regulation That Protects

Trading systems are a form of regulation that increases protection

Owen & Apse, 15 --- *Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, AND **Freshwater
Conservation Advisor, The Nature Conservancy (February 2015, Dave Owen and Colin Apse, “Trading
Dam,” 48 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1043, Nexis Uni, JMP)

A. The Evolution of Environmental Trading Systems

The reforms we advocate for dams can trace their intellectual roots to smokestacks and swamps. 249
Beginning in the early 1970s, regulators emphasized uniform standards for all analogous sources of
pollution. 250 But critics noted that uniform standards might be inefficient if, as is often the case,
compliance costs differ from source to source. 251 If regulators instead established overall caps on
levels of pollution, gave (or auctioned) regulated firms entitlements to pollute up to that cap, and
allowed those regulated firms to trade their entitlements, the same environmental outcomes might be
achieved with greater economic efficiency. 252 Firms [*1085] that could abate pollution more cheaply
could reduce their emissions more than they otherwise would have been required to, and then could
sell the "credits" created by the excess reductions to firms for which pollution abatement would be
more costly. 253 Compliance burdens, in other words, would be allocated through trading to those firms
that could shoulder those costs most cheaply.

In a relatively short time, this idea metamorphosed from a fringe critique into one of environmental
law's central policy innovations. 254 Regulators tested this concept at individual facilities, allowing
increases in pollution at one smokestack to be offset by reductions at another. 255 They soon expanded
the concept to allow trading among different and separately owned facilities. 256 They also allowed
"banking," which means allowing regulated entities to trade excess reductions of pollution in the short
term for more generous allowances in the future. 257 Trading initially was quite controversial; in
addition to concerns about its efficacy, many environmentalists worried that trading systems implied a
normative endorsement of pollution, or the creation of "rights" to pollute. 258 But air quality trading
programs became increasingly prevalent, and they also appeared to succeed. 259 Trading programs
have now become deeply entrenched, and broadly supported, in the field of air quality regulation, and
new regulatory programs for greenhouse gas emissions often place central reliance upon this approach.
260 They also have generated some of environmental law's most enduring academic debates.

[*1086] Meanwhile, habitat protection programs were evolving along a similar trajectory . 261
Offsetting, or "mitigating," habitat degradation at one place or time with environmental improvements
elsewhere had a long history in environmental regulation. With dams, for example, mitigation had been
widely (and often disastrously) used for decades, and dam builders often attempted to mitigate their
dams' impacts by constructing fish ladders and hatcheries. 262 But use of this approach accelerated with
the emergence of CWA Section 404, which prohibits unpermitted dredging and filling of wetlands and
waterways. 263

The national wetlands policy implemented under section 404 is somewhat like a cap-and-trade scheme.
The cap is a national policy against net loss of wetlands. 264 Pursuant to that policy, the Army Corps of
Engineers, which holds primary responsibility for implementing section 404, generally requires permit
applicants to avoid wetlands entirely, if possible, and to minimize any impacts that cannot be avoided.
265 For many development projects, however, some impact remains unavoidable, and stopping all of
those projects has never been a politically tenable option. The Army Corps instead has turned to
compensatory mitigation. 266 Sometimes that compensatory mitigation occurs through the permittee
itself constructing or restoring a substitute wetland, and sometimes it occurs through the payment of
fees (referred to as in-lieu fees) that support some other entity's wetland restoration work. 267 In other
circumstances, private wetlands mitigation "banks" create or restore wetlands and then sell credits to
future developers. 268 [*1087] In a relatively short time, wetlands mitigation has become a billion-
dollar industry. 269

While air quality and wetlands are the two most prominent examples of environmental trading systems,
variations on trading concepts now pervade environmental law. 270 Off-site mitigation, often involving
banking, is now central to the habitat conservation planning process under section ten of the ESA. 271
Transferable fishing quotas have become increasingly popular. 272 Advocates have argued that trading
systems can bring conservation into otherwise wasteful systems of water rights. 273 Many municipal
governments attempt to use tradable development rights to direct urban growth toward preferred
locations. 274 Though the trading systems vary considerably, the common foundation of nearly all of
these systems is a belief that allowing regulated entities to trade increased environmental degradation
in some locations for increased protection in others can be a more efficient and less intrusive way to
conduct environmental regulation. 275

Despite some successes, actual results have not always lived up to that theoretical promise. Wetlands
mitigation provides one prominent example: for years, plenty of trading occurred, but the constructed
or restored wetlands often offered poor compensation for the wetlands that had been lost. 276 In other
contexts, programs have failed to get started. The United States Environmental Protection Agency
("EPA") has been promoting water quality trading systems for years, but the few programs that even
exist have generated very low volumes of trading. 277 In others, [*1088] a lack of post-trade
monitoring makes the program difficult to evaluate. 278 And even with the programs most commonly
hailed as successes, debate continues about the extent of their success, and the reasons for it. 279

Trading also continues to generate more theoretical and normative critiques. One key objection is that
trading programs far too often involve trading things that are incommensurate, with environmental
protection typically on the losing end of the deal. 280 More broadly, some critics still argue that trading
entrenches a market-oriented worldview, in which environmental ethics are subordinated to utilitarian
calculations of profit. 281

Those critiques have force, but the history of trading systems offers a third key lesson: the world of
environmental trading systems is not rigidly divided between successes and failures. Trading systems
can improve, and perhaps the best example of this improvement is the wetlands mitigation system.
Originally, EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers favored compensation through construction of on-site
wetlands. 282 But the new wetlands often failed, in large part because their geographic isolation; a
constructed wetland surrounded by shopping mall parking is unlikely to thrive. 283 In response to those
failures, the Corps has moved toward systems that aggregate compensatory mitigation funds into larger
accounts and use those funds [*1089] to restore and protect higher-value wetlands. 284 Mitigation
experts generally agree that this approach holds more promise. 285 That is just one change, of course,
but the wetlands program also offers other examples, 286 and in many other contexts, trading programs
can improve as participants learn from experience. 287

For dams, then, the still-unfolding story of environmental trading systems offers economic promise,
warning, and the possibility of learning. The promise remains the theoretical flexibility and cost savings
associated with trading systems, as well as their track record of success in some circumstances. 288 The
warning stems from their struggles and, sometimes, failures in other realms. Trading systems are useful
tools, but not for every problem, and not unless they are designed and implemented with care. 289 And
the possibility of learning should provide some reassurance that dam trading, even if initially tentative,
limited, and sometimes unsuccessful, can evolve - if the first experiments begin.
 AT: T Protection – Dams Pollute

Dams are point-source polluters

Workman, 7 --- adviser and consultant on water and natural resources issues to governmental and
nongovernmental organizations, including the World Commission on Dams (FALL 2007, JAMES G.
WORKMAN, “How to Fix Our Dam Problems; Thousands of aging dams should be repaired or destroyed,
at a cost of billions. A cap-and-trade policy could speed the process and help pay the bills,”
https://issues.org/workman-water-crisis-drought-fix-dams/, JMP)

The third threat to dam performance, as both a cause and a consequence, is climate change. Dams are
point-source polluters. Scientists have long warned that dams alter the chemistry and biology of rivers.
They warm the water and lower its oxygen content, boosting invasive species and algae blooms while
blocking and killing native aquatic life upstream and down. Rivers host more endangered species than
any other ecosystem in the United States, and many of the nation’s native plants and animals, from
charismatic Pacific salmon to lowly Southern freshwater mussels, face extinction almost entirely
because of dams.

Hydropower dams pollutes the water

Goodfellow, et. al, 18 (Page specifies last updated: July 21, 2018, Liam Goodfellow, Jordan Hanania,
Kailyn Stenhouse, Jason Donev, “Water quality degradation from hydropower,”
https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Water_quality_degradation_from_hydropower, JMP)

Water quality degradation is one of the major concerns associated with developing hydroelectric
facilities. Hydropower, although free from direct carbon emissions that fossil fuel combustion produces,
has a wide variety of other environmental impacts. The degradation in the quality of water that flows
through hydroelectric dams and is held in hydroelectric reservoirs is a major concern as it effects a wide
range of plant and animal life.[1] In general, the variety of negative impacts hydroelectric facilities have
on water are a type of water pollution.

Although pollution is usually thought of as being the addition of some harmful pollutant or chemical to
water, pollution is really the addition of any substance or energy that causes harm to living resources,
poses a hazard to human health, hinders aquatic activities such as fishing, or impairs water quality.[2]
For more on what pollution is, click here.

There are several different ways that the use of water to produce electricity pollutes the water, either
as a direct result of the action of the dam itself or as a by-product of the creation of a reservoir or the
redirection of water systems. These effects are summarized below.

Oxygen Stratification

The formation of a reservoir, which remains much more still than the river that existed before it, results
in the formation of layers within the water. These layers have discrete levels of oxygen, with higher
concentrations at the top and lower concentrations at the bottom. These parts of the reservoir that are
lacking in water are known as hypoxic areas. Concentrations of oxygen in the water can even become
almost zero if the reservoir is deep enough, these areas are known as anoxic areas. This is largely due to
organic sediments in the bottom of the reservoir being decomposed by micro-organisms, which uses
oxygen. This reduced oxygen area is not healthy for any aquatic life living in the reservoir area.[4]

This water is then drawn into the turbine from the bottom, oxygen-poor layer of the reservoir and flows
downstream. This reduces the overall oxygen content of the stream or river beyond the dam as well.
This is problematic, as only minute decreases in oxygen causes complications in the ecosystem.[4]

Eutrophication

Reservoirs often undergo eutrophication - the enrichment of water with chemical nutrients such as
nitrogen and phosphorous - because of how efficiently they trap particulates.[6] As well, the long
residence time of the water in the reservoir also contributes to the frequent eutrophication. When
combined with the lack of movement of this water, reservoirs frequently are sites of algal blooms. When
algae population explodes, water quality suffers. This occurs when the algae die and are decomposed by
micro-organisms in the water. When the algae decompose, oxygen is used and oxygen-poor or hypoxic
environments form. As mentioned above, hypoxic environments have a negative effect on marine life
and can cause fish deaths if left unchecked.[6]

In addition to poor oxygen conditions, the taste, colour, and odour of water are all negatively impacted
by the presence of algae, making the water unsuitable for human consumption. Furthermore, some
types of algae are poisonous and can negatively impact human health if consumed. Increased algal
concentrations can also cause premature clogging of filters/traps due to the increased organic content,
decreased biodiversity resulting from lower dissolved oxygen levels, and an increase in the
concentrations of hydrogen sulfide, iron, manganese, and ammonia resulting from anaerobic
decomposition of algae.[7]

Thermal Pollution

Thermal pollution is just as much of a problem as oxygen stratification. In a reservoir, thermal energy
accumulates in the top layers closest to the Sun, while the rest of the reservoir gets progressively colder.
Water can then be drawn into the turbine through a penstock located at the bottom of the reservoir,
altering the temperature of the water downstream. Drastic enough temperature changes can cause
direct casualties in marine populations, but even minor changes can alter metabolic rates, reproduction,
and growth of animals.[8]

Mercury Pollution

When land is flooded to create a reservoir, it is unsuitable for farming, wildlife habitat, or human
recreation. Mercury enters the water when elemental mercury found in the rock and soil of the
reservoir interacts with bacteria released as a result of decomposition of submerged plant material. This
interaction results in the formation of either mono-methylmercury or the more volatile di-
methylmercury.[9] Both of these forms of mercury are water-soluble and will begin to accumulate
within the water system. Unlike a creek or a river, the long residence time of the reservoir allows
mercury concentrations to increase in the water system. This mercury will then begin to biomagnify
within the food chain, eventually posing a health risk to people who rely on fish as a food source.
Dams cause temperature pollution
Ferron & Galleher, 20 (Aug. 19, 2020, Kelly Ferron and Stacy Galleher, “EPA plan for Washington and
Oregon rivers leaves salmon in hot water,” https://ecology.wa.gov/Blog/Posts/August-2020/EPA-plan-
for-Washington-and-Oregon-rivers-leaves-s, JMP)

In order to protect salmon, we need to address all impacts associated with the hydropower operations
in federal dams and dams operated by public utilities. Dams are a major contributor to temperature
pollution because they slow down river flow and can create large, shallow pools of water that are easily
warmed.

Dams pollute the water in a variety of ways

 Increase temperature
 Oil Spills

Wohlfeil, 20 (May 15, 2020, Samantha Wohlfeil, “For the first time, Washington will regulate
Columbia-Snake River dams if they violate federal pollution rules,”
https://www.inlander.com/spokane/for-the-first-time-washington-will-regulate-columbia-snake-river-
dams-if-they-violate-federal-pollution-rules/Content?oid=19593619, JMP)

Environmental groups lauded Washington state for issuing conditions under the Clean Water Act for the
first time last week that will ensure pollution is reduced from eight dams along the lower Snake and
Columbia rivers.

In addition to sometimes increasing the temperature of the rivers to levels that can be dangerous for
fish, these dams have had numerous oil spills over the years from the lubricants used in turbines and
other moving parts.
 Dam Removal => Water Resource Management

Modification, removal or management of dams are all forms of water resource

management
Graf, 3 --- Professor of Geography at the University of South Carolina (NOVEMBER 2003, William L.
Graf, UNIVERSITIES COUNCIL ON WATER RESOURCES, WATER RESOURCES UPDATE, ISSUE 126, PAGES
54-59, “The Changing Role of Dams in Water Resources Management,”
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/William-Graf-
2/publication/49518263_The_Changing_Role_of_Dams_in_Water_Resources_Management/links/00b4
9534fd56fe69bb000000/The-Changing-Role-of-Dams-in-Water-Resources-Management.pdf, JMP)

Who Will Decide the Future of Dams?

The adaptation of dams to new roles in water resources management means that some structures
might be physically modified, others removed, and still others managed under adjusted operating rules.
Decisions about these alternatives in planning and management are complex, involving not only the
environmental outcomes, but also the economic and human social outcomes (Heinz Center, 2002). The
structure of water policy and its execution in the United States insures that the answer to the question
“who will decide the futures of dams?” is likely to be “almost everyone.” Federal, state, tribal, and local
governments have direct policy connections to decisions about dams. Thus, it is necessary to consider all
levels of government.

Dam removal, regulation, or modification are all forms of water protection, which
includes water ecosystem protection—prefer contextual evidence
Graf 03 – Educational Foundation University Professor and Professor of Geography at the University of
South Carolina. His specialties include fluvial geomorphology and hydrology, as well as policy for public
land and water. His Ph.D. is from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, with a major in physical
geography and a minor in water resources management (William L., November 2003, “The Changing
Role of Dams in Water Resources Management”, Universities Council on Water Resources, Water
Resources Update, Issue 26, pp. 54-59, accessed 5-5-2021) //DYang

Dams have played a pivotal role in the creation of an economic infrastructure for the United States. They
have become important parts of the nation’s landscape, and some of the largest ones are icons of
American engineering prowess. Largely created during a period when American culture sought to
control environmental resources and processes, these structures deal with water as a commodity and
with geographic space as something to be protected from flood damage. During the last four decades,
however, social values have expanded to include the naturalness of rivers and their associated features,
especially valuing wildlife and endangered species. As a result, dams now play an expanded role, and
they are key components of the restoration of aquatic and riparian habitats. Dams can be physically
modified, alter operating rules, or be removed to achieve some of these expanded goals. In this new
formulation, driven mostly by the Clean Water Act and especially by the Endangered Species Act, dams
are becoming structures that deal with water as an ecosystem component, and with geographic space
as patches, some of which are habitat for wildlife and others that are dominantly for human use. In this
new view of the river as ecosystem rather than as merely a conduit for water to bought and sold,
outdated simplistic notions of water resource management will have to be replaced by much more
complicated approaches to integrating science and decision making across the entire spectrum of scales
from local to international.
Dams Negative
Adv Climate Answers
 1nc No Methane Impact

Impact of methane exaggerated --- its effects are masked by H2O

Sheahan, 14 --- vice president of the Science and Environment Policy Project (SEPP) (4/11/2014, Dr.
Tom Sheahen, “Methane: The Irrelevant Greenhouse Gas; Water vapor has already absorbed the very
same infrared radiation that Methane might have absorbed,”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/11/methane-the-irrelevant-greenhouse-gas/)

Q: I read that methane is an even worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and cattle are a big source
of methane emissions. How are they going to regulate that? Not just cattle, but dairy cows as well! That
doubles the worry.

Fortunately, there is really nothing to worry about, scientifically. The main thing to worry about is over-
reacting politicians and another layer of unnecessary government regulations.

To understand methane’s role in the atmosphere, first it’s necessary to understand what absorption
means. When light passes through a gas (sunlight through air, for example), some molecules in the gas
might absorb a photon of light and jump up to an excited state. Every molecule is capable of absorbing
some particular wavelengths of light, and no molecule absorbs all the light that comes along. This holds
true across the entire electromagnetic spectrum – microwave, infrared, visible, and ultraviolet.

The process of absorption has been studied in great detail. In a laboratory set-up, a long tube is filled
with a particular gas, and then a standard light is set up at one end; at the other end of the tube is a
spectrometer, which measures how much light of each wavelength makes it through the tube without
being absorbed. (Mirrors are placed so as to bounce the light back and forth several times, making the
effective travel path much longer; this improves the precision of the data.) From such measurements,
the probability of radiation being captured by a molecule is determined as a function of wavelength; the
numerical expression of that is termed the absorption cross-section.

If you carried out such an experiment using ordinary air, you’d wind up with a mixture of results, since
air is a mixture of various gases. It’s better to measure one pure gas at a time. After two centuries of
careful laboratory measurements, we know which molecules can absorb which wavelengths of light, and
how likely they are to do so.

All that data is contained in charts and tables of cross-sections. Formerly that meant a trip to the library,
but nowadays it’s routinely downloaded from the internet. Once all the cross-sections are known, they
can be put into a computer program and the total absorption by any gas mixture (real or imaginary) can
be calculated.

The many different molecules absorb in different wavelength regions, known as bands. The principal
components of air, nitrogen and oxygen, absorb mainly ultraviolet light. Nothing absorbs in the visible
wavelength range, but there are several gases that have absorption bands in the infrared region. These
are collectively known as the GreenHouse Gases (GHG), because absorbing infrared energy warms up
the air – given the name greenhouse effect.
The adjacent figure shows how six different gases absorb radiation across the infrared range of
wavelengths, from 1 to 16 microns (mm). The vertical scale is upside-down: 100% absorption is low, and
0% absorption (i.e., transparency) is high.

It’s important to realize that these are shown on a “per molecule” basis. Because water vapor (bottom
bar of the figure) is much more plentiful in the atmosphere than any of the others, H 2O absorbs vastly
more energy and is by far the most important greenhouse gas. On any given day, H2O is a percent or
two of the atmosphere; we call that humidity.

The second most important greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide (CO2), which (on a per-molecule basis) is
six times as effective an absorber as H2O. However, CO2 is only about 0.04% of the atmosphere (400
parts per million), so it’s much less important than water vapor.

Now it’s necessary to scrutinize the figure very carefully. Looking across the wavelength scale at the
bottom, H2O absorbs strongly in the 3-micron region, and again between 5 and 7 microns; then it
absorbs to some degree beyond about 12 microns. CO2 has absorption bands centered around 2.5
microns, 4.3 microns, and has a broad band out beyond 13 microns. Consequently, CO2 adds a small
contribution to the greenhouse effect. Notice that sometimes CO2 bands overlap with H2O bands, and
with vastly more H2O present, CO2 doesn’t matter in those bands.

Looking at the second graph in the figure, methane (CH4) has narrow absorption bands at 3.3 microns
and 7.5 microns (the red lines). CH4 is 20 times more effective an absorber than CO2 – in those bands.
However, CH4 is only 0.00017% (1.7 parts per million) of the atmosphere. Moreover, both of its bands
occur at wavelengths where H2O is already absorbing substantially. Hence, any radiation that CH4
might absorb has already been absorbed by H2O. The ratio of the percentages of water to methane is
such that the effects of CH4 are completely masked by H2O. The amount of CH4 must increase 100-fold
to make it comparable to H2O.

Because of that, methane is irrelevant as a greenhouse gas. The high per-molecule absorption cross
section of CH4 makes no difference at all in our real atmosphere.

Unfortunately, this numerical reality is overlooked by most people. There is a lot of misinformation
floating around, causing needless worry. The tiny increases in methane associated with cows may elicit a
few giggles, but it absolutely cannot be the basis for sane regulations or national policy.
 1nc Dams Reduce Emissions

Dams don’t uniquely increase methane --- it would have existed anyways and they
prevent flooding that causes it
Muller, 19 --- adjunct professor at the University of Witwatersrand School of Governance in
Johannesburg, South Africa (19 FEBRUARY 2019, Mike Muller, “Hydropower dams can help mitigate the
global warming impact of wetlands; Manage methane emissions and produce clean, cheap energy at the
same time, argues Mike Muller,” https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00616-w, JMP)

Every few years, a cyclone hits Mozambique’s Sofala province. The Pungwe River floods and severs road
connections between Zimbabwe and coastal ports, sometimes for months. After a few weeks, the
standing water starts to bubble as flooded vegetation decays. This ‘marsh gas’ is methane, a greenhouse
gas that is some 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Elsewhere in Mozambique, such devastation is a thing of the past. Since two hydropower dams started
operating on the Zambezi River in the 1960s and 1970s, floods no longer kill hundreds of people and
destroy thousands of hectares of crops. Although they were criticized for their environmental impacts
(see go.nature.com/2wpjh4y), these dams generate 3,500 megawatts of clean electricity, supplying most
of the needs of Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Methane emissions from downstream floodplains
have also been curbed, an effect that goes largely unnoticed.

Methane is responsible for one-fifth of the rise in average global temperatures over the past century.
Approximately half of the roughly 600 million tonnes released every year comes from natural sources —
mainly wetlands. In tropical regions such as the Amazon and Africa, fresh water releases almost as much
carbon to the atmosphere as forests and agriculture mop up1.

Because aquatic carbon sources and sinks are poorly understood and hard to measure, they are given
limited attention in climate policies. Worse, because such policies address the impacts mainly of human
activities, some researchers focus disproportionately on emissions from artificial lakes, and neglect
those from other waters and wetlands. Many scientists maintain the view that ‘natural’ emissions are
good and ‘artificial’ ones bad.

What really matters is how much carbon enters the atmosphere, not how it got there2.

Politics is filling the void. Hydropower projects, already controversial for their social and environmental
impacts, are now routinely opposed because they are said to add to greenhouse-gas emissions and
aggravate global warming. Yet dams that are well planned, constructed and managed can deliver
decades of clean, cheap energy and help to mitigate climate change (see ‘Life-cycle emissions’).
Hydropower dams account for 97% of electricity storage worldwide, and can reach full power in less
than a minute. They thus help in the integration of other renewable sources, such as solar and wind, into
supply grids3.

[graph omitted]

These wider benefits are seldom acknowledged. And in a rapidly warming world, we cannot afford blind
spots. Researchers need to take a systems approach to carbon emissions and sequestrations from fresh
waters. And the roles of dams and other water-management interventions need to be reassessed from
the perspective of climate change: in some places, they might help communities and the environment
more than they damage them.

Carbon flows

Rivers function as both pipes and reactors4. Carbon washed from river catchments is transported
downstream. On the way, some organic material reacts to produce methane and CO2, which escape to
the atmosphere. Solids can settle along river banks, in lakes and on floodplains. The remainder reaches
the sea, from which some is recycled into the atmosphere and the rest is locked in sediment and rocks.

The amounts vary from place to place. Earth scientists have mapped carbon flow in some rivers, but
global estimates of freshwater emissions and sequestration are still too uncertain to produce the robust
carbon budgets needed to guide mitigation strategies. Methane is especially hard to follow, because
emissions can vary by factors of hundreds across regions and seasons5.

It is therefore understandable that lakes are often used to provide a baseline — their areas are well
defined and gases emitted from their surfaces are easy to measure. But studying a lake alone paints a
partial picture. In my view, this has encouraged anti-dam campaigners to misrepresent the science.

Many early studies of reservoirs started with the premise that newly flooded vegetation would decay
and emit methane. High levels of methane were then used to infer that hydroelectricity is not a carbon-
free source of energy6. This argument was taken up by lobbyists who opposed dam construction.

However, other work reveals that most of the methane emanating from dam reservoirs actually comes
from carbon sources elsewhere in the catchment. Damming a river blocks the flow of organic material
that might otherwise have ended up on floodplains or in the oceans. As in a natural lake, that carbon is
either stored in sediments or decomposes. But some methane would have been emitted anyway had
the dam not been there.

To determine the impact of a dam on overall sequestration and emissions, the carbon balance of the
whole catchment needs to be analysed. Yet some researchers persist in studying reservoirs in isolation.
Excited reports of high methane emissions from tropical reservoirs still frequently neglect to mention
that their main source is the carbon flowing in from upstream wetlands and forests.

So far, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has resisted calls to include reservoirs as a
specific source of greenhouse-gas emissions and to downgrade hydropower from classification as a
clean source of energy, citing a lack of evidence7,8. But the panel fails to address the overall dynamics of
freshwater carbon and could be missing mitigation opportunities.
 2nc Dam Reduce Emissions

Hydropower dams prevent flooding, ensure affordable electricity, save fuel

consumption through inland navigation and mitigate climate change
Muller, 19 --- adjunct professor at the University of Witwatersrand School of Governance in
Johannesburg, South Africa (19 FEBRUARY 2019, Mike Muller, “Hydropower dams can help mitigate the
global warming impact of wetlands; Manage methane emissions and produce clean, cheap energy at the
same time, argues Mike Muller,” https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00616-w, JMP)

Blocks to progress

Hydropower investment is floundering. Large hydropower projects can take a decade to build, and
require large up-front investments (typically, around US$1 billion per 1,000 megawatts) before they can
recoup costs by producing power. Many financial institutions are reluctant to lend money, citing
reputational risks and delays likely to be caused by environmental objectors. From Brazil to Laos, grass-
roots campaigns to stop hydropower projects now cite the facilities’ negative effects on climate change.
Brazil’s ambitious hydropower programme is being opposed on the basis that emissions generated as a
result of its 18 dams supposedly exceed those from electricity generation based on fossil fuels.

Environmental groups have lobbied to restrict finance for hydropower projects under the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Clean Development Mechanism (see
go.nature.com/2ernyhc). In 2017, a coalition of 282 organizations wrote to the Green Climate Fund and
its advisers to express concern about methane emissions from hydropower projects. The Climate Bonds
Initiative, which encourages financiers to lend billions of dollars to activities that mitigate climate change
(and which I advise), has found it difficult to define science-based sustainability standards for
hydropower that will be both practical for developers and acceptable to environmentalists.

This matters, particularly for poorer countries. Once in place, hydropower dams produce affordable
electricity for many decades, as experience from numerous countries attests. Hydropower helps Brazil
to balance power from seasonal electricity production from biofuels, and Norway’s surplus keeps the
lights on in Germany and Denmark on days when their wind-power supply falls.

And hydropower’s contribution goes beyond the energy sector, whether it be China’s Three Gorges Dam
on the Yangtze River reducing flooding and improving inland navigation (reducing fuel consumption) or
new livelihoods from fish farming on the Zambezi dams in southern Africa. Human activity will always
have environmental impacts. But it is land-use change — urbanization, intensification of agriculture —
that drives the need for energy and environmental change, rather than the dams themselves.

The negative environmental effects of dams must thus be balanced against the positive contribution
that the facilities can make. After all, climate change is the greatest present threat to aquatic
ecosystems. Reservoirs should be viewed as potential places to store carbon, a role that continues to be
discounted2. And, if they reduce the extent of wetlands, the resulting fall in emissions should be
credited to the dam when making decisions — global warming is the biggest threat to the world’s
wetlands.
A useful model could be the more enlightened approach towards land use. It is recognized, for instance,
that although plantations of exotic trees might be bad for biodiversity, they are better for the climate
than is clearing land to accommodate herds of methane-belching cattle.
 1nc No New International Dams

No new dams --- opposition is stopping controversial new dam construction in other
countries
Fisher, 20 (July 30, 2020, Lawrence M. Fisher - writes about business for The New York Times and
other publications, “To Dam or not to Dam?” https://www.milkenreview.org/articles/to-dam-or-not-to-
dam, JMP)

Halting New Construction

Outside the United States, environmentalists and indigenous groups have in some cases aligned to block
new construction, which can otherwise seem an unstoppable juggernaut . Consider Laotian leaders’
ambitions, egged on by China, to become the “battery of Asia,” despite cataclysmic side effects – such as
one dam failure that killed some 800 people. A few particularly ill-considered projects have been
sidelined, like the Grand Inga in the Republic of Congo, which, at a proposed 39,000 megawatts, would
have been the largest hydro project in the world. Its future has been on hold since the Spanish firm ACS
Group dropped out in January 2020, leaving the project to ACS’s Chinese and German partners.

In Chile, meanwhile, HidroAysén, a megaproject to build five hydroelectric dams, two on the Baker River
and three on the Pascua River, has hit a wall of popular opposition. HidroAysén was a joint venture
between Endesa, a subsidiary of the Italian conglomerate ENEL, and Colbun, a Chilean utility company.
“When the dams were approved in 2011, there were huge protests in the streets almost weekly,” says
Amanda Maxwell, Latin America Project Director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which
joined a coalition of Chilean NGOs in fighting the project. “This was the predecessor to the student
protests, the first time people united together and got out in the streets.”

Some South America countries “tout their huge renewable portfolios, and that’s largely due to large
hydro,” acknowledges Maxwell. “But due to climate change, we can no longer rely on precipitation. You
have El Niño, La Niña, drought. The idea that hydroelectric dams are a stable source of electricity is not
accurate.”
 1nc No International Decommissioning

Decommissioning unlikely – perceived benefits of dams and long time frame

Cross, 21 (January 28, 2021, Daniel T Cross, “Ageing large dams pose threats to people downstream,”
https://www.sustainability-times.com/low-carbon-energy/ageing-large-dams-pose-threats-to-people-
downstream/, JMP)

The construction of large hydroelectric dams surged in the middle of the last century and peaked in the
1960s-1970s, especially in Asia, Europe and North America, followed by Africa in the 1980s.

More than half of the world’s large dams (specifically 32,716 large dams, or 55% of the global tally total)
are in China, India, Japan, and the Republic of Korea with China alone possessing 23,841 large dams.
Most of them will reach the 50-year threshold soon, as will many large dams in Africa, South America,
and Eastern Europe.

“This problem of ageing large dams today confronts a relatively small number of countries — 93% of all
the world’s large dams are located in just 25 nations,” says Duminda Perera, a senior researcher.

However, few large dams have been decommissioned so far. One reason is that decommissioning can
negatively impact people economically and socially because of the important functions they often serve
despite the ecological harm they may be causing by impacting riverine ecosystems.

“A few case studies of ageing and decommissioned large dams illustrate the complexity and length of
the process that is often necessary to orchestrate the dam removal safely,” explains Prof. R. Allen Curry,
another coauthor of the study.

“Even removing a small dam requires years (often decades) of continuous expert and public
involvement, and lengthy regulatory reviews,” Curry adds. “With the mass ageing of dams well
underway, it is important to develop a framework of protocols that will guide and accelerate the dam
removal process.”
 1nc AT: Climate Impact

Climate does not cause extinction – scientific consensus.

Kerr et al. 19 – Dr. Amber Kerr, Energy and Resources PhD at the University of California-Berkeley,
known agroecologist, former coordinator of the USDA California Climate Hub. Dr. Daniel Swain, Climate
Science PhD at UCLA, climate scientist, a research fellow at the National Center for Atmospheric
Research. Dr. Andrew King, Earth Sciences PhD, Climate Extremes Research Fellow at the University of
Melbourne. Dr. Peter Kalmus, Physics PhD at the University of Colombia, climate scientist at NASA’s Jet
Propulsion Lab. Professor Richard Betts, Chair in Climate Impacts at the University of Exeter, a lead
author on the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in
Working Group 1. Dr. William Huiskamp, Paleoclimatology PhD at the Climate Change Research Center,
climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. [Claim that human civilization
could end in 30 years is speculative, not supported with evidence, 6-4-2019,
https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/iflscience-story-on-speculative-report-provides-little-scientific-
context-james-felton/]
Scientists who reviewed IFLScience’s story found that it failed to provide sufficient context for this report—differentiating, for example,
between speculative claims and descriptions of peer-reviewed research. In particular, the story’s headline (“New Report Warns ‘High
Likelihood Of Human Civilization Coming To An End’ Within 30 Years”) misrepresents the report as a
likely projection rather than an exploration of an intrinsically unlikely worst case scenario.
See all the scientists’ annotations in context.

REVIEWERS’ OVERALL FEEDBACK

These comments are the overall assessment of scientists on the article, they are substantiated by their knowledge in the field and by the
content of the analysis in the annotations on the article.

Amber Kerr, Researcher, Agricultural Sustainability Institute, University of California, Davis:

The content of the IFLScience article is mostly an accurate representation of the contents of the Breakthrough report, but the article
tends to gloss over important caveats and probabilities that are given in the report. The least accurate part of the
IFLScience article is the headline, which is an outright misrepresentation of the report. The article title states that there is, overall, a “high
probability” of human civilization coming to an end in 30 years. This is extremely misleading. What the
Breakthrough report actually says is that, in the most unlikely, “long-tail” biophysical scenario where climate
feedbacks are much more severe than we expect, THEN there is a high likelihood of human civilization coming to
an end. But the report authors explicitly state that this “high-end scenario” is beyond their capacity to
model or to quantitatively estimate.
Daniel Swain, Researcher, UCLA, and Research Fellow, National Center for Atmospheric Research:

The article uncritically reproduces claims from a recent report released by an Australian thinktank regarding the purported “end of human
civilization” due to climate change over the next 30 years. While
there is plenty of scientific evidence that climate change
will pose increasingly existential threats to the most vulnerable individuals in society and to key global ecosystems,
even these dire outcomes aren’t equivalent to the “annihilation of intelligent life,” as is claimed in the report.
Andrew King, Research fellow, University of Melbourne:

The report this article is based on describes a scenario which is unlikely, but several aspects of what is included in the report are likely to
worsen in coming decades, such as the occurrence of deadly heatwaves. The conclusion of a high likelihood that human
civilisation will end is false, although there is a great deal of evidence that there will be many damaging
consequences to continued global warming over the coming decades.
Peter Kalmus, Data Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory:

I don’t think it’s so easy to discount the essential warning of this report. However, it would have been stronger if the authors were more careful
not to mention the unsupported concept of near-term human extinction, and the unsupported probabilistic claim that there is a “high
likelihood” of their 2050 scenario which includes the collapse of civilization. I
do not understand why non-scientist writers
(neither report author is a scientist) feel a need to exaggerate sound scientific findings, when those findings are already
quite alarming enough. I feel that humanity should undertake urgent climate action just as the report authors do, but I feel that
misrepresenting the science is unhelpful and unnecessary.
Richard Betts, Professor, Met Office Hadley Centre & University of Exeter:

This is a classic case of a media article over-stating the conclusions and significance of a non-peer reviewed report that itself had already
overstated (and indeed misrepresented) peer-reviewed science – some of which was already somewhat controversial. It appears that there was
not a thorough independent check of the credibility of the message.

Notes:

[1] See the rating guidelines used for article evaluations.

[2] Each evaluation is independent. Scientists’ comments are all published at the same time.

ANNOTATIONS

The statements quoted below are from the article; comments are from the reviewers (and are lightly edited for clarity).

New Report Warns “High Likelihood Of Human Civilization Coming To An End” Within 30 Years

Richard Betts, Professor, Met Office Hadley Centre & University of Exeter:

The headline overstates the conclusions of the report (which is already overdoing things). The reports says it presents a scenario, and under
that scenario and all the assumptions within it, the report claims that there is a “high likelihood of human civilization coming to and end” – but
even then, the report itself does not give the end of civilisation within 30 years. The
process supposedly leading ultimately to collapse
begins around 2050 but takes a long time to take effect. Also the processes themselves are not well-
grounded in science, as they over-interpret published work.
A new report has warned there’s an existential risk to humanity from the climate crisis within the coming decades, and a ‘high
likelihood of human civilization coming to an end’ over the next three decades unless urgent action is taken.

Andrew King, Research fellow, University of Melbourne:

This is hyperbole. The scenario constructed in this report does not have a “high likelihood” of occurring in part because it requires a
confluence of circumstances coming together. While it’s certainly true that climate change will be damaging to society and the environment
and many of the consequences will be severe this does not equate to a high likelihood of civilisation coming to an end.

Richard Betts, Professor, Met Office Hadley Centre & University of Exeter:

The “report” is not a peer-reviewed scientific paper. It’s from some sort of “think tank” who can basically write what they like. The report itself
misunderstands / misrepresents science, and does not provide traceable links to the science it is based on so it cannot easily be checked
(although someone familiar with the literature can work it out, and hence see where the report’s conclusions are ramped-up from the original
research).

This requires us to work towards avoiding catastrophic possibilities rather than looking at probabilities, as learning from mistakes is
not an option when it comes to existential risks.

Andrew King, Research fellow, University of Melbourne:

The report focuses on possible scenarios very much on the extreme end of what could happen but then claims
there’s a “high likelihood” of human civilisation ending. These two statements don’t fit together.
 With that in mind, they propose a plausible and terrifying “2050 scenario” whereby humanity could face irreversible collapse in just
three decades.

Peter Kalmus, Data Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory:

Not to downplay the seriousness of what humanity is facing, but the report in fact doesn’t make this claim. While scientists do expect many of
the changes to the Earth system due to global heating to be “irreversible,” and while this should be extremely concerning to any reasonable
person, it is different than “irreversible human collapse” which, if you think about it, needs unpacking.

Their analysis calculates the existential climate-related security risk to Earth through a scenario set 30 years into the future.

Richard Betts, Professor, Met Office Hadley Centre & University of Exeter:

No, the report’s authors have merely read (or possibly seen without actually reading) a few of the scariest papers they could find,
misunderstood (or not read properly) at least one of them, and presented unjustified statements.

posing permanent large negative consequences to humanity that may never be undone, either annihilating intelligent life or
permanently and drastically curtailing its potential.

Daniel Swain, Researcher, UCLA, and Research Fellow, National Center for Atmospheric Research:

As I climate scientist, I am unaware of any scientific research that suggests changes in Earth’s climate capable of “annihilating intelligent life”
over the next 30 years.

There is plenty of evidence that climate change will pose increasingly existential threats to the most vulnerable individuals in society; to low-
lying coastal cities and island nations; to indigenous cultures and ways of life; and to numerous plant and animal species, and perhaps even
entire ecosystems.

Such consequences are well-supported by the existing evidence, are already starting to emerge in certain regions, and should be of paramount
concern. But even these very dire outcomes aren’t equivalent to the “end of human civilization,” as is claimed in the report.

Peter Kalmus, Data Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory:

There is no scientific basis to suggest that climate breakdown will “annihilate intelligent life” (by which I
assume the report authors mean human extinction) by 2050.
However, climate breakdown does pose a grave threat to civilization as we know it, and the potential for mass suffering on a scale perhaps
never before encountered by humankind. This should be enough reason for action without any need for exaggeration or misrepresentation!

A “Hothouse Earth” scenario plays out that sees Earth’s temperatures doomed to rise by a further 1°C (1.8°F) even if we stopped
emissions immediately.

Peter Kalmus, Data Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory:

This word choice perhaps reveals a bias on the part of the author of the article. A temperature can’t be doomed. And while I certainly do not
encourage false optimism, assuming that humanity is doomed is lazy and counterproductive.

Fifty-five percent of the global population are subject to more than 20 days a year of lethal heat conditions beyond that which
humans can survive

Richard Betts, Professor, Met Office Hadley Centre & University of Exeter:

This is clearly from Mora et al (2017) although the report does not include a citation of the paper as the source of that statement. The way it is
written here (and in the report) is misleading because it gives the impression that everyone dies in those conditions. That is not actually how
Mora et al define “deadly heat” – they merely looked for heatwaves when somebody died (not everybody) and then used that as the definition
of a “deadly” heatwave.

North America suffers extreme weather events including wildfires, drought, and heatwaves. Monsoons in China fail, the great rivers
of Asia virtually dry up, and rainfall in central America falls by half.

Andrew King, Research fellow, University of Melbourne:

Projections of extreme events such as these are very difficult to make and vary greatly between different
climate models.
Deadly heat conditions across West Africa persist for over 100 days a year

Peter Kalmus, Data Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory:

The deadly heat projections (this, and the one from the previous paragraph) come from Mora et al (2017)1.

It should be clarified that “deadly heat” here means heat and humidity beyond a two-dimension threshold where at least one person in the
region subject to that heat and humidity dies (i.e., not everyone instantly dies). That said, in my opinion, the projections in Mora et al are
conservative and the methods of Mora et al are sound. I did not check the claims in this report against Mora et al but I have no reason to think
they are in error.

1- Mora et al (2017) Global risk of deadly heat, Nature Climate Change

The knock-on consequences affect national security, as the scale of the challenges involved, such as pandemic disease outbreaks, are
overwhelming. Armed conflicts over resources may become a reality, and have the potential to escalate into nuclear war. In the
worst case scenario, a scale of destruction the authors say is beyond their capacity to model, there is a ‘high likelihood of human
civilization coming to an end’.

Willem Huiskamp, Postdoctoral research fellow, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research:

This is a highly questionable conclusion. The reference provided in the report is for the “Global Catastrophic Risks 2018” report from the
“Global Challenges Foundation” and not peer-reviewed literature. (It is worth noting that this latter report also provides no peer-reviewed
evidence to support this claim).

Furthermore, if it is apparently beyond our capability to model these impacts, how can they assign a ‘high likelihood’ to this outcome?

While it is true that warming of this magnitude would be catastrophic, making claims such as this without evidence serves only to undermine
the trust the public will have in the science.

Daniel Swain, Researcher, UCLA, and Research Fellow, National Center for Atmospheric Research:

It seems that the

eye-catching headline-level claims in the report stem almost entirely from these knock-on
effects, which the authors themselves admit are “beyond their capacity to model.” Thus, from a scientific
perspective, the purported “high likelihood of civilization coming to an end by 2050” is essentially personal
speculation on the part of the report’s authors, rather than a clear conclusion drawn from rigorous assessment of
the available evidence.
Richard Betts, Professor, Met Office Hadley Centre & University of Exeter:

So there is only a “high likelihood” in the scenario that the report’s authors have constructed here. They do not say that their scenario itself is
“highly likely” (in fact they say it is a “sketch”) – so the headline of this article is not justified.

The most recent IPCC report lays out a future if we limit global heating to 1.5°C instead of the Paris Agreement’s 2°C.

Peter Kalmus, Data Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory:

The article doesn’t mention it, but it’s worth pointing out that the underlying report criticizes the IPCC for being too “reticent” and
gives an erroneous example: it claims that mean global temperatures will accelerate beyond the IPCC’s projections since human
greenhouse gas emissions are themselves accelerating. Emissions ARE accelerating exponentially, leading to exponential CO2 atmospheric
fraction increase, but exponential growth in CO2 fraction leads to linearly increasing global mean temperature.
By 2050 there’s a scientific consensus that we reached the tipping point for ice sheets in Greenland and the West Antarctic well
before 2°C (3.6°F) of warming

Richard Betts, Professor, Met Office Hadley Centre & University of Exeter:

This is somewhat unclear phrasing from the report. Although studies have shown it is possible that the threshold for the Greenland
Ice
Sheet tipping point may be lower than 2C global warming (relative to pre-industrial), there is not currently a scientific
consensus that this is where the threshold is. It seems to authors’ scenario is that scientists living in 2050 have reached the
consensus that the tipping point has been passed by that time, but that’s different – again it’s part of the scenario and does not support the
“end of civilisation by 2050” headline.
 2nc AT: Climate

Climate doesn’t cause extinction – contrary claims rely on speculation about

unpredictable feedback loops rather than scientific consensus.

Their models are bad and offend consensus.

Piper 19 – Kelsey Piper, citing John Halstead climate change mitigation researcher at the Founders
Pledge. [Is climate change an "existential threat" — or just a catastrophic one? 6-28-2019,
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/6/13/18660548/climate-change-human-civilization-
existential-risk]

I also talked to some researchers who study existential risks, like John Halstead, who studies climate change mitigation at the philanthropic
advising group Founders Pledge, and who has
a detailed online analysis of all the (strikingly few) climate change
papers that address existential risk (his analysis has not been peer-reviewed yet).

Halstead looks into the models of potential temperature increases that Breakthrough’s report highlights. The models show a surprisingly large
chance of extreme degrees of warming. Halstead points out that in many papers, this is the result of the simplistic
form of statistical modeling used. Other papers have made a convincing case that this form of statistical modeling is
an irresponsible way to reason about climate change, and that the dire projections rest on a statistical
method that is widely understood to be a bad approach for that question.
Further, “the carbon effects don’t seem to pose an existential risk,” he told me. “People use 10 degrees as an illustrative example” — of a
nightmare scenario where climate change goes much, much worse than expected in every respect — “and looking at it, even
10 degrees
would not really cause the collapse of industrial civilization,” though the effects would still be pretty horrifying. (On the
question of whether an increase of 10 degrees would be survivable, there is much debate.)

Does it matter if climate change is an existential risk or just a really bad one?

That last distinction Halstead draws — of climate change as being awful but not quite an existential threat — is a controversial one.

That’s where a difference in worldviews looms large: Existential risk researchers are extremely concerned with the difference between the
annihilation of humanity and mass casualties that humanity can survive. To everyone else, those two outcomes seem pretty similar.

To academics in philosophy and public policy who study the future of humankind, an existential risk is a very specific thing: a disaster that
destroys all future human potential and ensures that no generations of humans will ever leave Earth and explore our universe. The death of 7
billion people is, of course, an unimaginable tragedy. But researchers who study existential risks argue that the annihilation of humanity is
actually much, much worse than that. Not only do we lose existing people, but we lose all the people who could otherwise have had the chance
to exist.

In this worldview, 7 billion humans dying is not just seven times as bad as 1 billion humans dying — it’s
much worse. This style of thinking seems plausible enough when you think about past tragedies; the Black Death, which killed at least a
tenth of all humans alive at the time, was not one-tenth as bad as a hypothetical plague that wiped us all out.

Most people don’t think about existential risks much. Many

analyses of climate change — including the report Vice based its
article on — treat the deaths of a billion people and the extinction of humanity as pretty similar outcomes,
interchangeably using descriptions of catastrophes that would kill hundreds of millions and catastrophes that’d kill us all. And the
existential risk conversation can come across as tone-deaf and off-puttingly academic, as if it’s no big deal if merely hundreds of millions of
people will die due to climate change.

Obviously, and this needs to be stressed, climate change is a big deal either way. But there are differences between catastrophe and extinction.
If the models tell us that all humans are going to die, then extreme solutions — which might save us, or might have unprecedented,
catastrophic negative consequences — might be worth trying. Think of plans to release aerosols into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and
cool the planet back down in the manner that volcanic explosions do. It’d be an enormous endeavor with significant potential downsides (we
don’t even yet know all the risks it might pose), but if the alternative is extinction then those risks would be worth taking.

But if the models tell us that climate change is devastating but survivable, as most models show, then those last-ditch
solutions should perhaps stay in the toolkit for now.

Then there’s the morale argument. Defenders of overstating the risks of climate change point out that, well, understating them isn’t working.
The IPCC may have chosen to maintain optimism about containing warming to 2 degrees Celsius in the hopes that it’d spur people to action, but
if so, it hasn’t really worked. Maybe alarmism will achieve what optimism couldn’t.

That’s how Spratt sees it. “Alarmism?” he said to me. “Should we be alarmed about where we’re going? Of course we should be.”

Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg has taken an arguably alarmist bent in her advocacy for climate solutions in the EU, saying, “Our house is on
fire. I don’t want your hope. ... I want you to panic.” She’s gotten strong reactions from politicians, suggesting that at least sometimes a
relentless focus on the severity of the emergency can get results.

So where does this all leave us? It’s worthwhile to look into the worst-case scenarios, and even to highlight and emphasize them. But it’s
important to accurately represent current climate consensus along the way. It’s hard to see how we solve a problem we
have widespread misapprehensions about in either direction, and when a warning is overstated or inaccurate, it may sow more confusion than
inspiration.

Climate change won’t kill us all. That matters. Yet it’s one of the biggest challenges ahead of us, and the results of our failure to act
will be devastating. That message — the most accurate message we’ve got — will have to stand on its own.

Warming doesn’t cause extinction.

Farquhar et al. 17 Sebastian Farquhar, DPhil student at Oxford specializing in Cyber Security and AI.
John Halstead, doctorate in political philosophy. Owen Cotton-Barratt, DPhil in pure mathematics. Stefan
Schubert, Oxford's department of experimental psychology. Haydn Belfield, degree in Philosophy,
Politics and Economics from Oriel College. Andrew Snyder-Beattie, Director of Research at the Future of
Humanity Institute, University of Oxford, MS in biomathematics. [Existential Risk: Diplomacy and
Governance, Global Priorities Project 2017]

The most likely levels of global warming are very unlikely to cause human extinction.15 The existential risks
of climate change instead stem from tail risk climate change – the low probability of extreme levels of
warming – and interaction with other sources of risk. It is impossible to say with confidence at what point global
warming would become severe enough to pose an existential threat. Research has suggested that warming of 11-12°C
would render most of the planet uninhabitable,16 and would completely devastate agriculture.17 This would pose an extreme threat to human
civilisation as we know it.18 Warming of around 7°C or more could potentially produce conflict and instability on such a scale that the indirect
effects could be an existential risk, although it is extremely uncertain how likely such scenarios are.19 Moreover, the
timescales over
which such changes might happen could mean that humanity is able to adapt enough to avoid extinction in even
very extreme scenarios.
 1nc AT: Deforestation Impact

Afforestation and the Kuznets curve prevent deforestation risks.

Hammond 18 – Alexander C. R. Hammond, Research Associate at the Cato Institute and Senior Fellow
at African Liberty. [No, We Are Not Running Out of Forests, 5-24-18,
https://humanprogress.org/article.php?p=1295]

Recently on the BBC, Deborah Tabart from the Australian Koala Foundation noted that “85 per cent of the world’s forests are
now gone.” Luckily this statement is incorrect.

Moreover, due
to afforestation in the developed world, net deforestation has almost ceased. I’m sure that Tabart
had nothing but good intentions in raising environmental concerns, but far-fetched
claims about the current state of the world’s
forests do not help anyone. The record needs setting straight.
After searching for evidence to support Tabart’s claim, the closest source I could find is an article from GreenActionNews, which claims that 80
per cent of the earth’s forests have been destroyed. The problem with that claim is that according to the United Nations there are 4 billion
hectares of forest remaining worldwide. To put that in perspective, the entire world has 14.8 billion hectares of land.

For 80 per cent of the forest area to have already been destroyed and for 4 billion hectares to remain, 135 per cent of the planet’s surface must
have once been covered in forests. GreenActionNews’
claim not only implies that 5.2 billion hectares of deforestation occurred at sea,
but that every bit of land on earth was once forested. Ancient deserts, swamps, tundra and grasslands
make mockery of that claim.
Amusingly, GreenActionNews’ claims that “forest is unevenly distributed: the five most forest rich countries are the Russian Federation, Brazil,
Canada, the United States of America and China.” Country size and forest area do not always correlate, but it is hardly “uneven” that the five
largest countries also hold the world’s largest forest areas.

Anyhow, slightly more than 31 per cent of the world is covered in forest. The world does continue to lose forest area, but
consider the rate and location of this loss. According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the annual rate of
deforestation has more than halved since the 1990s. Between 2010 and 2015, the world has gained 4.3
million hectares of forest per year, while losing 7.6 million hectares of forest per year. That accounts for
a net decrease of 0.08 percent of forest area each year.

Some argue this data is faulty, because the FAO defines forest area as including natural forests and tree plantations. But that
criticism is illegitimate. The FAO makes it clear that “93 per cent of global forest area, or 3.7 billion hectares in 2015,” was natural
forest. Natural forest area decreased at an average rate of 6.5 million hectares per year over the last five years, a reduction from 10.6 million
hectares per year in the 1990s. Put differently, natural forest loss is declining by 0.059 percent per year and is
heading towards zero.

The reason why most people labor under a misapprehension about the state of the world’s forests is that news stories often ignore
afforestation. In about half of the world, there is net reforestation and, as Matt Ridley puts it, this isn’t happening despite
economic development, but because of it.

The world’s richest regions, such as North America and Europe, are not only increasing their forest area. They have more
forests than they did prior to industrialization. The United Kingdom, for example, has more than tripled its forest
area since 1919. The UK will soon reach forest levels equal to those registered in the Domesday Book, almost a thousand years ago.

It is not just rich nations that are experiencing net reforestation. The
“Environmental Kuznets curve” is an economic notion that
suggests that economic development initially leads to environmental deterioration, but after a period of
economic growth that degradation begins to reverse.
Once nations hit, what Ridley dubs the “forest transition,” or approximately $4,500 GDP per capita, forest areas begin to
increase. China, Russia, India, Vietnam and Bangladesh are just some of the nations that have hit this forest transition
phase and are experiencing net afforestation .

Poor people can’t afford to care about the environment very much, because other priorities – such as survival – are more important. If that
means that a rare animal must be killed and eaten, so be it. “The environment is a luxury good,” says Tim Worstall of the Adam Smith Institute,
“it’s something we spend more of our income upon, as incomes rise.”

A recent study from the University of Helsinki highlights that between 1990 and 2015, annual forest area grew in high and mid-income nations
The Kuznets curve not
by 1.31 per cent and 0.5 per cent respectively, while decreasing by 0.72 per cent in 22 low income countries.
only applies to forest area, but also biodiversity. Ridley gives the example of three apex predators: wolves that live in
developed countries of Europe and North America, tigers who mainly inhabit mid-income India, Russia and Bangladesh, and lions, which live in
poor Sub-Saharan Africa. Following the Kuznets curve, wolf numbers are rapidly increasing, tiger numbers have been steady for the last 20
years (and have just began to increase), while lion numbers continue to fall.
Adv Dam Collapse Answers
 1nc AT: Infrastructure Collapse From Climate

Climate change being considered in infrastructure now and adjustments can be made
to reduce risk of collapse
Fountain, 20 (25 May 2020, Henry Fountain, International New York Times, “‘Expect More’: Climate
Change Raises Risk of Dam Failures,” Factiva database, Document INHT000020200524eg5p0000c, JMP)

Some designers are beginning to change their ways, said Robert J. Lempert, a principal researcher at the
RAND Corporation who specializes in climate risk analysis. Legislation recently approved in California, for
example, requires state engineers to take climate change into account when designing infrastructure
projects.

“If you’re building a dam you want to pull in climate change from the very beginning,” he said. “How is
climate change going to affect the design of the dam, or even whether I want a dam at all?”

For existing dams, operational changes might be called for, such as reducing the water levels behind
the dam at certain times of year in anticipation of more extreme storms. “And you want to put climate
change on the agenda for any maintenance and upgrades,” Mr. Lempert said.

Those upgrades might include changing spillway designs to incorporate the kind of rainfall pattern that
occurred in Michigan, Mr. McCormick said. Rather than one designed to handle high peak inflow from a
short, extreme storm, designers may opt for one that could cope with larger volumes over a longer time
period.

“You need to look at how a given spillway is designed,” he said, “if the circumstances of the rainfall
change.”
 1nc AT: Chinese Dam Collapse

Three Gorges Dam is structurally sound despite extreme water pressures

Christensen, 20 (August 16, 2020, Makenna Christensen, “Not So Clean Energy: The Secrets Of
Hydroelectric Power,” https://www.futurefrogmen.org/blog/2020/8/16/not-so-clean-energy-the-
secrets-of-hydroelectric-power, JMP)

Three Gorges Dam, China

While protecting the environment for the environment’s sake is of utmost importance, the effects of
hydropower on the human population should not be discounted. One of the most notorious sources of
hydroelectric power is the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in China. Proposals to create this dam
started back in 1919 due to fears of floodwaters overtaking cities. Concerns about the dam’s negative
effects on the surrounding environment, however, delayed start of the dam’s construction until 1994. It
is one of many dams that has been built on this river, but the Three Gorges Dam is located farthest
downstream.

Since June 2020, the Chinese people have seen extensive flooding and the dam is buckling under the
most extreme water flows of this year’s rainy season. However, even with this year’s extensive rainfall,
sources such as a Chinese hydraulic engineering expert report that these worries about the structural
soundness of the Three Gorges Dam are misplaced . The dam was created not only to harness the
power of water, but also to prevent catastrophic floods from impacting the lower reaches of the
Yangtze. The rigidity and sustainability of the dam is a highly debated topic among scientists.
 2nc AT: Chinese Dam Collapse

Three Gorges Dam could even withstand a nuclear attack

Wong, 16 (22 March 2016, Catherine Wong, South China Morning Post, “China's Three Gorges Dam
'can survive nuclear attack' says nation's hydropower expert after academics raise safety concerns,”
Factiva database, Document SCMP000020160322ec3m000bf, JMP)

China's Three Gorges Dam has the ability to survive nuclear attack, a hydropower expert has claimed
following heated discussions about the safety of the nation's nuclear projects and their implications on
the dam, mainland media reports.

Zhang Boting, deputy secretary general of China Society for Hydropower Engineering, said the world's
largest hydroelectric dam, located on the Yangtze River, had been designed as a concrete gravity dam,
so that it was sturdier and would be resistant to nuclear attack, the news website Thepaper.cn in a
report on Monday.

The dam would not collapse even after a massive attack, the website quoted Zhang as saying.

Zhang also said in views, which first appeared in a commentary on the society's website on March 8,
that there had been a wrong perception among some nuclear experts, who had argued that national
security had not been a concern during the design process of the Three Gorges Dam project.

Thepaper.cn's report appeared after Xinhua said on Sunday that China had installed a key component of
its first fourth-generation nuclear energy system at a power plant in Shandong province.

Most of China's nuclear power plants are currently located in costal provinces, including Guangdong,
Fujian and Shandong.

Beijing suspended its proposals for building nuclear power plants at inland sites, including those along
the Yangtze River in Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi, following Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster in March
2011 and over domestic safety concerns about China's nuclear facilities.

Academics expressed concerns about the safety of the nation's inland nuclear projects and their
implications on the Three Gorges Dam.

They had claimed that the designs of these projects did not take into consideration the possibility of
them being attacked by nuclear weapons, and that it was unsafe to build nuclear plants along the
Yangtze River.

On Sunday a 25 metre-high, 610-tonne pressure vessel was lifted in placed by a crane at the Huaneng
Shidao Bay nuclear power plant, Xinhua reported.

As part of the fourth-generation concept, the reactor will be able to shut down safely in the event of an
emergency without causing a reactor core meltdown or large leak of radioactive material .

Sunday's successful installation marked a major step towards fulfilling Beijing's goal in the new 13th five-
year plan, which involves building six to eight nuclear reactors each year.
 1nc AT: China War
No China wars.
Thompson 17 – Timothy Heath, a senior international defense research analyst at the RAND
Corporation. William R. Thompson, Political Science Professor at Indiana University. [U.S.-China Tensions
Are Unlikely to Lead to War, https://www.rand.org/blog/2017/05/us-china-tensions-are-unlikely-to-
lead-to-war.html]
Graham Allison's April 12 article, “How America and China Could Stumble to War,” explores how misperceptions and bureaucratic dysfunction
could accelerate a militarized crisis involving the United States and China into an unwanted war. However, the article fails to persuade because
it neglects the key political and geostrategic conditions that make war plausible in the first place. Without those conditions in place, the risk
that a crisis could accidentally escalate into war becomes far lower. The U.S.-China relationship today may be trending towards greater tension,
but the relative
stability and overall low level of hostility make the prospect of an accidental escalation to war
extremely unlikely.
In a series of scenarios centered around the South China Sea, Taiwan and the East China Sea, Allison explored how well-established flashpoints
involving China and the United States and its allies could spiral into unwanted war. Allison’s article argues that given the context of strategic
rivalry between a rising power and a status-quo power, organizational and bureaucratic misjudgments increase the likelihood of unintended
escalation. According to Allison, “the underlying stress created by China’s disruptive rise creates conditions in which accidental, otherwise
inconsequential events could trigger a large-scale conflict.” This argument appears persuasive on its surface, in no small part because it evokes
insights from some of Allison’s groundbreaking work on the organizational pathologies that made the Cuban Missile Crisis so dangerous.

However, Allison ultimately fails to persuade because he fails to specify the political and strategic conditions that make war plausible in the first
place. Allison’s analysis implies that the United States and China are in a situation analogous to that of the Soviet Union and the United States in
the early 1960s. In the Cold War example, the two countries faced each other on a near-war footing and engaged in a bitter geostrategic and
ideological struggle for supremacy. The two countries experienced a series of militarized crises and fought each other repeatedly through proxy
wars. It was this broader context that made issues of misjudgment so dangerous in a crisis.

By contrast, the U.S.-China relationship today operates at a much lower level of hostility and threat. China and the United States may be
experiencing an increase in tensions, but the two countries remain far from the bitter, acrimonious rivalry that defined the U.S.-Soviet
relationship in the early 1960s. Neither Washington nor Beijing regards the other as its principal enemy. Today’s
rivals may view each other warily as competitors and threats on some issues, but they also view each other as important trade partners and
partners on some shared concerns, such as North Korea, as the recent summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese president Xi
Jinping illustrated. The behavior of their respective militaries underscores the relatively restrained rivalry. The military competition between
China and the United States may be growing, but it operates at a far lower level of intensity than the relentless arms racing that typified the
U.S.-Soviet standoff. And unlike their Cold War counterparts, U.S. and Chinese militaries are not postured to fight each
other in major wars. Moreover, polls show that the people of the two countries regard each other with mixed views—a considerable
contrast from the hostile sentiment expressed by the U.S. and Soviet publics for each other. Lacking both preparations for major
war and a constituency for conflict, leaders and bureaucracies in both countries have less incentive to misjudge
crisis situations in favor of unwarranted escalation.

To the contrary, political

leaders and bureaucracies currently face a strong incentive to find ways of defusing crises in
a manner that avoids unwanted escalation. This inclination manifested itself in the EP-3 airplane collision off Hainan Island in 2001, and
in subsequent incidents involving U.S. and Chinese ships and aircraft, such as the harassment of the USNS Impeccable in 2009. This does not
mean that there is no risk, however. Indeed, the potential for a dangerous militarized crisis may be growing. Moreover, key political and
geostrategic developments could shift the incentives for leaders in favor of more escalatory options in a crisis and thereby make Allison’s
scenarios more plausible. Past precedents offer some insight into the types of developments that would most likely propel the U.S.-China
relationship into a hostile, competitive one featuring an elevated risk of conflict.

The most important driver, as Allison recognizes, would be a growing parity between China and the United States as economic, technological
and geostrategic leaders of the international system. The United States and China feature an increasing parity in the size of their economies,
but the United States retains a considerable lead in virtually every other dimension of national power. The
current U.S.-China rivalry is a regional one centered on the Asia-Pacific region, but it retains the considerable potential of escalating into a
global, systemic competition down the road. A second important driver would be the mobilization of public opinion behind the view that the
other country is a primary source of threat, thereby providing a stronger constituency for escalatory policies. A related development would be
the formal designation by leaders in both capitals of the other country as a primary hostile threat and likely foe. These developments would
most likely be fueled by a growing array of intractable disputes, and further accelerated by a serious militarized crisis. The cumulative effect
would be the exacerbation of an antagonistic competitive rivalry, repeated and volatile militarized crisis, and heightened risk that any flashpoint
could escalate rapidly to war—a relationship that would resemble the U.S.-Soviet relationship in the early 1960s.

Yet even if the relationship evolved towards a more hostile form of rivalry, unique features of the contemporary world suggest lessons drawn
from the past may have limited applicability. Economic interdependence in the twenty-first century is much different and far more
complex than in it was in the past. So is the lethality of weaponry available to the major powers. In the sixteenth century, armies fought with
pikes, swords and primitive guns. In the twenty-first century, it is possible to eliminate all life on the planet in a full-bore nuclear
exchange. These features likely affect the willingness of leaders to escalate in a crisis in a manner far differently than in
past rivalries.

More broadly, Allison’s analysis about the “Thucydides Trap” may be criticized for exaggerating the risks of war. In his claims to identify a high
propensity for war between “rising” and “ruling” countries, he fails to clarify those terms, and does not distinguish the more dangerous from
the less volatile types of rivalries. Contests for supremacy over land regions, for example, have historically proven the
most conflict-prone, while competition for supremacy over maritime regions has, by contrast, tended to be
less lethal. Rivalries also wax and wane over time, with varying levels of risks of war. A more careful review of rivalries and their variety,
duration and patterns of interaction suggests that although most wars involve rivalries, many rivals avoid going to war.
 2nc AT: China War

No China war – MAD, interdependence, American lead, no preparation nor

constituency for conflicts, incentives to de-escalate, and history proves maritime
domains are less violent – that’s Thompson.

No Sino-American war – deterrence, economics, and demographics.

Tønnesson 17 Dr. Stein Tønnesson, Norwegian peace researcher and historian who wrote the miscut
econ impact card. [Viable Peace, Chapter 3 of Explaining the East Asian peace: a research story, NIAS
Press, pages 146-193]

In a 2015 review essay, I presented a theory of how the combined effect of nuclear deterrence and economic
interdependence affects Sino- US relations, arguing that there can be no war between them as long as both factors
apply. As Robert S. Ross (1999) has pointed out, a pacify¬ing order was created in the 1980s by Sino-US cooperation and Soviet
retrenchment. China was allowed to dominate the East Asian continent, while the USA would continue to dominate East Asia's maritime rim
with superior naval power, bases and alliances. Under this order, states in the region could safely set export-driven economic growth as their
top national priority. As trade grew, so did the economic risks for everyone. At a seminar in Oslo in 2005John Mearsheimer suggested that a
theory combining nuclear deterrence and mutual economic dependence might be the best rival to the one he laid out in his now-classic 2001
work, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. I took up the challenge, arguing in 2015 that while neither
nuclear deterrence nor
economic interdependence can be relied upon to prevent the outbreak of war between China and the United
States, but the combination may be sufficient, because each then has to calculate with both a high security
risk and a high economic risk when deciding how to manage a dispute. Assuming both sides have an
effective, centralized command structure, the risk of escalation will prevent them from going to war.
However, if steps were first taken by either side to reduce their economic interdependence drastically, the danger of war would rise since the
perceived cost of war would be re¬duced. Bates Gill, our Advisory Board member, a former director of SIPRI and now professor at the
Australian National University, gave a lecture in Singapore in January 2016 in which he looked at US-China relations and underscored the
constraints on conflict between the two. In addi¬tion to deterrence and interdependence, he added a 'geo-demographic'
constraint, arguing that the combination of an enormous population and a huge territory with long
borders has historically served as a constraint on Chinese power projection that demands a largely inward-looking
stra¬tegic perspective on the part of the country's leaders. This has three main consequences. The first, restraint in relationships with other
countries promotes peace. The second, a high degree of sensitivity concerning foreign intrusions in what China considers to be its own
territory, such as Taiwan and a number of small islands. The third, a tough policy to prevent internal dissent may yield stability but can also
backfire and stir up rebellion. Gill remains relatively optimistic regarding future peace and cooperation between China and the United States,
but worries about the course that China's domestic policies have taken under Xi Jinping.

East Asian stability, military de-escalation, and negotiation solve the conflict.
Shifrinson 19 Joshua Shifrinson, International Relations Professor at Boston University, Political
Science PhD from MIT. [The 'new Cold War' with China is way overblown. Here's why. 2-8-2019,
https://cis.mit.edu/publications/analysis%C2%A0-opinion/2019/new-cold-war-china-way-overblown-
heres-why]

2. Geography and powers' nuclear postures suggest East Asia is more stable than Cold War-era Europe The Cold War was shaped
by an intense arms race, nuclear posturing and crises, especially in continental Europe. Given Europe's political geography, the United States
feared a "bolt from the blue" attack would allow the Soviet Union to conquer the continent. Accordingly, the United States prepared to defend
Europe with conventional forces, and to deter Soviet aggrandizement using nuclear weapons. Unsurprisingly, the Soviet Union also feared that
the United States might attack and wanted to deter US adventurism. Concerns that the other superpower might use force and that crises could
quickly escalate colored Cold War politics. Today, the United States and China spend proportionally far less on their
militaries than the United States and the Soviet Union did. Though an arms race may be emerging, US and Chinese nuclear
postures are not nearly as large or threatening: Arsenals remain far below the size and scope witnessed in the Cold
War, and are kept at a lower state of alert. As for geography, East Asia is not primed for tensions akin to those in Cold
War Europe. China can threaten to coerce its neighbors, but the water barriers separating China from most of Asia's
strategically important states make outright conquest significantly harder. Of course, as scholars such as Caitlin
Talmadge and Avery Goldstein note, crises may still erupt, and each side may face pressures to escalate. Unlike the Cold War, however, US-
Chinese confrontations occur at sea with relatively limited forces and without clear territorial
boundaries. This suggests there are countervailing factors that may give the two sides room to negotiate — and
limit the speed with which a crisis unfolds.

China’s secondary status checks war.

Yan 18 Yan Xuetong, dean of the Institute of International Relations at Tsinghua University. [Trump
can't start a Cold War with China, even if he wants to, 2-6-18, the Washington Post]

Although China is dismayed and disappointed at being viewed as the primary rival to the U.S. after giving Trump
emperor-like treatment during his visit to Beijing, it still adheres to the principle of peaceful competition rather than the
proxy-war strategy the Soviet Union adopted during the Cold War. Economics remains the most powerful element of
China's national strength, and its military might lags far behind America's. Thus, China will try its best to avoid
any form of military clashes with the U.S. China also insists it is not formally allied with Russia, America's other rival, which has been
confronting the U.S. order in Europe mainly through proxy wars since the end of the Cold War. It should not go unrecognized that wars in
the Middle East and former Soviet zones have not escalated to the global level, in no small part because China did
not join Russia. China's behavior in these situations shows that China will not join league with Russia against
the U.S., as happened with the East-West division during the Cold War. The uncertainty of Trump's leadership is also a minor
but favorable factor in preventing a new Cold War. The inconsistency of America's foreign policy in the first year of his presidency has
made its allies cautious in supporting America's confrontation with China.
 1nc AT: Nuclear Meltdown

NRC is making modifications to prevent meltdowns from dam failure

OHS, 16 (Jun 20, 2016, Occupational Health & Safety, “NRC Agrees Modifications to South Carolina
Nuclear Plant Adequate If Dam Fails,” https://ohsonline.com/articles/2016/06/20/nrc-flood.aspx, JMP)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced June 17 that it has found the modifications completed
by Duke Energy at its Oconee nuclear plant will adequately protect the plant's three reactors from a
potential failure of the upstream Jocassee Dam. An NRC staffer wrote a memo within days of the start of
the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant crisis saying the dam's failure would be as devastating to the
Oconee plant as the tsunami that struck the Japanese plant turned out to be. The Oconee plant is
located near Seneca, S.C., about 30 miles west of Greenville. Its three reactors are pressurized water
reactors that were licensed to operate in 1973 and 1974 and had their licenses renewed in 2000,
according to information available on the NRC website.

In 2008, the NRC staff issued a letter to Duke Energy requesting information related to external flooding,
including the potential failure of the dam, which is located about 12 miles upstream from the plant. A
detailed flood hazard analysis took two years to complete and in 2010, Duke submitted the analysis and
NRC issued a confirmatory action letter (CAL) documenting the company’s commitments; Duke also
implemented some interim compensatory measures that were inspected by NRC in 2010.

The Fukushima Daiichi accident happened in 2011, and NRC issued another letter in 2012 requesting
additional information on flooding as the agency worked to ensure lessons learned from Japan's
experience were applied to U.S. plants, including Oconee. Duke then submitted its flood hazard
reevaluation report in 2013 and a revised flood hazard reevaluation report in 2015. NRC accepted that
2015 report for the purposes of the meeting the CAL and, in addition, NRC inspectors evaluated the
Oconee plant's modifications as the company completed each of those steps. NRC said the modifications
included building new or enhanced flood walls and other features, as well as moving some power lines
and equipment to locations less prone to flooding.

Duke Energy informed the agency two months ago that flooding modifications were complete, and a
subsequent inspection caused NRC to determine that the company has satisfied the commitments in the
2010 CAL. "The completion of the commitments in the confirmatory action letter gives the NRC
confidence that the Oconee plant is adequately protected from external floods, including scenarios
involving the failure of the dam," said NRC Region II Administrator Cathy Haney, who added that the
years it took to resolve the flooding issues at Oconee were necessary to ensure the best analyses were
used, information from the accident in Japan was incorporated, and plant modifications meet all
requirements.
 1nc AT: Nuclear Meltdown Impact

No meltdowns and no impact to them

Bradley 16 (Arthur, PhD in Electrical Engineering from Auburn University, former NASA engineer,
2/3/16, “Would A Long-Duration Blackout Cause Nuclear Armageddon?”
http://www.thesurvivalistblog.net/would-a-long-duration-blackout-cause-nuclear-armageddon/ ] lr

The good news is thatnuclear fission can be stopped in under one second through the insertion of control rods .
Those control rods are automatically inserted near the fuel rods either by a hydraulic system or through the use of an electromagnetic

deadman switch that activates when power is removed. That means that when the electrical grid goes down or an emergency

shutdown is initiated, fission would automatically stop one second later. That’s a good thing, but it doesn’t make the
reactor inherently safe. Even without fission, the fuel rod assemblies remain incredibly hot, perhaps a thousand degrees C. If they were not actively cooled, pressure
and temperatures would build in the reactor until something breaks—not good. After three days of active cooling, however, the
reactor would be thermally cool enough to open, should it be deemed necessary to remove the fuel rod assemblies. The second major
risk has to do with cooling of the spent fuel rod assemblies. Nuclear fuel rod assemblies have a usable life on the order of 54-72 months (depending on reactor
type). Every 18-24 months, the reactor is brought down and serviced. While it is down, the fuel rod assemblies are removed, and 1/3 of them are replaced with
fresh assemblies. Think of this like rotating cans of food in your emergency pantry. In the U.S., fuel rods are not refurbished like in other countries. Instead, they are
carefully stored in giant pools of water laced with boric acid—imagine a swimming pool at your local YMCA that is 75-feet deep. Those spent fuel rod assemblies are
still incredibly radioactive, and they continue to generate heat. Water in the pool must therefore be circulated to keep them cool. How long must the fuel rods be
cooled? According to Mr. Hopson, the answer is 5-7 years. After that, the rods are cool enough to be removed and stored in reinforced concrete casks. Even then,
the rods continue to be radioactive, but their heat output can be passively managed. Nuclear plants obviously require electricity to operate their cooling pumps, not
to mention their control systems. That power is normally tapped off of the electricity that the reactor generates. If the plant is offline, the power is provided by the
electrical grid. But what happens when the grid itself goes down? The short answer is that large on-site diesel generators
automatically activate to provide electricity. And if those should fail, portable diesel generators, which
are also on-site, can be connected. Recent standardization has also ensured that generators can be swapped
between plants without the need to retrofit connectors. There are also a couple of additional emergency systems that can be
used specifically to cool the reactor. These include the turbine-driven-auxiliary-feedwater pump, which
uses steam generated by the reactor to power a cooling turbine. The pump requires an operator, but it
runs completely without electricity. This system, however, is meant only for emergency cooling of the reactor during those critical first few
days when the fuel rod assemblies are being brought down in temperature, not for long-term cooling. And finally, in the worst case, most plants

have a method of bringing in river or ocean water to flood the reactor . This typically damages the
cooling system, but again, it helps to cool and cover the reactor core should all else fail . Unlike in other countries,
permission from the federal government is not required to flood the reactor. With backup systems to
the backup systems, it would seem that there’s nothing to worry about, right? Under all but the direst of circumstances, I think that
assessment is correct. However, one could imagine a scenario in which the grid was lost and the diesel generators ran out of fuel. Speaking of fuel, how much is
actually stored onsite? It depends on the plant, but at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, for example, there
is enough fuel to run the emergency
diesel generators for at least 42 days. I say at least because it would depend on exactly what was being powered. Once the reactor was cooled
down, a much smaller system, known as the Residual Heat Removal System, would be all that was required to keep the fuel assemblies cool, both in the reactor and
the spent fuel rods pool. The generators and onsite fuel supply could power that smaller cooling system for significantly longer than if they were powering the larger
reactor cooling system. Evenif we assumed a worst case of forty-two days, it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which that
would not be enough time to bring in additional fuel either by land, water, or air . Nonetheless, let’s push
the question a little further. What would happen in the unlikely event that the diesel fuel was exhausted? Even with the reactor having been successfully
cooled, the biggest risk would continue to be overheating of the fuel rod assemblies, both in the reactor and the spent fuel rods pool. Without circulation, the heat
from the fuel rod assemblies could boil the surrounding water, resulting in steam. In turn, the water levels would drop, ultimately exposing the fuel rods to air.
Once exposed to air, their temperatures would rise but not to the levels that would melt the zirconium
cladding. Thankfully, that means that meltdown would not occur. The steam might well carry radioactive
contaminants into the air, but there would be no release of hydrogen and, thus, no subsequent explosions.
The situation would certainly be dangerous to surrounding communities, but it wouldn’t be the nuclear
Armageddon that many people worry about.
 2nc AT: Nuclear Meltdown Impact

No meltdowns impact, and evacuation solves

Tiffany Kaiser 11, writer for Daily Tech, citing Nuclear Regulatory Commission Report, 8/2/2011,
DailyTech, "NRC: Far Fewer People Would Die in a U.S. Nuclear Meltdown Than Previously Thought,"
http://www.dailytech.com/NRC+Far+Fewer+People+Would+Die+in+a+US+Nuclear+Meltdown+Than+Pr
eviously+Thought/article22330.htm

Thenuclear crisis at Fukushima Daiichi in Japan has caused a nuclear frenzy where leaders around the world are
questioning the safety of their plants. For instance, French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for global nuclear review after visiting Japan, and U.S. senators demanded that the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC) repeat an expensive inspection of the country's nuclear power. ¶ But now, the NRC is close to completing a large nuclear study

that may ease a few worried minds.¶ The NRC has been working with Sandia National Laboratories (a Department of Energy lab) on a study
that revises previous projections of how quickly and how much cesium 137, which is a radioactive material made when uranium is split, could
release from a plant after a nuclear core meltdown. The NRC has been working on the study for six years, and it will not be completely finished until next spring. But the
nuclear watchdog group, Union of Concerned Scientists, has obtained an early copy of the report through a Freedom of Information Act request. ¶ The new study is based on how much and how quickly cesium 137 could escape an

American nuclear plant if a total blackout were to occur. A total blackout means complete loss of power from the grid, and backup diesel generators and batteries have failed as well. This
leads to a nuclear meltdown. NRC scientists said that a total blackout would be rare at an American plant, but it is better to be safe than sorry. In addition, the NRC wanted to update previous projections related to cesium 137. ¶
The NRC focused on two different types of reactors in the U.S.: the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania, which has boiling-water reactors like Fukushima Daiichi, and the Surry Power Station in Virginia, which has

pressurized-water reactors. Over 100 different plants were studied. Through computer models and engineering analyses, the
NRC has concluded that the meltdown of a typical American reactor would lead to "far fewer deaths" than previously
thought.¶ According to the new study, only 1 to 2 percent of a reactor core's cesium 137 could escape during a total blackout. Previous NRC
estimates concluded that 60 percent of the cesium inventory could escape. ¶ In addition, the new study found that one person in every 4,348 within a 10-mile radius of

a nuclear meltdown would develop a "latent cancer" from radiation exposure. In previous estimates, it was one person in every 167. ¶ The NRC said that large releases of

radioactive material would not be "immediate," meaning that people within a 10-mile radius would have plenty of time
to evacuate the premises. It concluded that the chance of death from acute radiation exposure within a 10-mile radius would be near zero, but some would be exposed to high enough doses to experience fatal
cancers decades later.¶ "Accidents progress more slowly, in some cases much more slowly, than previously assumed," said Charles G. Tinkler, a senior adviser

for research on severe accidents and an author of the study. "Releases are smaller , and in some cases much smaller, of certain key radioactive materials."

No radiation impact
Biello 14 (David Biello is Energy and Environment editor at Scientific American from Columbia. "What
You Should and Shouldn’t Worry about after the Fukushima Nuclear Meltdowns," Scientific American.
Jan 9, 2014. www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-to-worry-about-after-fukushima-nuclear-
disaster/) jsk

Another perennial concern is that the water contaminated with radioactive particles still leaking from the stricken nuclear power plant site is
poisoning Pacific Ocean fish and other seafood. There is no doubt that ingesting radionuclides is one of the worst forms of radiation exposure, because

it continues for a long period of time. But, with the exception of bottom-feeding fish and sessile (immobile) filter

feeders caught in the immediate vicinity, any radionuclides from Fukushima have been diluted by the
vastness of the Pacific to insignificant quantities. The extra radionuclides from Fukushima are simply not enough to create a
dose large enough to cause any human health effects outside the immediate vicinity of the stricken nuclear power plant. Nor is the
radioactive contamination from Fukushima the cause of changes to Pacific sea-bottom life observed in recent years off the U.S. west coast, as the marine scientists
at Deep Sea News recently noted. Those shifts most likely stem from the copious quantities of carbon dioxide spewed by fossil fuel–fired power plants that are
changing the climate and, thus, the tiny plants known as phytoplankton that serve as the base of the oceanic food chain. When
it comes to
radiation, the nuclear weapons testing conducted from the 1940s to the 1980s contributed orders of
magnitude more radioactivity to the oceans than Fukushima (even when combined with Chernobyl, a much
larger nuclear catastrophe). There is also an estimated 37 x 10^18 becquerels worth of radioactivity in the oceans from naturally dissolved

uranium in seawater anyway, which some view as a future nuclear fuel source but is not generally considered a health risk. (A becquerel measures
the rate of radiation emission.) And there are other naturally occurring radioactive elements in seawater as well, such as

polonium. That means the tuna caught in the Pacific have always been naturally radioactive (and pose less risk than
dental x-rays, as the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution notes). Or as marine scientist Ken Buesseler of Woods Hole put it in a scientific paper on the subject
published in 2012, "though [cesium] isotopes are elevated 10 to 1,000 [times] over prior levels in waters off Japan, radiation risks due to these radionuclides are
below those generally considered harmful to marine animals and human consumers, and even below those from naturally occurring radionuclides." Likewise, the
debris from Fukushima that has begun to arrive on U.S. shores is also relatively benign. In fact, any radiation from
the flotsam is likely to have far less an impact than the novel species it may carry with it across the Pacific, which could potentially spark a biological invasion.

Impacts are overstated

Monbiot, 11 (George, the author of the bestselling books The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New
World Order and Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain, as well as the investigative travel
books Poisoned Arrows, Amazon Watershed and No Man's Land. His latests books are HeAT how to stop
the planet burning and Bring on the Apocalypse?, March 21, “Why Fukushima made me stop worrying
and love nuclear power”, UK Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-
nuclear-japan-fukushima)

You will not be surprised to hear that the events in Japan have changed my view of nuclear power. You
will be surprised to hear how they have changed it. As a result of the disaster at Fukushima, I am no
longer nuclear-neutral. I now support the technology.¶ A crappy old plant with inadequate safety
features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The electricity supply failed, knocking out
the cooling system. The reactors began to explode and melt down. The disaster exposed a familiar
legacy of poor design and corner-cutting. Yet, as far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of
radiation.¶ Some greens have wildly exaggerated the dangers of radioactive pollution. For a clearer
view, look at the graphic published by xkcd.com. It shows that the average total dose from the Three
Mile Island disaster for someone living within 10 miles of the plant was one 625th of the maximum
yearly amount permitted for US radiation workers. This, in turn, is half of the lowest one-year dose
clearly linked to an increased cancer risk, which, in its turn, is one 80th of an invariably fatal exposure .
I'm not proposing complacency here. I am proposing perspective. ¶ If other forms of energy production
caused no damage, these impacts would weigh more heavily. But energy is like medicine: if there are no
side-effects, the chances are that it doesn't work.

Reactors are isolated

NEI 14, Nuclear Energy Institute, (September 2014, Nuclear Energy Institute, “Nuclear Power Plant
Security”, http://www.nei.org/master-document-folder/backgrounders/fact-sheets/nuclear-power-
plant-security)

A cyber attack cannot prevent critical systems in a nuclear energy facility from performing their safety
functions. Nuclear plant safety systems are completely isolated from the Internet and, even if cyber
security were breached, the reactors are designed to shut down safely if necessary.
Backups definitely solve
IBEW 14—(2014, International Brotherhood of Elctricial Workers,
http://www.ibew.org/IBEW/departments/utility/IBEW-Nuclear-FAQ.pdf The International Brotherhood
of Electrical Workers (IBEW) represents approximately 750,000 active members and retirees who work
in a wide variety of fields, including utilities, construction, telecommunications, broadcasting,
manufacturing, railroads and government. The IBEW has members in both the United States and Canada
and stands out among the American unions in the AFL-CIO because it is among the largest and has
members in so many skilled occupations.

Some of the units at the Japanese plants lost both off - site power and diesel generators . This is called a “station
blackout.” U.S. nuclear power plants are designed to cope with station blackouts by having multiple back -

up power sources at the ready. All U.S. plants are also responsible for demonstrating to the NRC that
they can handle such situations in order to legally remain in operation.
 1nc AT: Farm Dam Failure

Programs exist to help farmers prevent dam failure

Maixner, 20 (06/03/20 6:20 AM, Ed Maixner, “Thousands of aging dams need 'urgent and extensive'
attention,” https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.agri-pulse.com/articles/13806-aging-dams-
risks-loom-out-of-sight-out-of-
mind&sa=D&source=hangouts&ust=1623183875811000&usg=AFQjCNFV3UNGPig-
DR6c8NUoRsD9wD_UuA, JMP) ***Note --- Tim Gokie is chief engineer for the Dam Safety Section of
the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources

Gokie’s team inspects all Nebraska spillways every five years, and because of the advanced age of most
metal spillways “we are finding more and more of those holes. The key … is to catch it early,” he advises.

There is help for farmers who want to fix or rebuild an  old farm and ranch pond, and the Environmental
Quality Incentives Program may be the best first USDA stop for a farmer or rancher wanting to rebuild
an old dam or prevent its failure.

EQIP contracts from the USDA Natural Resources and Conservation Service can fund up to 75% of
watershed management project costs to rehab a farm pond, for example, or repair an irrigation canal or
irrigation pipeline,

In fact, the 2018 farm bill expanded EQIP to allow contracts for water management entities when they
support a water conservation or irrigation efficiency project that will benefit private agricultural
producers’ water supplies. The newly eligible entities can be a state, irrigation district, groundwater
management district, or other local community water entity. The contract can apply to dams when they
involve an entire watershed in a conservation project.

NRCS advises, however, that grants under the expanded eligibility won’t be available until new rules for
EQIP are finalized.

Meanwhile, NRCS’s main small watershed program has been helping farmers and ranchers for about 70
years with dams for farm water supply, conservation, irrigation, and flood control .

One result is the accumulation of 12,000 small dams nationwide that NRCS (and its forerunner agency)
helped build and now tries to help owners maintain. Not only are those dams filling with sediment and
their spillways rusting out, but all sorts of development continues below them.

So, an NRCS watershed expert explains, the number of high-hazard dams under the agency’s watch has
climbed to nearly 2,100, more than double when the ponds were developed decades ago.

Five years ago, NRCS invited proposals for dam rehabs, received 393 requests, and has since been
divvying up funds to towns, counties, water managements and irrigation districts and so forth, at a pace
of about $30 million annually in most recent years. NRCS dollars usually cover about 65% of project
costs.
For Fiscal Year 2020, the agency awarded $25 million for a range of dam rehab projects, at about $2
million to $3 million each for construction, and grants in various amounts for project feasibility
assessments and planning.

Nationwide, meanwhile, ASDSO estimated in 2019 that it would cost the nation at least $23 billion to
rehabilitate just high-hazard dams now in unsatisfactory condition.

The Corps and the Federal Emergency Management Agency help communities repair and replace failed
dams and rehab deteriorating ones. Adoratia Purdy, an ACE public affairs specialist, says the Corps has
been spending $350 million annually, on average, for several years, on dam safety studies, maintenance,
and construction of dams.

FEMA, meanwhile, has the National Dam Safety Program that works with public and private dam
owners, plus a grant program to help rehab old high-hazard dams. FEMA kicked in $333 million, for
example, toward rebuilding the Oroville Dam spillways and related repairs and replacements in 2017
and 2018.
Adv River Ecosystem Answers
 1nc SQ Regs Solve

SQ regulations correct dam problems

Sale, 13 --- executive director for the Low Impact Hydro Institute (17 JUN 13, Dr. Michael J. Sale, “River
Dams: Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down?” https://www.blueridgeoutdoors.com/paddling/river-dams-
thumbs-up-or-thumbs-down/, NZA+JMP)

The potential adverse impacts of dams are well documented, to be sure. These may include altered
stream flow, habitat degradation, blockage of the upstream and downstream migrations of fish,
mortality of fish passing through turbines, and lower rates of dissolved oxygen downstream of dams.

Over the last several decades, however, an extensive regulatory system has been developed to detect
and correct such problems. For example, the Low Impact Hydropower Institute (LIHI) operates a
voluntary certification process that identifies hydropower projects that have reduced their impacts and
are investing in improvements in their local rivers. LIHI evaluates projects based on specific criteria:
water release patterns below the project, water quality, fish passage, protection of
threatened/endangered species, cultural resources, recreation, and requests for dam removal. More
than 100 projects in 27 states have satisfied all of the LIHI criteria.

The fact that dams have the potential for adverse effects cannot be denied, but many of these can be
reduced or eliminated with good siting and operation, plus modern mitigation practices. When dams are
well managed, their net benefits are strongly positive.
 2nc SQ Regs Solve

FERC is already forced to consider environmental impact when renewing hydropower

licenses
Fisher, 20 (July 30, 2020, Lawrence M. Fisher - writes about business for The New York Times and
other publications, “To Dam or not to Dam?” https://www.milkenreview.org/articles/to-dam-or-not-to-
dam, JMP)

Many of these dams are privately owned, and whether the dams are still productive or not, their owners
are typically loath to remove them. But privately owned dams must be licensed, and when those
licenses come up for renewal, there is an opportunity for environmental groups, Native American tribes
and others to seek modifications or mitigation

From the 19th century until the 1960s, the period in which most U.S. dams were built, “the approach
was exploitation of the resource, not how it would impact fish or the drinkability of your water, or
access to public resources,” says Kelly Catlett, an attorney with the Hydropower Reform Coalition. “You
had these very broad initial licenses that let energy companies do whatever they wanted. We saw
projects that would use all the water behind the dam when generating the most power, sending a lot of
water downriver, creating a flood. A couple of hours later when demand goes down, you shut down and
essentially created a drought. So the environmental community saw a strong need to get involved.”

Environmentalists scored a big win in November 1997, when the Edwards Dam on the Kennebec River
in Maine became the first to have its owners’ license renewal application refused by the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC). Built in 1837, Edwards supplied electricity primarily to paper mills;
between the dam’s blockage of spawning grounds and the mills’ effluent, local fish populations,
including Atlantic salmon, river herring, striped bass and sturgeon, had fallen sharply. A 1986 federal law
requires FERC to balance the environmental impact of a dam against the value of the electricity it
produces. FERC decided Edwards failed the test and ordered that its owners remove the dam or spend
$8.9 million on a fishway and another $1 million on environmental remediation. Since the dam’s
removal, the fish have returned.
 1nc Dam Removal Now

Dams not economically viable are being removed now to protect ecosystems
Graf, 3 --- Professor of Geography at the University of South Carolina (NOVEMBER 2003, William L.
Graf, UNIVERSITIES COUNCIL ON WATER RESOURCES, WATER RESOURCES UPDATE, ISSUE 126, PAGES
54-59, “The Changing Role of Dams in Water Resources Management,”
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/William-Graf-
2/publication/49518263_The_Changing_Role_of_Dams_in_Water_Resources_Management/links/00b4
9534fd56fe69bb000000/The-Changing-Role-of-Dams-in-Water-Resources-Management.pdf, JMP)

The run-of-river dams that are barriers to fish passage pose different problems with regard to
reconciling economic and ecosystem values. The installation of fish ladders has aided some fish
populations, but more radical solutions are becoming common. Many run-of-river dams were built for
mills or small hydroelectric projects that are no longer economically viable. In many cases in the
Midwest and East, owners of these dams are unknown, or owners are saddled with unwanted liability
for obsolete dams. The removal of such dams is an increasingly common solution (Heinz Center, 2002).
Because the original economic incentive for the structures is now absent, the ecosystem values of dam
removal and river restoration are great enough to justify public investment. Over the past decade, more
than 500 dams have been removed from critical locations, thus restoring passage for endangered
species.

The case of the Quaker Neck Dam, on the Nuese River of North Carolina, illustrates the utility of dam
removal (American Rivers et al., 1999). The dam, built in 1952 as a diversion structure, was only 7 ft (2
m) high, but it formed a sill across the river and blocked upstream migration of anadromous fishes,
including the American shad and the endangered short-nosed Sturgeon. The dam was obsolete, and
served no economic purpose. Removal of the dam in 1998 made more than 1000 mi (1600 km) of
upstream river accessible from the ocean.
 1nc Dams Protect Environment

Dams save water for droughts, preserve wetlands and filter out pollution
 Fish ladder development is improving

Palpini, 13 (April 09, 2013, Kristin, “UMass professor’s research casts doubt on fish ladders,”
https://www.gazettenet.com/Archives/2013/01/fishways-hg-020113, JMP) ***Note – Adrian Jordaan is
a UMass assistant professor of fish population, ecology and conservation and one of the researchers
on the paper

The study has its critics who accuse researchers of cherry picking data, Jordaan says. He’s heard from
people who maintain the assertion that shad aren’t making it over the dams in good numbers is
misleading. They point to 2012 as being a good year for shad passage, saying that on the Connecticut
River 500,000 shad made it over dams, although the target number was 1 million.

Jordaan said while this is true, looking at one year doesn’t tell the whole story and the team he was on
looked at decades worth of data.

Others, such as Frank Heller head of Katahdin Energy Works, a Maine alternative energy firm, say the
study doesn’t take into account the most recent dam research or the importance of dams in saving
water for droughts, preserving wetlands and filtering pollution from downstream waters.

“Designing better fishways has come a long way, and I tend to look at how they do it [in] Europe and [at]
the newer naturalistic paths,” Heller wrote in an email to the Gazette citing the effectiveness of Dutch
fish siphon fishways and tailoring passages to particular species. “It is possible to have a dam and an
effective fish pathway; and it is possible to bring back some species like shad.”
 2nc Dams Protect Environment

Dams protect environment --- hazardous materials retention and reduces influence of
sedimentation
Miller, 20 --- B.A. from UT Austin, seasoned writer who has written over one hundred articles, which
have been read by over 500,000 people (Mar 13, 2020, Brandon Miller, “17 Biggest Advantages and
Disadvantages of Dams,” https://greengarageblog.org/17-biggest-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-
dams, JMP)

6. A dam can provide a stable system of navigation.

We can use dams on rivers to provide a stable system of inland water transportation. The navigable
waterways of the United States, like those found on the Mississippi River, can be challenging for some
boats to use because of varying water levels. Installing a system of locks with this technology creates a
safe place for us to transport goods and a variety of additional benefits.

In some situations, dams can even provide enhanced environmental protection. This technology has
the capability of delivering hazardous materials retention or reducing the influence of sedimentation on
vulnerable rivers.
 1nc Alt Cause – Waste and Climate

Climate and toxic waste makes impact inevitable

Lakhani, 21 (13 Apr 2021 00.01 EDT, Nina Lakhani, “Endangered US rivers at grave risk from dams,
mining and global heating; New report lays out dire situation facing the most imperiled rivers but
environmental activists say situation is salvable,”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/13/endangered-rivers-dams-mining-global-
heating-climate-crisis, JMP)

In second place is the Lower Missouri River, where communities in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska
face increasing floods that threaten homes and businesses, and environmental and public health. The
risks are exacerbated by authorities’ continued reliance on an antiquated flood control system, say
advocates.

The Missouri is America’s longest river, but the once meandering, ecologically diverse 2,300-mile
waterway has long been artificially contained by hundreds of miles of levees, which are being
increasingly breached.

Extreme weather events linked to the climate crisis, such as droughts, hurricanes and floods are a
growing threat to rivers, communities and drinking and wastewater systems.

“In Missouri we have coal ash, radioactive waste, abandoned lead mines and a variety of other toxic
accidents waiting to happen. When an area floods, this chemical soup becomes part of our water
system, potentially impairing your drinking water or your favorite fishing stream,” said Rachel Bartels,
the director of Missouri Confluence Waterkeeper, a conservation group.

Nationwide, at least 945 toxic superfund sites are vulnerable to extreme weather such as hurricanes,
floods, rising sea levels and wildfires, which are becoming more frequent and intense as the planet heats
up.

John Kerry, the presidential envoy for climate, said: “The climate crisis threatens so many aspects of life
as we know it. It threatens our health, our security and our economy, and that’s in large part because it
threatens our most precious resource, abundant, fresh, clean water. The climate impacts of clean water
resources are becoming increasingly pronounced all over the world.”

Toxic waste from factory farming, extractive industries and sewage plants is also pouring into the
nation’s rivers, rendering them dangerous for humans and aquatic life.

WIn Iowa, the state’s largest water utility was forced to invest in one of the world’s most expensive
nitrate-removal systems due to harmful levels of agricultural pollutants in the Raccoon River, which is
relied upon by more than half a million people for drinking water. The Raccoon River, ranked ninth in
the endangered rivers list, is polluted by more than 700 factory farms given free rein by state lawmakers
who refuse to implement mandatory pollution controls.

In Oklahoma, toxic pollution from one of the country’s biggest Superfund sites has made Tar Creek a
feared no-go zone for communities including several tribes who once depended on the river for
subsistence and cultural practices.
The legacy of toxic waste from what was once the world’s largest lead and zinc mine, has turned Tar
Creek orange, killing aquatic life and threatening human health with heavy metals including lead and
arsenic. Every day, 1m gallons of contaminated water are discharged into Tar Creek, which is ranked
sixth in the endangered list.

“For 42 years, acid mine water and toxic runoff has been pouring down Tar Creek under the eyes of the
state and the EPA,” said Earl L Hatley, Grand Riverkeeper at Local Environmental Action Demanded.

“To date, they have no plan for stopping this toxic offsite release. When will our lives matter?”
 1nc AT: Biodiversity Impact

No BioD collapse – metaanalysis demonstrates slow pace and resilience.

Hance 18 Jeremy Hance at the Guardian, interviewing José M. Montoya from the Centre National de la
Recherche Scientifique at the University Paul Sabatier and internally citing Ian Donohue from the School
of Natural Sciences at Trinity College Dublin and Stuart L. Pimm from the Nicholas School of the
Environment at Duke University. [Could biodiversity destruction lead to a global tipping point? 1-16-
2018, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/radical-conservation/2018/jan/16/biodiversity-
extinction-tipping-point-planetary-boundary]

But what’s arguably most fascinating about this event – known as the Permian-Triassic extinction or more poetically, the
Great Dying – is the fact that anything survived at all. Life, it seems, is so ridiculously adaptable that not only did
thousands of species make it through whatever killed off nearly everything (no one knows for certain though
theories abound) but, somehow, after millions of years life even recovered and went on to write new tales. Even as the Permian-Triassic
extinction event shows the fragility of life, it also proves its resilience in the long-term. The lessons of such mass extinctions
– five to date and arguably a sixth happening as I write – inform science today. Given that extinction levels are currently 1,000 (some even say
10,000) times the background rate, researchers have long worried about our current destruction of biodiversity – and what that may mean for
our future Earth and ourselves. In 2009, a group of researchers identified nine global boundaries for the planet that if passed could theoretically
push the Earth into an uninhabitable state for our species. These global boundaries include climate change, freshwater use, ocean acidification
and, yes, biodiversity loss (among others). The group has since updated the terminology surrounding biodiversity, now calling it “biosphere
integrity,” but that hasn’t spared it from critique. A paper last year in Trends in Ecology & Evolution scathingly attacked the idea of any global
biodiversity boundary. “It makes no sense that there exists a tipping point of biodiversity loss beyond which
the Earth will collapse,” said co-author and ecologist, José Montoya, with Paul Sabatier Univeristy in France. “There is no
rationale for this.” Montoya wrote the paper along with Ian Donohue, an ecologist at Trinity College in Ireland and Stuart Pimm, one of
the world’s leading experts on extinctions, with Duke University in the US. Montoya, Donohue and Pimm argue that there isn’t
evidence of a point at which loss of species leads to ecosystem collapse, globally or even locally. If the
planet didn’t collapse after the Permian-Triassic extinction event, it won’t collapse now – though our
descendants may well curse us for the damage we’ve done. Instead, according to the researchers, every loss of species counts. But the
damage is gradual and incremental, not a sudden plunge. Ecosystems, according to them, slowly degrade but
never fail outright. “Of more than 600 experiments of biodiversity effects on various functions, none showed
a collapse,” Montoya said. “In general, the loss of species has a detrimental effect on ecosystem functions...We progressively lose
pollination services, water quality, plant biomass, and many other important functions as we lose species. But we never observe a
critical level of biodiversity over which functions collapse. ”
 2nc AT: Biodiversity Impact

BioD can’t collapse or threaten human extinction – Montoya compiles 600

experiments to show no tipping point exists, even in local ecosystems – damage is
gradual, leaving time for adaptation – the Permian extinction proves life can thrive in
any condition.

Bio-d loss isn’t existential.

Kareiva and Carranza, 18—Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California,
Los Angeles (Peter and Valerie, “Existential risk due to ecosystem collapse: Nature strikes back,” Futures,
available online January 5, 2018, ScienceDirect, dml)
The interesting question is whether any of the planetary thresholds other than CO2 could also portend existential risks. Here the answer is not
clear. One boundary often mentioned as a concern for the fate of global civilization is biodiversity (Ehrlich &
Ehrlich, 2012), with the proposed safety threshold being a loss of greater than 0.001% per year (Rockström et al., 2009). There
is little
evidence that this particular 0.001% annual loss is a threshold—and it is hard to imagine any data that would
allow one to identify where the threshold was (Brook, Ellis, Perring, Mackay, & Blomqvist, 2013; Lenton & Williams, 2013). A
better question is whether one can imagine any scenario by which the loss of too many species leads to
the collapse of societies and environmental disasters, even though one cannot know the absolute
number of extinctions that would be required to create this dystopia. While there are data that relate local
reductions in species richness to altered ecosystem function, these results do not point to substantial
existential risks. The data are small-scale experiments in which plant productivity, or nutrient retention
is reduced as species numbers decline locally (Vellend, 2017), or are local observations of increased variability in fisheries yield
when stock diversity is lost (Schindler et al., 2010). Those are not existential risks. To make the link even more
tenuous, there is little evidence that biodiversity is even declining at local scales (Vellend et al., 2013, 2017).
Total planetary biodiversity may be in decline, but local and regional biodiversity is often staying the
same because species from elsewhere replace local losses, albeit homogenizing the world in the process. Although the
majority of conservation scientists are likely to flinch at this conclusion, there is growing skepticism regarding the strength
of evidence linking trends in biodiversity loss to an existential risk for humans (Maier, 2012; Vellend, 2014).
Obviously if all biodiversity disappeared civilization would end—but no one is forecasting the loss of all
species. It seems plausible that the loss of 90% of the world’s species could also be apocalyptic, but not
one is predicting that degree of biodiversity loss either . Tragic, but plausible is the possibility of our planet suffering a loss
of as many as half of its species. If global biodiversity were halved, but at the same time locally the number of
species stayed relatively stable, what would be the mechanism for an end-of-civilization or even end of
human prosperity scenario? Extinctions and biodiversity loss are ethical and spiritual losses, but perhaps not
an existential risk.
 1nc AT: Fish Declines

***Note when prepping file --- this card is also in the 2nc extensions for the Reform CP

Fish and other species can co-exist with dams --- dam upgrades and habitat
improvements protect salmon
 Dam removal won’t save the orcas

Britain, et. al, 19 (Updated March 28, 2019 at 8:37 am, Don Britain is mayor of Kennewick, Matt
Wakins is mayor of Pasco, Robert Thompson is mayor of Richland, and Brent Gerry is mayor of West
Richland, “Salmon and dams can coexist,” https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/salmon-and-dams-
can-coexist/, NZA+JMP)

For more than 20 years. there has been an ongoing debate about the impact of the four Snake River
dams on the Pacific Northwest’s salmon population. Since the 1970s, billions of dollars have been spent
to upgrade the dams and to improve salmon habitat.

The results? According to the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), the average number of returning
salmon and steelhead are more than double what they were when counts first began when the
Bonneville Dam started operations in 1938. Despite this clear evidence that dams and fish can coexist,
the debate continues.

More recently, the struggles of the southern resident orca population have further stoked the debate.
No one disagrees that the health and future of the orca population must be preserved. However, the
numbers clearly show that removing the dams will not save the orcas. In fact, in 2016, NOAA stated that
previous federal “biological opinions concluded that hatchery production of salmon and steelhead in the
Columbia and Snake systems more than offsets any losses of salmon from the killer whale prey base
caused by the dams.”

Likewise, a state-funded study on the impacts of dam breaching as proposed by the Southern Resident
Orca Task Force is an unnecessary duplication of efforts already underway by the federal agencies
responsible for the Columbia River Systems Operations Environmental Impact Statement. That EIS is a
regional, comprehensive study to evaluate a range of operations alternatives for the 14 federal
hydropower facilities located along the Columbia and Snake rivers. All Northwest states and tribes are
participating in this process, which includes a comprehensive evaluation of the four lower Snake River
dams as well as economic impact analysis and stakeholder input.

A state-level effort would not be as comprehensive, nor would it result in a product that can be relied
upon for future decisions about the dams. Simply put, the proposed study would not be a good use of
$750,000 in Washington state taxpayers’ money.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries, the agency with the expertise and
responsibility for the recovery of the Southern Resident orcas, has assessed the four lower Snake River
dams and their effects on listed salmon and steelhead in the 2008 Biological Opinion and again in 2014.
Neither study concluded that breaching the dams is necessary for recovery of the Snake River salmon or
Southern Resident orcas. NOAA determined the hatchery production of salmon and steelhead in the
Columbia and Snake River systems more than offsets any losses of salmon caused by the dams .

Investments in salmon restoration have included a complete overhaul of the federal dams. The
Columbia and Snake River dams have been retrofitted with state-of-the-art fish passage technologies
that are helping young fish migrate safely and swiftly, with survival rates for spring salmonids averaging
96 percent past each dam, BPA stated in January. Moreover, Oregon State University and U.S.
Geological Survey researchers have determined that fish survival rates through the Columbia-Snake river
system are similar to those seen in British Columbia’s undammed Fraser River.

Ironically, at the same time there is a push for the Washington state Legislature to fund this study on the
impacts of removing the dams, there are also several bills to push for carbon reduction. If the goal in
Washington is to reduce carbon, the existing clean hydropower resources play an essential role in
keeping our air clean. These dams generate some of the cheapest, most reliable, carbon-free electricity
in the Pacific Northwest.

BPA markets power from 31 federal dams along the Columbia and Snake rivers and their tributaries. Of
these dams, only 10 are able to quickly change how much power they are generating in order to
maintain a constant balance between power production and energy use. This capability is essential for
the power grid to accommodate intermittent renewable energy generation, such as wind and solar
power.

The four lower Snake River dams are among those 10 more flexible dams. Because of their location, size
and ability to help meet peak power loads, these dams are a critical component for transmission grid
reliability. They are necessary to ensure the lights are on, every minute, every day. If the dams were to
be removed, their on-demand grid balancing capabilities would need to be replaced, most likely with
carbon-emitting natural gas plants.

In addition to reliable, low-cost, carbon-free hydropower, the Snake River dams have other key
attributes. The dams create a river highway for shipping, provide recreational and tourism opportunities,
and enable irrigation for some of the most productive agricultural land in the country.

The Tri-City region has always strongly supported robust salmon recovery efforts, including
improvements to hydro, habitat, harvest and hatchery programs, and we will continue to support them
in the future. The state funding a study that focuses on the Snake River dams, and one that is redundant
of exhaustive federal efforts, however, serves only to shift the focus away from actions that will truly
help the iconic southern resident orcas.

Other factors beyond dams causing fish declines

Palpini, 13 (April 09, 2013, Kristin, “UMass professor’s research casts doubt on fish ladders,”
https://www.gazettenet.com/Archives/2013/01/fishways-hg-020113, JMP)

Locally, counts at the Holyoke Gas & Electric Barrett Fishway show a similarly dramatic decrease in fish
populations. In 1985, for example, 632,255 blue back herring passed through the fishway, but in 2010
only 76 made a successful trip over the dam. For Atlantic salmon the number of fish making it over the
dam has decreased to 41 from a high of 368 in 1992.
But Paul Ducheney, hydroelectric superintendent at Holyoke Gas & Electric, said the lift-style fishway,
which was built in 1955, is not a factor in the declining population.

Although the number of certain species of fish passing the Holyoke Dam has declined over the years, it is
important to note that the timeline of population abundance demonstrates that “the Holyoke Dam and
the associated fish passage facilities (first put into operation in 1955) are not a causative factor, as
counts increased in years between 1976 up to a peak in 1985,” Ducheney said in a statement.
“Additionally, certain subject matter experts point to other factors, beyond the river, that are more
likely the cause of declines in counts at the Holyoke Dam, including the fact that currently the largest
proportion of fishing mortality of river herring appears to occur as bycatch in coastal fisheries.”
 1nc AT: Salmon – Alt Causes

Salmon are being reduce by a number of factors

 Overharvesting
 Hatcheries and fish farms undermining wild salmon populations
 Salmon can co-exist with dams

Horton, 08 (18 November 2008, Jennifer Horton, “What's depleting salmon populations?”
https://adventure.howstuffworks.com/outdoor-activities/fishing/fish-conservation/fish-
populations/salmon-population.htm, JMP)

Unfortunately, there isn't an easy solution for reversing the decline in salmon populations -- everything
from overfishing to El Nino and climate change have been linked to salmon depletion. The fish's
complicated life cycle -- salmon begin life in a stream, migrate to sea for their adult life and finally return
to their birthplace in order to reproduce -- makes it even harder to pinpoint the primary factors leading
to each population's fall.

But researchers do know enough about the leading causes to label them with a nifty slogan. Keep
reading to find out what the four Hs -- harvest, hatchery, habitat and hydropower -- are all about.

Harvest and Hatchery

While a variety of factors impacts salmon populations, four tend to stand out. Although there are only
six species of salmon -- five Pacific and one Atlantic -- each individual stock, or population, is genetically
unique and faces challenges specific to its region, making it difficult to label any one of the four Hs more
important.

Two of the H factors are somewhat interrelated. The first one, harvests, refers to the commercial,
recreational and tribal fishing of salmon -- either out at sea or as they migrate back upstream. Until
recently, many governments have failed to put appropriate limits on the number of salmon that can be
reasonably caught each year. For example, in Canada, when around 8 million salmon returned from the
ocean to spawn in 1917, the government still allowed a catch of more than 7.3 million fish [source:
Hume].

Overfishing has led to record low levels of the salmon almost everywhere they're caught. An exception is
in Alaska, where well-developed management plans give sustainability a high priority.

The severe salmon depletions prompted by overfishing have led to a subsequent increase in fish
hatcheries, the next big H, to replenish the stocks. Initially created to enhance salmon numbers, these
fish nurseries artificially raise young salmon until they're self-supporting and then release them into the
ocean. Similar facilities now exist solely for food production and are referred to as fish farms.

Ironically, the hatcheries and farms that popped up to alleviate pressure on wild salmon populations are
now endangering them. Research shows that situating fish farms near wild salmon populations can
cause declines of more than 50 percent in the wild fish [source: Owen]. Both hatcheries and farms may
introduce weaker genes into the wild population's gene pool through interbreeding, thus lowering
salmons' chances for survival. In addition, the artificial structures are more conducive to parasites and
disease, which then infect wild populations. Competition is also a factor.

Both harvest and hatchery problems can easily be fixed. With proper management and controls,
populations can and do improve. Better quality fish cages, for instance, can prevent physical contact
between the fish, and stricter controls on harvest quotas can help deter overfishing.

The next two Hs, also man-made, have to do with where salmon live.

Farmed vs. Wild

You might think eating farmed salmon helps the wild ones, but wild-caught Alaskan salmon or Marine
Certified Species (MCS) salmon is actually a better bet. By looking for the MCS label, you're ensuring the
fish you eat comes from a sustainable source. Eating farmed fish simply encourages the harmful
practices many fish farms engage in, which endanger the wild populations in the first place. If you do
choose farmed fish, look for those that are farmed in open sea conditions and avoid using wild-caught
fish as feed.

Habitat and Hydropower

The health of salmon populations depends a lot on the health of their living environment. The fact that
salmon live in a variety of habitats throughout their lives makes them especially vulnerable to the next H
-- habitat degradation. Even small disturbances can make a big difference, since spawning is highly
sensitive to things like increased sedimentation. Logging, agricultural practices, trash dumping and oil
spills all contribute to poor water quality.

Another factor that can disrupt habitat is the final H, hydropower dams. The Clearwater coho salmon,
once abundant in the Snake River Basin of Oregon, Washington and Idaho, became extinct in the early
1960s largely due to the construction of a dam that blocked the fish's passage to and from its birthing
grounds [source: Northwest Power & Conservation Council]. Besides potentially blocking access to
salmons' habitats, dams may cause changes to water flows and temperatures that can devastate local
populations.

Dams aren't necessarily a death knell for salmon, however. Researchers tracking salmon on the dam-
laden Columbia River concluded it wasn't the dams impeding their survival but challenges they face at
sea including predation, ocean warming and alterations to their prey distribution [source: Owen]. The
study showed that with proper modifications to assist the salmon in their migration, dams and salmon
can coexist.

The four Hs -- harvests, hatcheries, habitat and hydropower -- aren't problematic in and of themselves.
It's only when they're mismanaged that things start to go downhill. While some populations have
dropped so low they will take years to restore, if at all, others can be saved from following the path of
the Clearwater coho.

Must protect ocean habitat too

NYT, 13 (22 July 2013, The New York Times, “Down Comes Another Dam,” Factiva database, Document
NYTF000020130722e97m0007w, JMP)
There is, however, a troubling note in the restoration of free-running river systems, east or west.
Anadromous species live only part of their lives in freshwater rivers. Much of their time is spent at sea.
So while it is imperative to keep river restoration going, it is no less important to protect their oceanic
habitat as well. It takes both habitats to make a salmon or a sturgeon or a smelt.
 2nc AT: Salmon – Alt Causes

Warming kills salmon

 Change migration patterns
 Reduced body size
 Increased stress and pre-spawning mortality

Horton, 08 (18 November 2008, Jennifer Horton, “What's depleting salmon populations?”
https://adventure.howstuffworks.com/outdoor-activities/fishing/fish-conservation/fish-
populations/salmon-population.htm, JMP)

Global Warming Strikes Again

Increasing evidence shows that climate change may affect salmon migration patterns. Warmer ocean
temperatures cause the fish to migrate further north, creating a longer distance for them to travel than
in cooler years. In addition to a delayed return to their spawning grounds, many of the fish experience
reduced body size since more energy is required to cover the longer distance. Higher water
temperatures may also cause increased stress and pre-spawning mortality for some species like sockeye
salmon [source: Levy].
DA Agriculture
 1nc DA Agriculture

U.S. ag exports are strong --- powers the agricultural economy and overall U.S.
economy
German, 6/8/2021 --- Multimedia Journalist for AgNet West (6/8/2021, Brian German, “Agricultural
Exports Expected to Hit a New Record in 2021,” https://agnetwest.com/agricultural-exports-expected-
to-hit-a-new-record-in-2021/, JMP)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is expecting to hit a record for agricultural exports for the
fiscal year 2021. According to the quarterly ag trade forecast, U.S. ag exports are projected to reach
$164 billion. The figure represents an increase of 21 percent from the year prior and an increase of $7
billion over USDA’s previous forecast that was published back in February. The last record for
agricultural exports was set back in 2014 with a total of $152.3 billion.

Agricultural Exports

“U.S. agricultural trade has proven extraordinarily resilient in the face of a global pandemic and
economic contraction. This strength is reflected in today’s USDA export forecast,” Agriculture Secretary
Tom Vilsack said in a press release. “As we conclude World Trade Month, it’s clear that trade remains a
critical engine powering the agricultural economy and the U.S. economy as a whole. Today’s estimate
shows that our agricultural trading partners are responding to a return to certainty and reliability from
the United States.”

The increase in overall agricultural exports is reported to be led by increases in livestock, poultry, and
dairy products, we well as corn and soybeans. Livestock, poultry, and dairy products are projected to
increase $1.6 billion over the February projection, to $34.2 billion. Dairy exports alone are expected to
climb to $7 billion based on higher volumes and values of several products. Cotton exports are also
projected to increase, while expectations for horticultural exports have declined from previous levels.

Some of the factors behind the increased export forecast include a record outlook for China, as well as
higher overall commodity prices. Exports to China are expected to reach a record of $35 billion. The
increase is led by larger shipments of soybeans, corn, tree nuts, poultry products, beef, and wheat. A
decline in foreign competition, as well as record export volumes and values for several important
products, are also driving the increase in ag exports.

Dams guarantee irrigation for crop production --- ensures consistent food distribution
networks
Miller, 20 --- B.A. from UT Austin, seasoned writer who has written over one hundred articles, which
have been read by over 500,000 people (Mar 13, 2020, Brandon Miller, “17 Biggest Advantages and
Disadvantages of Dams,” https://greengarageblog.org/17-biggest-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-
dams, JMP)

5. Dams give us a way to irrigate croplands that may not receive enough moisture.
About 10% of the croplands in the United States are currently irrigated using water that is stored in
reservoirs behind a dam. Tens of thousands of jobs are directly tied to crop production and other
agricultural activities that happen because of this benefit. Our food distribution networks remain active
and consistent because of this advantage, and it allows us to do more with our growing efforts than if
we relied on seasonal precipitation patterns alone.

Dam removal to try and save salmon will undermine agriculture in a critical region by
jacking up energy costs and undercutting irrigation --- its crops are exported globally
and it leads the world in irrigation technology
 dams are key to hydropower, transportation and irrigation

Ziari, 21 --- irrigation engineer who for the last 39 years has worked on water management issues in
Hermiston and the Pacific Northwest (May 25, 2021, FRED ZIARI, “Other views: Time for dialogue on
dam removal issues,” https://www.eastoregonian.com/opinion/columnists/other-views-time-for-
dialogue-on-dam-removal-issues/article_b7659606-bc1f-11eb-982c-9b0953477e82.html, JMP)

Northeastern Oregon is home to some of the most rich and fertile farmland in the state, producing
potatoes, onion, carrots, peas and numerous other variety of crops for consumption here at home and
for export around the globe. This region also leads the world in irrigation technologies and water
sustainability.

The four lower Snake River dams play a vital role in sustaining this corner of the state , and our regional
stakeholders have a long history of working together to preserve and enhance local salmon populations.
That’s why I was disappointed to learn that after joining the governors of Washington, Idaho and
Montana in a collaborative effort to rebuild Columbia Basin salmon, Gov. Kate Brown filed a lawsuit over
the federal government’s management of the four lower Snake River dams.

I’ve been involved in the fish versus dams debate for nearly three decades, and lawsuits have gotten us
nowhere. The only way forward is through working together toward a collaborative long-term solution. I
hope Brown will set aside her lawsuit and work to make the four-state process a success.

The agriculture sector relies on the four lower Snake River dams for hydropower, transportation and
irrigation. The dams are a significant part of the federal hydropower system, which provides as much as
95% of the clean, reliable and affordable power essential to families, farmers, ranchers and businesses in
rural Oregon. According to a recent three-year study of Snake River dams completed by the federal
government, removal could result in an energy price hike in rural Oregon of up to 50%, which adds up to
several hundred dollars per year for each rural family.

Farm operations and related agriculture industries and manufacturing are the backbone of our Umatilla
and Morrow counties’ economy, employing nearly 40% of local residents and producing crops and
products that are barged down the Columbia River for export to world markets.

However, the federal study determined that removing the dams would make the Snake River
unnavigable for barge traffic, resulting in higher production costs for farmers who would have to
transition to rail or truck transport. Under this scenario, freight transportation by rail could increase by
as much as 86% — a level that is too high for existing rail capacity.
The transition from barge to surface transportation also would result in more traffic congestion and the
need for road and rail infrastructure improvements. Truck and rail transportation create higher
emissions per ton than barges, which would result in a net increase in CO2 emissions of approximately
17% — taking us in the wrong direction as the state is working to meet its clean energy goals.

With an average annual rainfall of less than 8 inches per year, our region is also dependent on the river
for local water supply. Removal of four Snake River dams in Washington state would have an especially
long-term adverse impact on operations of existing Columbia River pump stations in the lower McNary
and John Day pools in Northeast Oregon, as 50 years of sediments will be now deposited in the irrigation
intakes downstream. This negative impact is in addition to much more expensive or even nonexisting
barging for our products as well as higher energy costs.

Over the last 30 years, the Eastern Oregon irrigation community had a respectful and open dialogue with
our past governors (Roberts, Kitzhaber and Kulongoski) and we ask Gov. Brown to commit to the process
by listening and understanding our local agricultural concerns as well as all river stakeholders so that she
can develop a collaborative approach to protecting salmon without harming the rural economy.

We are committed to a respectful, open minded and solution-oriented dialogue with Gov. Brown and
her staff.

US ag and food security stabilize the globe — collapse greenlights great power wars
Castellaw 17—Lieutenant General, former President of the non-profit Crockett Policy Institute (John,
“Opinion: Food Security Strategy Is Essential to Our National Security,” https://www.agri-
pulse.com/articles/9203-opinion-food-security-strategy-is-essential-to-our-national-security, dml)

The United States faces many threats to our National Security. These threats
include continuing wars with extremist elements
such as ISIS and potential wars with rogue state North Korea or regional nuclear power Iran . The heated economic
and diplomatic competition with Russia and a surging China could spiral out of control . Concurrently, we face
threats to our future security posed by growing civil strife, famine, and refugee and migration challenges which
create incubators for extremist and anti-American government factions. Our response cannot be one dimensional
but instead must be a nuanced and comprehensive National Security Strategy combining all elements of National Power including a Food
Security Strategy.

An American Food Security Strategy is an imperative factor in reducing the multiple threats impacting our National wellbeing. Recent history
has shown that reliable
food supplies and stable prices produce more stable and secure countries. Conversely,
food insecurity, particularly in poorer countries, can lead to instability, unrest, and violence.

Food insecurity drives mass migration around the world from the Middle East, to Africa, to Southeast Asia,
destabilizing neighboring populations, generating conflicts, and threatening our own security by disrupting our economic,
military, and diplomatic relationships. Food system shocks from extreme food-price volatility can be correlated with protests and riots.
Food price related protests toppled governments in Haiti and Madagascar in 2007 and 2008. In 2010 and in 2011, food prices and grievances
related to food policy were one of the major drivers of the Arab Spring uprisings. Repeatedly, history has taught us that a strong
agricultural sector is an unquestionable requirement for inclusive and sustainable growth, broad-based development
progress, and long-term stability.

The impact can be remarkable and far reaching. Rising income, in addition to reducing the opportunities for an upsurge in extremism, leads to
changes in diet, producing demand for more diverse and nutritious foods provided, in many cases, from American farmers and ranchers.
Emerging markets currently purchase 20 percent of U.S. agriculture exports and that figure is expected to grow as populations boom.
Moving early to ensure stability in strategically significant regions requires long term planning and a disciplined, thoughtful strategy. To combat
current threats and work to prevent future ones, our national leadership must employ the entire spectrum of our power including diplomatic,
economic, and cultural elements. The best means to prevent future chaos and the resulting instability is positive engagement addressing the
causes of instability before it occurs.

This is not rocket science. We know where the instability is most likely to occur. The world population will grow by 2.5 billion people by 2050.
Unfortunately, this massive population boom is projected to occur primarily in the most fragile and food
insecure countries. This alarming math is not just about total numbers. Projections show that the greatest increase is in the age groups
most vulnerable to extremism. There are currently 200 million people in Africa between the ages of 15 and 24, with that number expected to
double in the next 30 years. Already, 60% of the unemployed in Africa are young people.

Too often these situations deteriorate into shooting wars requiring the deployment of our military forces. We should be
continually mindful that the price we pay for committing military forces is measured in our most precious national resource, the blood of those
who serve. For those who live in rural America, this has a disproportionate impact. Fully 40% of those who serve in our military come from the
farms, ranches, and non-urban communities that make up only 16% of our population.

Actions taken now to increase agricultural sector jobs can provide economic opportunity and stability for those unemployed youths while
helping to feed people. A recent report by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs identifies agriculture development as the core essential for
providing greater food security, economic growth, and population well-being.

Our active support for food security, including agriculture development, has helped stabilize key regions over the past 60
years. A robust food security strategy, as a part of our overall security strategy, can mitigate the growth of terrorism,
build important relationships, and support continued American economic and agricultural prosperity while materially contributing to our
Nation’s and the world’s security.
 2nc Uniq – U.S. Ag Strong

Agricultural food networks and agricultural production will increase this decade-2021
proves
Brian German, 3-10-2021, "Agricultural Exports Projected to Grow Over Next 10 Years," AgNet West,
https://agnetwest.com/agricultural-exports-projected-to-grow-over-next-10-years/smarx, AZG

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is projecting strong growth in U.S. agricultural exports over
the coming decade. Information from USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) showed a projected
increase of 12 percent in fiscal year 2021 alone. ERS expects export values to reach more than $150
billion, which would approach the record level set in 2014. As economies recover from complications
related to COVID-19, American agricultural exports are projected to grow nearly two percent annually.

U.S. agriculture rebounding --- strong exports

Zang, 6/7/2021 (June 7, 2021, Agnes Zang, “China’s import demand improves the prospects of the U.S.
farm belt,” https://quebecnewstribune.com/news/business/chinas-import-demand-improves-the-
prospects-of-the-u-s-farm-belt-14972/, JMP)

Donald Trump’s trade war with China has made American farmers rely on government relief funds to
survive. But China is now at the center of a reversal of the fortunes of farmers, as booming exports and
soaring food prices have promoted the recovery of the US agricultural economy.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said that this year the U.S. will export 37.2 billion U.S. dollars worth
of agricultural products to China. Sales of soybeans, corn, nuts, beef, wheat and poultry will reach
record levels. forecastThis amount accounts for 23% of the total US agricultural exports estimated at
164 billion U.S. dollars.

Increasing demand in China, as well as restrictions on the supply of corn and soybeans caused by the
drought in Brazil, have contributed to a surge in global demand. Food prices, Which provided further
impetus for American farmers.

“Things really got better,” said Mark Wilson, a corn grower from Toulon, Illinois. “It looks pretty good
now.”
 2nc Uniq – U.S. Wheat Exports Strong

U.S. still the supplier of choice in global wheat markets despite covid slow downs
Spiegel, 20 --- Crops Editor at Successful Farming, Kansas State graduate and 4th generation Kansas
farmer (4/16/2020, Bill Spiegel, “U.S. WHEAT FARMERS ARE OPEN FOR BUSINESS; IN THE WAKE OF
COVID-19, THE WORLD WILL NEED U.S. WHEAT, SAYS VINCE PETERSON,”
https://www.agriculture.com/news/crops/us-wheat-farmers-are-open-for-business, JMP)

Finally, the nation’s beleaguered wheat farmers had momentum on their side. China began importing
U.S. wheat, while other wheat-producing nations faced weather and geo-political forces limiting their
exports.

In early March, U.S. wheat prices began to move upward, signaling a bit of bullishness for the first time
in several years.

And then COVID-19 hit, stalling the momentum. 

Still, global wheat trade continues, and the U.S. is uniquely poised to retain its status as the supplier of
choice of wheat to the world, says Vince Peterson, president of U.S. Wheat Associates. 

“I think there were a number of things in the wheat business that provide some positive outlook for us,”
Peterson explains. 

For instance: 

 The USMCA Trade Agreement has passed, giving open market access for U.S. wheat to Mexico,
which imports some 3.8 million metric tons (144 million bushels) of wheat from the U.S. each
year. 

 The U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement gives the U.S. wheat access to the Japanese market on equal
basis with Australia and Canada.

 The China trade agreement has been agreed upon, which should open that country's 9.6
million metric tons tariff rate quota obligation. Of that, Peterson says wheat could make up
about four million metric tons (147 million bushels) of the quota each year. 

“Had this virus not happened, I think we'd be enjoying some bigger market rises and increases in
business that maybe has been tamped down a little bit because of the circumstances we're in right
now,” says Peterson, who in 2017 became just the fourth president of U.S. Wheat Associates, a
Washington, D.C.-based organization that cultivates international markets for U.S. wheat farmers. U.S.
Wheat is funded by farmer checkoff funds and led by a group of farmer-directors. It also receives cost-
share funding through USDA Foreign Agricultural Service. 

OPPORTUNITY IN CHINA

China represents a growing opportunity for U.S. wheat consumption, Peterson says. The nation has two
business opportunities: replenishing the nation’s diminished supply of government-held wheat, and the
private sector milling business, which buys and processes wheat not currently grown by China’s farmers.
The milling industry has some tariff exemptions that can be exploited to buy these higher value classes
of wheat, including spring wheat, higher protein hard red winter wheat, plus soft red and white, he says.

“That's the group we really are anxious to see come into the marketplace and start buying imported
wheats,” Peterson explains.

OPEN FOR BUSINESS

During the U.S./China trade tussle, China turned to several countries, including Canada, Russia, Ukraine,
Kazakhstan, Romania, Australia, and Argentina – to feed China’s wheat needs the past few years.
However, COVID-19 has changed the global wheat export business, Peterson explains.

“If China turns to those countries, they're getting exactly the answer they don't want to hearl; they’re
putting caps on exports,” he says. “They're responding to their domestic market interest to suppress
prices, keep supplies at home, keep prices low and protect their own populations at the expense of
everybody else.”

Thus, China, Taiwan, and other countries are seeking U.S. wheat. And, the federal agencies charged with
keeping export lanes open are all open for business.

“We are happy to tell them that in the case of the U.S., not only are we still open, but also everything is
rolling almost as it is under normal circumstances,” Peterson says.

BUSINESS AS USUAL?

In the wake of COVID-19, there is chatter about whether global food trade should continue to be open
and free.

U.S. consumers, Peterson argues, are accustomed to readily available supply of fruits, vegetables and
protein. “We have free trade right now, so that growers and all these places can gravitate to their best,
most economical use of land and what they can produce,” he says.

U.S. farmers grow about twice as much wheat as this nation consumes, which makes exports essential.
The global food trade is not as simple as it was in the 1970s, when the U.S. had just a few major export
customers. Back then, government agencies bought commodities, as opposed to the private sector food
businesses making purchases today. They were also spread throughout the globe. In 1980, then
President Jimmy Carter canceled 17 million metric tons – nearly 625 million bushels – of U.S. wheat,
corn, and sobyean exports to Russia, a move that nearly crushed U.S. wheat farmers, as competing
countries quickly filled the demand.

In response, the newly formed U.S. Wheat Associates worked to build markets through market
assistance, usage and training programs. Meanwhile, the global wheat trade has become more
sophisticated.

“The world market is much bigger now and has grown in population, trade and consumption. But our
geographical spread has narrowed. We no longer have to send wheat three quarters away around the
world to get to somewhere, because Russia is sitting right there,” Peterson explains.

Central and Latin America, and the Asian Pacific countries are a logistical fit for U.S. wheat exports in a
more sophisticated wheat-buying environment.
“They’re buying our wheats because they fit some part of the formulation of those products, just like
our millers do in the United States,” he says. “So I think it’s a much more sophisticated outlook where
we are today and where we’re going to be in the next five, and 10, and 20 years than where we have
just come from.”
 2nc Link – Tight Margins / Removal Undermines Farms

Farmers operate on tight margins and dam removal saddles them unexpected costs
[--- also questionable whether it will even uniquely help salmon]
 compromises irrigation for 60,000 acres of prime farmland
 higher transportation costs add 80 cents per bushel of wheat
 water management is best way to help fish --- reservoirs provide cool water to release
 number of other factors killing salmon

Tuckness, 20 --- food producer in the Treasure Valley for 62 years and board member of the Oregon
Wheat Commission (Mar 26, 2020, Dana Tuckness, “Guest opinion: Snake River dam breaching would be
devastating,” https://www.idahopress.com/opinion/guest_opinions/guest-opinion-snake-river-dam-
breaching-would-be-devastating/article_976c6a02-b681-5ea8-bf36-22bf6c729cdb.html, JMP)

The US Army Corp of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, and Bonneville Power Administration recently
completed a joint draft environmental impact statement (EIS) on the removal of the four lower Snake
River dams (LSRDs). Their recommendation was to use water management to help restore fish runs
without breaching the dams. This is a very emotional situation, as everyone wants to have healthy
anadromous fish runs. In order to make a rational decision one must first look at the many benefits of
these dams which have been in place for decades.

Jobs would be lost to dam removal, affecting hundreds of families whose everyday existence depends
on the work provided by the LSRDs. Loss of carbon free power to 1.87 million homes. Flood control for
families and businesses downstream on the Columbia River. Irrigation to 60,000 acres of prime
farmland. Cool water released to aid anadromous fish in times of extreme heat and drought when
river flows are too low. Recreation on the reservoirs. Tourism by cruise lines. Transportation of farm
produce.

10% of all US wheat exports are moved by barge down the Snake River. Barging is the safest, most
efficient, climate friendly way to move wheat for export. One barge is the equivalent of 134 semi-trucks
or 35 jumbo rail hoppers. That means 135,000 more trucks annually, or an average of 370 every day.
Adding that many more trucks would overwhelm our current highway system, making travel more
dangerous. Current rail lines are at or near capacity and could not handle the added freight. We must
also consider the fuel efficiency of barging. It would take another 5 million gallons of diesel annually if
the same freight was moved via the truck to rail system. This would also add another 80 cents per
bushel freight cost for farmers, already marketing a wheat crop at break-even or below cost of
production.

With the billions of dollars spent to improve fish runs and several record or near record runs in recent
years, well after the dams were in place, what is the real cause of decreased returns? Could it be
warming oceans, predators, pollution and toxic waste in The Puget Sound? Federal studies show a 95%
survival rate over the dams.
If the dams are breached, we really have no way of knowing the effect on the fish, good or bad. With
barging and hydropower, we have a carbon efficient system in place. Let’s not let emotion over-rule
common sense. Breach the dams? Absolutely NOT! The long-term effects would be devastating!

Slim margins mean farmers would go be unable to continue

Whitworth, et. al, 21 (April 23, 2021, 3:37 PM, Kayna Whitworth,Alyssa Pone, andHaley Yamada,
“Snake River among top 10 most endangered rivers in the US, conservation group says; A series of dams
is threatening the local salmon population,” https://abcnews.go.com/US/snake-river-top-10-
endangered-rivers-us-conservation/story?id=77277094, JMP)

For decades, some environmental activists have been advocating for breaching, or getting rid of, the
earthen portion of the dams, on the river. But the dams also serve a purpose for farmers, supporting
their 5 million acres of land in southeastern Washington State alone, and aiding in the transportation of
10% of the nation’s wheat exports, which travel by barge, according to the Idaho State government.

Wheat farmer Tom Kammerzell said the river system is environmentally friendly and cost effective.

“There’s a very slim margin of profits in wheat,” said Kammerzell. “It would be impossible to continue
to be able to produce [without the river].”

Threatens over a thousand farms AND the efficient export of crops

Ellis, 20 (February 07, 2020, Sean Ellis, “How dam breaching would hurt ag, economy,”
https://www.idahofb.org/News-Media/2020/02/how-dam-breaching-would-hurt, JMP)

PORTLAND – A recently released study concludes that transportation impacts related to breaching dams
on the Columbia-Snake River system would cost the nation at least $2.3 billion.

It also found that removing the lower four dams on the Snake River to improve salmon runs, as some
groups are proposing, would negatively impact the environment and threaten the existence of at least
1,100 farms in Idaho, Washington and Oregon.

Wheat is the No. 1 crop in the Pacific Northwest – Idaho, Oregon and Washington – in terms of total
acres and the Columbia-Snake River system is the top wheat export gateway in the United States.

About 58 percent of the nation’s wheat destined for export travels through the river system, which also
produces about 60 percent of the electric power used in the region.

Some groups support breaching the four lower Snake River dams as a way to benefit endangered
salmon and steelhead.

Removing the dams would make the river system unnavigable for barges that move wheat, barley and
other products to port for export.

“As this study shows, the Snake River dam system is the most efficient option for transporting goods
such as wheat, generating renewable energy via hydropower and preventing flooding in the Pacific
Northwest,” said Idaho Wheat Commission Commissioner “Genesee Joe” Anderson, who farms in the
Lewiston area. “While removing or breaching the Snake River dams will not increase salmon numbers
with any certainty, there would definitely be negative impacts on people, including growers.”

If the dams ever were removed, it would have a large negative impact on Idaho wheat growers, said IWC
Executive Director Blaine Jacobson.

Wheat is Idaho’s No. 2 crop in terms of total revenue and half of the wheat grown in Idaho is exported,
almost all of it through the Columbia-Snake River system.

Wheat is grown in 42 of Idaho’s 44 counties and helps support the local economies in a large portion of
the state’s rural areas, Jacobson said. Idaho is the No. 5 wheat growing state in the nation and has led
the nation in yields per acre four of the last five years.

“Wheat is a steady, consistent contributor to Idaho’s economy,” Jacobson said. “Barging is the most
cost-effective and environmentally friendly way of getting our wheat to market.”

When other factors such as power generation, the efficiency and environmentally friendly benefit of
moving goods by barge vs. rail or truck, and total jobs connected to the river system are considered, “It
boggles my mind that breaching the dams is even a consideration,” he added. “There is no question the
dams boost the PNW economy and the benefit of the river system vastly outweighs the cost of
maintaining it.”

The Columbia-Snake system is the third largest grain export gateway in the world.

The study was commissioned by the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association and conducted by FCS
Group, a financial and economic consulting firm.

PNWA is a non-profit trade association with 135 members in Idaho, Oregon and Washington that
advocates on behalf of the river system.

The study was released during the Idaho Wheat Commission’s annual PNW Export Tour, which brings
Idaho wheat growers to Portland to educate them on the region’s wheat industry, including providing
them an overview of the benefit of the river system.
 2nc Link – Dam Removal Hurts Barging / Agriculture

Dam removal would undermine barging --- drives up transportation costs for farmers
and increases pollution
Gruben, 20 (Jan 7, 2020, Mallory Gruben, “Study: Dam removal would cost $2.3B, jeopardize regional
economies,” https://tdn.com/news/local/study-dam-removal-would-cost-2-3b-jeopardize-regional-
economies/article_e8e76101-ca40-5b6b-bbc9-a9d358961222.html, JMP)

A new study commissioned by an association of river commercial groups says removing the four Lower
Snake River dams to improve salmon runs would cost $2.3 billion over the next 30 years, boost state
carbon emissions and jeopardize already fragile local and regional economies.

“Dam breaching extremists talk about how easy and inexpensive it would be to compensate
Washington, Oregon and Idaho businesses and residents if the lower Snake River dams were removed,”
PNWA Executive Director Kristin Meira said Monday. “We commissioned this study to show federal and
state decision makers the real economic and environmental impacts on real people and communities
that would result.”

The report considers how breaching would affect regional and national transportation; infrastructure;
air quality; safety; and tax revenue. It does not consider the effects on hydropower, irrigation, salmon or
other dam and river uses.

“We weren’t trying to capture everything. ... This study is just looking at barging,” Meira told The Daily
News on Monday. “Transportation and the use of waterways for movement of people and goods is a big
focus of our organization. ... But no one else was out there doing that kind of analysis.”

Ship locks on the dams make barging commodities such as grain and wood chips possible through the
Snake and Columbia River system. They would not be functional if the dams are breached.

An earlier report by environmental groups argues that benefits to salmon and recreation outweigh
economic losses of dam breaching. And removing the dams could cost less than efforts to make the
dams more friendly to fish. (Dams are friendlier to salmon than they used to be, but runs have
continued to struggle for many reasons.)

“Spending $2.3 billion over the next three decades ... to remove dams and upgrade our roads and
bridges sounds expensive. But it could be cheaper, and more effective, than the $16 billion we’ve
already squandered trying to restore salmon with the dams in place,” said Miles Johnson, senior
attorney with Columbia Riverkeeper. (The $16 billion figure applies to salmon-protection measures
throughout the main stem Columbia and Snake rivers, not just the Snake.)

Economic consultants FCS Group released the study Monday on behalf of PNWA — a coalition of ports,
businesses, public agencies and individuals supportive of regional river commerce.

The study pulls from 14 interviews with regional farmers, shippers, port managers and agricultural trade
groups, as well as data from state agencies in Washington and Idaho.
According to the report, breaching the dams would require at least 201 additional unit trains and 23.8
million miles in additional trucking activity annually to maintain current shipping activities. To
accommodate the increased rail and truck shipping, federal investments between $1.17 billion and $2
billion in road and rail improvements, the report says.

“No funding for these improvements has been identified, and all of these improvements are considered
to be national costs that would not otherwise be required if the LSR (Lower Snake River) locks remain in
operation,” the report says.

Shipping by rail and truck is more expensive than barging, so costs for regional farmers would also
increase. The report estimates that more than 1,100 farms could go bankrupt if federal subsidies do not
increase to offset those costs.

It would take between $18.9 million and $38.8 million more in federal funding to keep farm profits level,
the report says.

Without those subsidies, nearly 4,000 jobs and $472.7 million sales supported by agricultural exports
from the 10-county region nearest to the dams could vanish. Thousands more jobs in tourism, paper
manufacturing, munition manufacturing, water transportation, lumber mill and wholesale trade would
also be put at risk. (The report did not evaluate the potential loss of indirect jobs downriver in Cowlitz or
Clark counties.)

Removing the dams also would significantly increase air pollution, because shipping by rail or truck is
dirtier than by tug and barge. The report estimates carbons emissions would increase by about 860,000
tons, the equivalent of adding almost 182,000 new cars to the road.

“It just seems counter to the way we are all thinking about the environment these days to want to go in
the direction of putting more carbon and emissions in the air,” Meira said.

Removal would hurt farmers who depend on barges to deliver crops to market
Leslie, 19 --- book on dams, Deep Water: The Epic Struggle Over Dams, Displaced People, and the
Environment, won the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award for its "elegant, beautiful
prose”(OCTOBER 10, 2019, JACQUES LESLIE, “On the Northwest’s Snake River, the Case for Dam
Removal Grows; As renewable energy becomes cheaper than hydropower and the presence of dams
worsens the plight of salmon, pressure is mounting in the Pacific Northwest to take down four key dams
on the lower Snake River that critics say have outlived their usefulness,”
https://e360.yale.edu/features/on-the-northwests-snake-river-the-case-for-dam-removal-grows, JMP)

To be sure, the dams’ removal would harm farmers who still rely on the navigation system. Michelle
Hennings, executive director of the Washington Association of Wheat Growers, which represents 1,800
farmers, said 60 percent of her members use the barge system. Barges, she said, are far more efficient
than rail or trucks, cost less, and emit fewer greenhouse gases.
 2nc Link – AT: Snake River Dams Won’t Be Removed

This disad is a turn to their claim in the Rivers Advantage – they said that removing the
lower Snake River Dams is good.

The Snake River dam removals are a perfect candidate to fulfill the plan’s mandate – 3
reasons

First, the removals are part of a comprehensive approach to revive the river
ecosystem and simultaneously save other hydropower plants which is analogous to
the Penobscot project the 1ac solvency advocate is based on
Steinbauer, 21 --- contributing writer covering national environmental policy, was an editorial fellow
at Sierra (MAR 2 2021, JAMES STEINBAUER, “Will the Snake River’s Dams Be the Next to Come Down? A
multibillion-dollar rescue package to pull Idaho’s salmon back from extinction,”
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/will-snake-river-s-dams-be-next-come-down, JMP)

In the spring of 2019, Representative Mike Simpson, the Republican congressman who represents central and eastern Idaho, gave the keynote address

at a conference titled Energy, Salmon, Agriculture, and Community at the Andrus Center for Public Policy at Boise State University. Simpson described what
he saw as the two biggest challenges facing the Pacific Northwest today : a salmon population on the edge of
extinction and the economic uncertainty facing the Bonneville Power Administration , which operates 31 federal
hydroelectric dams in the region. The fates of both salmon and the BPA , Simpson said, were interwoven. His speech

included phrases seldom uttered by western Republicans—phrases like “dam removal” and “harvest reductions.” “I am going to stay
alive long enough,” Simpson declared to applause, “to see salmon return to healthy populations in Idaho.”

Over the next two years, Simpson and his chief of staff, Lindsay Slater, met
one-on-one with environmentalists, biologists,
energy producers, tribes, and other stakeholders to ask, "What would happen if the four hydroelectric
dams on the lower Snake River were breached?" Slater had a massive map of the Columbia Basin that wrapped around the walls of his
office. After each meeting, he would post sticky notes filled with bits of data and key insights from their conversation onto the map. Then, last fall, after more than
300 meetings, Simpson told Slater it was time to take the sticky notes down and do something with them.

On February 6, Simpson unveiled his plan, a sweeping $33.5 billion framework to bring back the Snake River’s salmon that he hopes will be part of the multitrillion-
dollar infrastructure and clean-energy package President Joe Biden is set to unveil later this year. The
centerpiece of Simpson’s plan is the
breaching of the four lower Snake River dams , in Washington State, that stand between migrating Chinook salmon and 5,500 miles of
near-pristine spawning habitat in central Idaho—including the Boulder–White Clouds Wilderness, more than 275,000 acres in the Sawtooth National Recreation
Area that Simpson helped shepherd into law in 2015. “We looked at every possible situation to try to find a way to keep the dams. There’s no way,” Simpson said. “I
can’t be certain that removing these four dams will bring back Idaho’s salmon, but I am certain that if we don’t remove them, the salmon are on a certain path to
extinction.”

Simpson estimates that the breaching of the dams—starting with Lower Granite, the farthest inland, then progressing downriver—will cost the US Army Corps of
Engineers up to $1.4 billion. The
bulk of his proposed Columbia Basin Fund would go toward replacing the
electricity the dams generate with renewable energy, establishing a series of regional partnerships
tasked with restoring salmon habitat, and investing in farmers who rely on the dams for irrigation.

“The genius behind Simpson’s approach is that it’s not only bold but really comprehensive,” said Wendy McDermott, who directs river
conservation work in the Puget Sound and Columbia Basin for American Rivers. “He has provided a historic, game-changing opportunity to write a new chapter in
the story of the Northwest.”
The plan also proposes a Northwest State and Tribal Fish and Wildlife Council, which would give the region’s tribes equal control over fishery management with
states. The Yakama Nation, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Shoshone-Bannock Tribe, and Nez Perce Tribe, all of which have treaty and
fishing rights along the Snake River, have come out in support of Simpson’s proposal. “In our creation stories, salmon give themselves to the people for nutrition
and for our survival. And as the salmon take care of us, we will take care of the salmon,” said Shannon Wheeler, chairman of the Nez Perce Tribe. “By taking part in
this process, we are doing what we have always promised to do—upholding this ancient covenant that ensures our survival and the health of the landscape.”

The decline of salmon in the Pacific Northwest is a story of death by a thousand cuts. Exploring the Columbia River Basin in 1805, Lewis and Clark wrote of rivers and
streams so thick with salmon that you could all but walk across on their backs. Based on tribal accounts and late-19th-century cannery records, up to 16 million
salmon and steelhead returned to the Columbia River Basin every year to spawn, with nearly half returning to the Snake River and its tributaries. Over the next
century and a half, overfishing whittled that number down. By the early 1950s, just under 130,000 Chinook were returning to the Snake.

Construction of the first dam on the lower river, Ice Harbor, began in 1955. The others followed in quick succession: Lower Monumental in 1969, Little Goose in
1970, and Lower Granite in 1975. Bill Arthur, then an undergraduate at Washington State University studying natural-resource economics, watched as the final dam
covered his favorite rock-climbing spot with a shallow reservoir. “As soon as that last dam was put in, the salmon population just started to plummet,” he said. (Now
retired, Arthur went on to chair the Sierra Club’s Columbia–Snake River Salmon Recovery Campaign.)

In 1991, the salmon and steelhead that returned to the Snake River were listed as endangered species, kicking into motion the process of developing a federal
recovery plan. The first such plan focused on small restoration projects and largely ignored the four dams. Over the next 30 years, a coalition of environmental
organizations, including the Sierra Club, sued the federal government six times, arguing that the recovery plan was inadequate. The most recent lawsuit, in 2016,
resulted in a four-year study of the environmental impact of the four lower Snake River dams. Although it found that breaching the dams would be the most
effective salmon recovery action, the federal agencies ultimately decided against it.

Simpson calls this history of lawsuits the “unsustainable status quo.” Arthur describes it as a hamster wheel of failed and inadequate salmon recovery plans from
the federal agencies. “Each time they redo their recovery plan, they add a few new bells and whistles but still forgo the problem that these last four dams are just
fundamentally lethal to salmon,” Arthur said.

To date, the United States has spent more than $17 billion trying to recover Snake River salmon, with little to show for it. In 2017, the number of Chinook returning
to the Snake River dropped below 10,000. Only 500 made it past the dams (via fish ladders) to central Idaho. Just a few months before his speech at Boise State,
Simpson traveled to Marsh Creek, a tributary of the Salmon River in central Idaho, to look for salmon that had made the 900-mile journey from the Pacific to lay
their eggs and die—the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. He found just one.

The effects of salmon's decline on the Pacific Northwest’s web of life reverberated widely. When Chinook, sockeye, and steelhead make the journey back to the
streams and tributaries where they were born to spawn, they bring with them the collected nutrients of up to five years spent in the ocean. For thousands of years,
the salmon not only provided sustenance for Native Americans, but also their decaying bodies fertilized and shaped the forests of the Northwest and fed more than
140 species, from bald eagles to salamanders.

Perhaps no animal has felt the decrease in salmon more intensely than the endangered Southern Resident killer whale. Southern Resident orcas are distinct from
other orca populations through their dialect and the fact that they are obligate piscivores, meaning they eat only fish. And not just any fish: More than 90 percent of
their diet is salmon, and 80 percent of that is Columbia Basin Chinook.

The health of salmon can be used as a sort of barometer for the health of the orcas. Southern Resident killer whales need to eat between 350 and 450 pounds of
fish a day to survive. Deborah Giles, who studies orcas at the University of Washington’s Center for Conservation Biology, said this probably wasn’t a problem when
the salmon returning from the North Pacific weighed in at over 100 pounds, but a lack of quality Chinook is the number one threat affecting the orcas today. Giles
said Simpson’s proposal is the best plan for salmon recovery she has seen in 30 years, but the timeline he lays out—his plan calls for breaching the dams starting in
2030—isn’t fast enough. “There is no doubt in my mind that removing those dams will have a positive impact on the whales,” Giles said. “But they need to come
down tomorrow.”

Simpson is relatively cautious in his goals. His

plan proposes giving the Bonneville Power Administration $10 billion to
replace the electricity the dams produce, a number that energy experts say is high . (The most recent environmental
impact statement on the dams, finalized in late 2020, set the price at just $1 billion, and other estimates are even lower.) A 2018 report by the Northwest Energy
Coalition found that replacing the dams with new wind and solar—along with increased energy efficiency and storage—could cost just $450 million. For the region’s
ratepayers, that translates to a little more than a dollar a month, and that increase wouldn’t begin until 2026 when the report anticipates the new projects would go
online. “The cost may turn out to be even lower than that,” said Nancy Hirsh, the coalition’s executive director. “After all, that report was written more than two
years ago, and the prices for wind, solar, and storage technology have only gone down.”

The biggest potential sticking point for conservation organizations in Simpson’s plan is its call for a 35-
year license extension for the other dams in the Columbia Basin and a moratorium on salmon-related
lawsuits. McDermott, the American Rivers director, said licenses issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission tend to be between 30 to 50 years long,
meaning there are dams with licenses that predate some of the nation’s bedrock environmental laws. “Things are changing,” she said. “We know a lot more about
rivers than we did 50 years ago. We need to be able to review these dams on an even more regular basis as the climate and environment change faster and faster.”

Snake River dams are being considered for removal after Penobscot River restoration
NYT, 13 (22 July 2013, The New York Times, “Down Comes Another Dam,” Factiva database, Document
NYTF000020130722e97m0007w, JMP)
On Monday, a demolition crew will begin removing the Veazie Dam on the Penobscot River just above
Bangor, Me. The Veazie is the lowest of the Penobscot dams and closest to the river's mouth on the
Maine coast. It is also critical to the entire Penobscot River watershed, which covers nearly a third of the
state. Thanks to the work of the Penobscot River Restoration Trust and its partners, the lower river will
be free-flowing once again, allowing the revival of a complex migratory ecosystem once teeming with
fish working their way up from the sea.

This is the second major dam to be removed on the Penobscot, and it is part of a nationwide movement.
One phase of this nation's environmental history was the building of thousands of dams for irrigation
and hydropower. But we are in a new phase in which many of those dams, which always alter, if not
destroy, the native ecosystem, are coming down. According to American Rivers, a conservation group,
some 1,100 dams have been removed nationwide in the last century, including 96 in the Northeast since
1999. In the West, dams have come down on the Elwha and White Salmon Rivers in Washington, and
there have been discussions about removing dams on the Klamath near the California-Oregon border
and on the lower Snake River in Washington.

The iconic species of the Penobscot is the Atlantic salmon, which used to run up the river to spawn in
large numbers. Spawning will not resume until work on the upper Penobscot watershed is completed,
including new salmon passages at upstream dams. But opening the lower river will immediately benefit
other species, including striped bass, herring, sturgeon and smelt.

Second, removal advocates are organized, vocal and targeting the Snake River dams
Ellis, 20 (February 07, 2020, Sean Ellis, “How dam breaching would hurt ag, economy,”
https://www.idahofb.org/News-Media/2020/02/how-dam-breaching-would-hurt, JMP)

Talk of breaching the dams is not new but the pressure from groups that support doing that goes in
cycles and right now, the pressure is on an up cycle, PNWA Executive Director Kristin Meira told tour
participants.

In response to a lawsuit brought by dam removal supporters, a federal judge has ordered federal
agencies that operate the river’s hydropower system to review all reasonable options for operating it in
order to minimize the impact on endangered salmon.

A draft environmental impact statement on the system’s operation is expected soon and its release will
be followed by a public comment period.

Meira said it’s important that growers and other wheat industry partners have their voices heard on the
issue because the groups supporting dam removal are organized and vocal.

“These groups are incredibly active in D.C., so your voices are needed back there,” she said. “This is a
time when the folks in the different state capitals, in our federal agencies and our federal decision
makers, all need to hear from growers, shippers and everyone who supports keeping these dams.”
Third, temperature pollution is killing salmon and requires removal of the lower Snake
River dams --- that’s the 1ac Kiernan evidence. The plan links or it can’t protect rivers
and salmon.

Here’s more evidence

Ferron & Galleher, 20 (Aug. 19, 2020, Kelly Ferron and Stacy Galleher, “EPA plan for Washington and
Oregon rivers leaves salmon in hot water,” https://ecology.wa.gov/Blog/Posts/August-2020/EPA-plan-
for-Washington-and-Oregon-rivers-leaves-s, JMP)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released their plan to reduce temperatures in
the Columbia and Snake rivers. The plan, called a “Total Maximum Daily Load” or TMDL, is like a diet for
temperature: it sets reduction targets for each source of temperature pollution — such as dams,
businesses, and even climate change. If each of these sources meet its goal, temperatures in the rivers
will remain at levels healthy for endangered salmon.

Unfortunately, as a diet, EPA’s proposal basically says “just eat healthy” instead of describing how many
servings of fruits and vegetables people should strive for.

*By the way, USDA recommends 1 to 2 cups of fruits and 1 to 3 cups of vegetables a day, just in case you
were curious.*

Temperature is complex; EPA, local governments, states, dam operators, tribes, farmers, and other
people who depend on these rivers and the fish that live in them all play a role. We expected EPA to
release a plan that would create a path for us to work together to address this regional problem. That
didn’t happen. EPA’s plan lacks clear serving amounts for two of the major contributors: upstream
sources and climate change.

Ecology, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ), and our other partners across
Washington and Oregon are committed to reducing temperatures and saving fish. We need EPA and the
federal government to pull their weight in addressing the dominant sources of temperature pollution
from dams, climate change, and upstream temperature sources.

We've submitted our comments to EPA detailing the changes we would like to see in the plan and
summarized our key points below.

Things are heating up

In warmer months of the year (July-September), temperatures in the Columbia and Snake rivers rise.
EPA’s research in the TMDL found that some sections of the rivers regularly reach 68 to 74 degrees.
That’s too warm for salmon, and above Washington’s and Oregon’s state standards — the standards
that all of the non-federal dams and state regulated sources are working towards.

SOS – Save Our Salmon

For 20 years, we've been working to reduce temperatures in the Columbia and Snake rivers to provide
cool, clean water for salmon. We set temperature standards in the Columbia and Snake rivers to
preserve spawning grounds for salmon and steelhead, and protect important migration pathways. The
temperature standards are complex and differ in different areas of the rivers, but, generally, our
standards require the water to be between 60 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit (that’s 16-20 degrees Celsius).

What is driving these hotter water temperatures in the rivers? There’s no single answer. That’s why the
TMDL is so important. It sets temperature targets for all pollution contributors, which is a key step
toward protecting and restoring the health of these rivers for both salmon and for orca that depend on
them as their primary food.

Specifically, the plan identified that the temperature diet (allocation) should be split evenly into
reductions required for dams, point sources (like a business or a wastewater treatment plant), and
tributaries.

The plan identified the two major contributors in the warming of the Columbia and Snake rivers as dams
and climate change. However, instead of giving climate change a clear temperature target and
identifying actions that dam operators can take to address temperature — EPA’s proposed TMDL
speculates that we should change the standards.

“It’s as if EPA has given up trying to protect salmon before we’ve even started,” said Vince McGowan,
Ecology’s water quality program manager. “We are asking EPA to remove any mention of changing our
standards and work with us to find ways to reduce temperature pollution. Addressing temperature is
complex, but we believe that by all of us working towards the same goals, we will see progress in the
Columbia and Snake rivers.”

We can’t fix this by ourselves

One reason it was important that the federal government draft this plan is because the Columbia and
Snake rivers span two countries, cross several state lines, involve hundreds of local governments, and
tribal jurisdictions. Collaboration and partnership between EPA and all of these partners will be key to
this plan’s success.

EPA’s plan identified that increasing air temperatures caused by climate change are warming the
Columbia and Snake rivers, especially in the summer months. In slower-moving sections of the rivers,
that warmer air has more time to seep into the water and raise temperatures. That’s especially true in
reservoirs behind the dams on the rivers.

The TMDL also identified sources in Idaho and Canada that are elevating river temperatures before the
water even enters Washington. We're disappointed that EPA named these sources of temperature
pollution without identifying actions that could be implemented to reduce their impacts.

We asked EPA to create measureable goals to prevent these upstream sources from harming salmon.
Also, both Washington and Oregon are asking EPA to take responsibility to address the impacts of
climate change.

We need the tools to do the job right

In order to protect salmon, we need to address all impacts associated with the hydropower operations
in federal dams and dams operated by public utilities. Dams are a major contributor to temperature
pollution because they slow down river flow and can create large, shallow pools of water that are easily
warmed.
Washington state depends on federal hydroelectric dams as a source of electricity, and for water vital to
irrigating Eastern Washington farmlands. The state has also invested billions of dollars in restoring
threatened salmon runs.

There are 15 dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers, eight of these dams are federal dams. At the non-
federal dams, we've been working for 12 years with the operators to reduce temperatures and protect
salmon through 401 certifications.

Tool in the box

EPA’s TMDL is a key piece of how temperatures are regulated on the Columbia and Snake rivers, but it’s
not the only piece of the puzzle.

Recently, EPA released draft National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits for the
federal dams. When federal agencies issue water quality permits, the U.S. Clean Water Act gives states
the ability to condition those permits to ensure that they meet state standards through a 401
certification.

In May, Ecology issued 401 certifications for the eight federal dams to require them to address their
temperature impacts and include the allocations from EPA’s TMDL into those permits. Since the TMDL
identifies the temperature impacts of the dams, we plan to use these certifications as tools to work with
EPA and the operators of the federal dams to reduce their temperature impact. However, the federal
dam operator, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, has appealed our certifications.

It will be difficult for us to move forward implementing a temperature reduction plan for the Columbia
and Snake rivers while one of the key players, the Army Corps of Engineers, insists the federal dams do
not need to reduce their temperature pollution to meet state water quality standards.

Next steps

We committed to write a Washington state implementation plan, based on EPA’s plan, that will lay out a
detailed strategy to reduce temperatures and protect salmon. Similarly, ODEQ will write a Water Quality
Management Plan for Oregon’s implementation actions. We will work closely with ODEQ and our many
partners along the Columbia and Snake rivers to align our implementation plans. To move forward,
however, we will have to wait for the courts to decide on whether the federal dams need to take action
to reduce their temperature pollution.

While the courts make decisions on Washington’s water quality certifications, we expect that EPA will
continue their process to finalize their permits for the federal dams. We hope that EPA will be a partner
and supporter as we search for answers to protect salmon in the Columbia and Snake rivers.
 2nc Link – AT: Snake River Dam Removal Creates Jobs

Neg evidence is based on better data and scientific assessment

Gruben, 20 (Jan 7, 2020, Mallory Gruben, “Study: Dam removal would cost $2.3B, jeopardize regional
economies,” https://tdn.com/news/local/study-dam-removal-would-cost-2-3b-jeopardize-regional-
economies/article_e8e76101-ca40-5b6b-bbc9-a9d358961222.html, JMP) ***Note --- Kristin Meira is
Executive Director of PNWA

The PNWA report comes about five months after another dam study by Seattle-based economics firm
ECONorthwest concluded that dam removal would create 317 new jobs, $408 million in labor income
and other wealth. There would be some job shifting, though.

PNWA blasted the report when it came out, saying it “lacks science-based evidence.” Meira on Monday
said the PNWA report uses data and scientific assessment in a way the ECONorthwest report didn’t.

“The big numbers you saw in the ECONorthwest report were due to phone calls that were made to
people in the Northwest asking them to think about what a free flowing Snake River would be worth to
them. We don’t think this is a scientifically valid way of assessing the value of a river system,” Meira
said. “In contrast, our study uses existing, verified data that is available publicly.”
 2nc Link – AT: Compromise for Removal Helps Farmers

Our link evidence assumes this --- it is also an indict of Simpson’s proposal to remove
dams as part of a comprehensive proposal.

Simpson’s compromise bill still worries farmers and electric utilities

Capital Press, 21 (Mar 25, 2021, Editorial, “Editorial: Simpson gains consensus on dam removal plan,”
https://www.capitalpress.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-simpson-gains-consensus-on-dam-removal-
plan/article_812fc1f4-8b2f-11eb-8630-0386395dc0f5.html, JMP)

In crafting his plan for the removal of the dams on the lower Snake River, Rep. Mike Simpson has
managed to forge consensus between farm, shipping and environmental interests on his idea. They all
hate it.

Blessed are the peacemakers. They may be children of God, but often find surprisingly little support at
home.

Simpson, R-Idaho, has not proposed legislation, but on Feb. 7 released a $33.5 billion concept for
salmon recovery, which includes removing the Lower Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monumental and Ice
Harbor dams on the lower Snake River in 2030 and 2031.

It is a bold plan, a grand compromise that seeks to address the competing needs of those who want the
dams removed and those who depend on the status quo for their livelihoods, electrical energy,
transportation and irrigation.

In short, Simpsons plan would:

• Require that the electrical power generated by the dams be replaced, and that the new infrastructure
would be operational before the dams are breached.

• Provide money for river restoration, the development of transportation infrastructure to replace barge
traffic, economic development for communities impacted by the breaching, watershed projects and
irrigation infrastructure.

• Require that all other dams in the Columbia Basin that generate more than 5 megawatts of electricity
be granted an automatic 35-year license extension.

• Prohibit for 35 years any litigation related to anadromous fish within the Columbia River system under
the Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act or the Clean Water Act, and stay any
ongoing litigation.

As we said, a grand compromise, but one that none of the major stakeholders will accept.

Despite promises that their concerns will be addressed, farmers and ranchers worry about whether
they will get the water they need, or will be able to ship product. Electric utilities worry they won’t have
a reliable source of power and barge interests worry about their jobs disappearing.
Environmental interests love the idea of breaching the dams, but leaving the others unchallenged for 35
years is crazy talk. And filing lawsuits is their raison d’etre.

A group of 17 environmental organizations says Simpson’s plan would speed up salmon extinction and
harm human health, calling it “untenable.”

In releasing the plan, Simpson said he didn’t draft legislation because an ambitious concept such as he
proposed needs to involve all the stakeholders and the states impacted.

We don’t think the plan as proposed ever had a chance, but Simpson should be given credit for starting
a conversation. Does anyone want to talk?

We know what everyone doesn’t want and what they won’t accept, but what do they want and what
will they accept?
 2nc Link – Dam Trading => Increases Costs and User Fees

Even if the plan doesn’t cause outright removal of irrigation dams it would increase
user fees or force dams to sell themselves
Workman, 7 --- adviser and consultant on water and natural resources issues to governmental and
nongovernmental organizations, including the World Commission on Dams (FALL 2007, JAMES G.
WORKMAN, “How to Fix Our Dam Problems; Thousands of aging dams should be repaired or destroyed,
at a cost of billions. A cap-and-trade policy could speed the process and help pay the bills,”
https://issues.org/workman-water-crisis-drought-fix-dams/, JMP)

There would also be a likely expansion outward and upward in user fees raised from formerly invisible
or subsidized beneficiaries from the services of existing dams. Such services range from recreational
boaters, anglers, and bird hunters to urban consumers, lakefront property owners, and even those who
merely enjoy the bucolic view of a farm dam. These disaggregated interests have largely supported
dams, but only as long as others foot the bill for maintenance and upkeep. Economists call them free
riders, and a new cap-and-trade dam policy would reduce their ranks. Dams that failed to generate
enough revenues to meet national standards could earn credits by selling themselves to those interests
that could. This happened when viable upstream industries on the Kennebec River helped finance the
removal of Edwards Dam.
 2nc Link – Dams Key to Irrigation

Dams are important to ensure sustainable water supply for agricultural irrigation
Miller, 20 --- B.A. from UT Austin, seasoned writer who has written over one hundred articles, which
have been read by over 500,000 people (Mar 13, 2020, Brandon Miller, “17 Biggest Advantages and
Disadvantages of Dams,” https://greengarageblog.org/17-biggest-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-
dams, JMP)

2. Dams help us to retain our water supply.

When we take an opportunity to dam a river, then the water will pool to form a reservoir behind the
structure. This outcome allows the population centers in that region to collect fresh water during
periods of heavy precipitation for use during a dry spell or drought. We also use this engineering marvel
to control floodwaters or to supply a fixed amount of fluid to the surrounding areas for agricultural
irrigation.

That means a dam can provide a buffer to an entire region against extreme weather events or irregular
precipitation patterns.

Dams in low-income countries provide critical irrigation to grow crops and alleviate
poverty
Perera, 21 --- MA and Phd in Urban and Environmental Engineering from Kyushu University, Japan;
over ten years of experience primarily focusing on water-related disasters and risk management
(5/10/2021, Interviewed by Cristina Novo, Dr. Duminda Perera, “One-size-fits-all criteria to assess dam
removal are at least useless and at most dangerous,” https://smartwatermagazine.com/news/unu-
inweh/one-size-fits-all-criteria-assess-dam-removal-are-least-useless-and-most-dangerous, JMP)

Q: How do the socio-economic impacts of dam decommissioning vary between low and high-income
countries?

A: A dam decommissioning will have various societal impacts, such as changes in the local economy.
Fisheries, agriculture, tourism, and hydropower will be affected by dam removal and, in turn, impact
employment opportunities and livelihoods. The extent of dam removal impacts may vary based on
geography and socio-economic conditions. In developed nations where water availability is reliable,
many ageing dams have been rendered obsolete. Their removal may be the ideal choice to manage
ageing infrastructure because of the cost-benefit and the positive ecological impacts of regaining a free-
flowing river. However, dams may be critical infrastructure for low-income countries to provide clean
water and sanitation, irrigate crops for improved livelihoods and poverty alleviation , and provide a
reliable, clean energy source. In these cases, dam removal may not be a viable option. Thus,
implementing one-size-fits-all criteria to assess and prioritize dam removal projects in the global context
is at least useless and at most dangerous.

The agricultural sector may benefit from or be inhibited by dam removal. For low-income, developing
nations in the global South, dams and irrigation systems can play a critical role in alleviating poverty
(e.g., in Asia and Africa, most large dams are for irrigation purposes); hence, dam removal could have
detrimental consequences to local livelihoods. Alternately, dam removal may turn out to be beneficial
for people who previously relied on the reservoir footprint for agricultural lands such as pastoral
societies or subsistence farming.

Hydropower generation can be significantly affected if a dam is removed. In developed economies

where access to electricity is nearly universal, removing obsolete hydropower dams may have a limited
impact on local societies. In contrast, in developing economies where people lack access to electricity
for their homes and workplaces, a hydropower dam removal may have far-reaching negative
consequences and, thus, not be a viable option to address ageing infrastructure.

Rivers are rarely dammed for the sole purpose of fishery creation, and in most cases, damming a river
results in losses of riverine fisheries. Dam removal can increase fishery yields that are important for local
populations. Dam removal may stimulate the local economy by increasing tourism, but reservoirs can
also attract tourists, e.g., swimming, fishing, and boating, which may be lost if the dam is removed.
 2nc Link – Dams Key to Flood Control

Dams are a key source of flood control

 dams help regulate cycles of excessive precipitation and drought

Miller, 20 --- B.A. from UT Austin, seasoned writer who has written over one hundred articles, which
have been read by over 500,000 people (Mar 13, 2020, Brandon Miller, “17 Biggest Advantages and
Disadvantages of Dams,” https://greengarageblog.org/17-biggest-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-
dams, JMP)

4. A well-constructed dam provides several flood-control benefits.

Dams help to prevent property loss while reducing the risk to human life from annual flooding events .
These structures can impound the floodwaters into the reservoir behind the dam, allowing us to release
them under control or to store it for future use. We can divert excessive precipitation toward
municipalities for fresh drinking water, create more irrigation opportunities, and meet a variety of
energy-related needs.

The Nile River is famous for its unpredictable annual flow throughout history. As climate change
continues to progress, the patterns of El Nino and La Nina in the Pacific Ocean will continue to increase.
That means we will have more cycles of excessive precipitation and drought, and dams can help us to
regulate this issue.
 2nc Link – AT: Drip Irrigation

Their evidence is from 2007 --- the 1nc Ziari evidence is from 2021 and says the critical
region already “leads the world in irrigation technologies and water sustainability.”

There isn’t uniqueness – farmers are doing well now --- only a risk the plan disrupts it.

Link before the turn --- a massive shift in farming technique takes time and money and
the plan forces farmers to take on other expenses related to higher energy costs and
alternative transportation. They are already operating on tight margins.

Farmers use more water with drip irrigation even if production increases
Johnson, 15 (Apr 20, 2015, Nathanael Johnson, “Everything I thought I knew about water in California
is wrong; Yes, farmers use a whole lot of Golden State water. But there's no easy solution to the state's
drought woes in turning off their taps,” https://grist.org/food/everything-i-thought-i-knew-about-water-
in-california-is-wrong/, JMP) ***Note --- Ellen Hanak is director of the Water Policy Center at the
Public Policy Institute of California

Farm conservation measures can free up plenty of water: One last myth

Switching from flood irrigation to a more efficient system like drip does improve water quality. And you
lose less water to evaporation — but just a little bit. You can see how this works in this infographic from
the Pacific Institute (don’t pay too much attention to the specific numbers, they are just rough
placeholders).

The thing to pay attention to here is that the “more efficient water use” scenario, while it keeps mud
and salts out of the river, doesn’t save much more water in the end.

“It’s a very small percentage lost to evaporation,” Hanak said. And in the real world, farmers actually
end up using more water when they switch to efficient irrigation , she said. That’s because upgrading
irrigation boosts yields: Tomatoes have been setting yield per acre records every year, because farmers
have come up with better techniques based on drip irrigation. You can see the same thing going on with
onions, bell peppers, and cotton. With flood irrigation, water flows through farms. With drip irrigation
farmers can capture more of that water and grow more food.

The end result: Irrigation upgrades increase farm productivity and profits, but also tend to increase the
farm’s net water use. “Irrigation efficiency doesn’t save water for the system as a whole,” Hanak said —
blowing my mind.
 2nc Impact – Food Wars

Food wars go nuclear

FDI 12, Future Directions International, a Research institute providing strategic analysis of Australia’s
global interests; citing Lindsay Falvery, PhD in Agricultural Science and former Professor at the
University of Melbourne’s Institute of Land and Environment, “Food and Water Insecurity: International
Conflict Triggers & Potential Conflict Points,” http://www.futuredirections.org.au/workshop-
papers/537-international-conflict-triggers-and-potential-conflict-points-resulting-from-food-and-water-
insecurity.html

There is a growing appreciation that the conflicts in the next century will most likely be fought over a lack
of resources.¶ Yet, in a sense, this is not new. Researchers point to the French and Russian revolutions as conflicts
induced by a lack of food. More recently, Germany’s World War Two efforts are said to have been inspired, at
least in part, by its perceived need to gain access to more food. Yet the general sense among those that attended FDI’s recent

workshops, was that the scale of the problem in the future could be significantly greater as a result of population pressures,
changing weather, urbanisation, migration, loss of arable land and other farm inputs, and increased affluence in the developing world. ¶ In his book, Small Farmers
Secure Food, Lindsay Falvey, a participant in FDI’s March 2012 workshop on the issue of food and conflict, clearly expresses the problem and
why countries across the globe are starting to take note. .¶ He writes (p.36), “…if
people are hungry, especially in cities, the state is not
stable – riots, violence, breakdown of law and order and migration result.”¶ “Hunger feeds anarchy.”¶ This view is also shared by Julian Cribb, who in his
book, The Coming Famine, writes that if “large regions of the world run short of food, land or water in the decades that lie ahead,

then wholesale, bloody wars are liable to follow.” ¶ He continues: “An increasingly credible scenario for World

War 3 is not so much a confrontation of super powers and their allies, as a festering, self-perpetuating chain of resource
conflicts.” He also says: “The wars of the 21st Century are less likely to be global conflicts with sharply defined sides and huge armies, than a scrappy mass of
failed states, rebellions, civil strife, insurgencies, terrorism and genocides, sparked by bloody competition over dwindling resources.” ¶ As another workshop
participant put it, people do not go to war to kill; they go to war over resources, either to protect or to gain the resources for themselves. ¶ Another observed that
hunger results in passivity not conflict. Conflict is over resources, not because people are going hungry. ¶ A
study by the International Peace
Research Institute indicates that where food security is an issue, it is more likely to result in some form
of conflict. Darfur, Rwanda, Eritrea and the Balkans experienced such wars. Governments, especially in developed
countries, are increasingly aware of this phenomenon.¶ The UK Ministry of Defence, the CIA, the US Center for Strategic and International

Studies and the Oslo Peace Research Institute, all identify famine as a potential trigger for conflicts and possibly
even nuclear war.

Food insecurity is the largest determinant of conflict – 90 million peer-reviewed

articles.
Elliot ‘18 [Charles, citing World Food Program USA, the single largest anti-hunger Humanitarian group on Earth, “Winning the Peace:
Hunger and Instability,” https://buddhistglobalrelief.me/2018/02/11/winning-the-peace-hunger-and-instability/#_ftn1]

An increasingly hungry world is increasingly unstable. A new report issued by the World Food Program USA—Winning the Peace:
Hunger and Instability—presents an unprecedented view into the dynamics of the relationship between hunger

and social instability.[1] Based on exhaustive interdisciplinary queries of a database of 90,000,000

peer-reviewed journal articles , the report explores the underpinnings and drivers of humanitarian crises involving food insecurity and conflict.
The dominant driver of today’s humanitarian crises is armed conflict. Ten of the World Food Program’s thirteen “largest and most complex emergencies are driven by conflict”, and
“responding to war and instability represents 80 percent of all humanitarian spending today … stretching humanitarian organizations beyond their limits.”[2] Ongoing conflict not only drives

humanitarian crises, but complicates the ability of humanitarian organizations to reach those in need and to provide assistance. Violence, conflict, and persecution
have resulted in the displacement of 65,000,000 people, more than any other time since World War II.[3] The average length of displacement is
seventeen years. In such circumstances, measures of food insecurity are nearly triple that found in other

developing country settings.[4] The current humanitarian situation confronts these stark realities: For the first
time in a decade, the number of hungry people in the world is on the rise. In 2016, 815 million people were undernourished, an
increase of 38 million people from 2015. Almost 500 million of the world’s hungry live in countries affected by conflict. The number of people who are acutely

food-insecure (in need of emergency assistance) rose from 80 million in 2016 to 108 million in 2017—a 35 percent increase in a single year. Over 65 million
people are currently displaced because of violence, conflict and persecution—more than any other time since World War II. For the first time in history, the
world faces the prospect of four simultaneous famines in northeast Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. Each of these crises is
driven by conflict. Increased migration and the spilling of conflicts beyond borders has led to a
proliferation of “fragile states”—states defined by “the absence or breakdown of a social contract between people
and their government.” By 2030, between half and two-thirds of the world’s poor are expected to live in states classified as

fragile. While a decade ago most fragile states were low-income countries, today almost half are middle-income countries. At the same time, the nature of conflict
and the global system of governance are undergoing transitions that undermine the international community’s
ability to address and reduce conflict. The report highlights the rise of non-state actors as powerful
participants in armed conflict while also recognizing the significance of activities such as the
weaponizing of information to undermine the legitimacy of traditional nation-state institutions. The report also
describes how threats such as food insecurity can drive recruitment for terrorists and rebels, worsening destabilization. (Report, p.7)

Military strength cannot adequately address these kinds of threats. Rather, appropriate responses to such threats
must address their actual nature. Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades will never be a long-term
solution to food insecurity-driven instability . Recognition of this basic reality drives the use of so-called “smart power” in the form of foreign assistance,
especially food assistance and agricultural development, to address the underlying causes of this instability. “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more

Show me a
ammunition.” U.S. Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis, Congressional testimony in 2013, when he was serving as Commander of U.S. Central Command. “

nation that cannot feed itself and I’ll show you a nation in chaos .” Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS). The report supports
the use of this kind of smart power by empirically examining the relationship between food insecurity and
conflict-driven instability. Because food insecurity is also related to other forms of poverty and disruption, it is
difficult to rigorously establish that causal relationship. Thus, it often rests upon anecdotal evidence. Examples include: failed government responses to drought as
contributing to regime change in Ethiopia; the contribution of food price riots to the overthrow of governments in Haiti and Madagascar in 2007-2008 and violent

protests in dozens of other nations across the globe; food production and price shocks as drivers of the unrest in
the Arab Spring (e.g., food strikes nearly every week in Algeria in 2007-2008); and the prolonged drought in Syria reducing
agricultural yields and food supplies as a factor in its ongoing crisis. More recently, the world’s attention is drawn to the “four looming
famines in northeast Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen” (Report, p. 7), each of which is torn by civil war and ethnic conflict. As World Food Program officer Challis McDonough

While these are powerful examples of the

observed, “Almost all famines, at least in our modern era, are manmade. Fundamentally, conflict is at the root of it[.]”

connections between food insecurity and instability, efforts to identify and understand the important linkages require a broader

base of evidence. WFP drew from a body of over 3,000 peer-reviewed journal articles, finding the clear
weight of evidence to establish the link between food insecurity and instability .
 2nc Impact – Primacy

Food security is the backbone of US primacy that’s Castellaw — that makes our impact
a prerequisite to their impacts
Koren and Bagozzi 16 - PhD Candidate in Political Science at U Minnesota; Bagozzi Assistant
Professor of Political Science & International Relations at U Delaware (Ore and Benjamin, 9/15/16 “From
global to local, food insecurity is associated with contemporary armed conflicts,” Food Security, DOI
10.1007/s12571-016-0610-x, Available online at
http://www.benjaminbagozzi.com/uploads/1/2/5/7/12579534/koren-bagozzi-fs.pdf)
Note that these arguments do not posit that cropland – in and of itself – is at a higher risk for conflict. The onset of violence, as mentioned above, is the result of many different conditions:

within
political (Buhaug 2010 ; Fearon and Laitin 2003 ), economic (Hegre and Sambanis 2006 ; Collier and Hoeffler 2005 ), and social (Scheffran et al. 2012 ). Rather, it posits that

conflict prone regions and countries, areas with more access to food , or cropland, but less food availability per
capita, may experience more conflict, all else equal. A variety of factors, ranging from political structures to economic development to better infrastructure and
technology, distinguish the agricultural countryside of Iowa or northern France from that of the Sahel or northern India. The primary models discussed below employ different control variables

to account for these different issues. In addition, several robustness models (reported in Tables S1 and S2 in the Robustness Section) further account for the
potential that advanced indus- trialized democracies are effectively B immune ^ to (civil) war by treating such cases as B zero-inflated ^ and estimating this propensity alongside the primary

regions that might be more prone to experiencing (climate change related) conflict .
relationships of interest, or estimating only

The argument developed here complements current theories by underscoring the independent effect of food insecurity on conflict .

Increased access to food resources gives belligerents increased opportunity for confrontation , while
decreased availability gives them the willingness to fight over these resources . A better understanding of
these violent dynamics can be achieved by highlighting the high premium armed actors place on securing

food resources, which suggests – if current food security trends are correct (FAO 2008 ; Barrett 2010 ) – that we will see an
increase in armed conflict related to food resources . The argument developed here accordingly suggests the following two hypotheses: H1:
Higher demand, i.e. more access to food resources, increases the likelihood of (civil) conflict . H2: Higher supply, i.e. more availability
of food per person within areas that offer access to food, decreases the likelihood of (civil) conflict relationship between food

insecurity on one hand, and the occurrence and persistence of social conflict on the other. What do these findings imply about the effect of food insecurity and conflict?
Naturally, even the most detailed and elaborate models are simplistic, especially when containing as diverse a range of observations as those examined above. Nevertheless, in terms of

all models show a statistically significant first difference change of approximately +92 % in the
conditional probabilities,

probability of conflict when a high risk scenario is simulated for an average cell. 4 The conditional probabilities discussed above highlight the inherent complexity of social
systems, as a phenomenon as notable as violent conflict ultimately arises due to a variety of stressors. Therefore, it should be emphasized that the above findings should not be interpreted as

explaining conflict onset. Conflict can erupt due to various political (Buhaug 2010 ; Fearon and Laitin 2003 ) or economic (Hegre and Sambanis
2006 ; Collier and Hoeffler 2005 ) reasons – which may or may not be related to food insecurity – that are beyond the scope of this paper. Rather, the present study more simply suggests
that political violence will have a higher likelihood of concentrating in regions that (i) offer more access to

food resources and (ii) face low levels of food availability within areas that offer some access to food resources. This study adopts an economic perspective on
food security to explain this variation in the concentration of social conflict. From the demand side, violent conflict is most likely to revolve

primarily around access to food sources. When food insecurity produces higher demands for food, these demands will directly
compel groups and individuals to seek out and fight over existing food resources , rather than leading these actors to pursue and fight
over geographic areas that lack any (or have very little) agricultural resources. Thus, access to croplands and food is a necessary condition for food insecurity-induced conflict, which is
confirmed in the crop- land analyses presented here. From the supply side, and within those areas that do already offer access to agriculture and/or food, conflict is most likely to occur in
regions that offer lower levels of food availability, or insufficient food supplies. This is because lower food availability (or supplies) in these contexts directly implies higher levels of resource

scarcity, which can engender social grievances, and ultimately, social and political conflict (Brinkman and Hendrix 2011 ; Hendrix and Brinkman 2013 ). More broadly, several causal
mechanisms could plausibly link food security and social conflict. For one, conflict in regions with higher food access and
lower availability might arise as a principal outcome of food insecurity. This approach is most directly in tune with the body of research
concerned with the resource scarcity-based security implications of climate change (e.g. Miguel et al. 2004 ; Burke et al. 2009 ;O ’ Loughlin et al. 2012 ), as well as with broader studies of
conflict dynamics and food security in both rural and urban contexts (Brinkman and Hendrix 2011 ; Hendrix and Brinkman 2013 ; Messer and Cohen 2006 ). From this perspective, individuals
and groups actively fight with one another due to food insecurity-induced grievances, which may manifest in groups ’ attempts to overthrow existing political structures, or in these actors ’
efforts to more directly seize and control available (but scarce) agricultural resources in an effort to better guarantee long-term food security for their constituents. If future global projections
for population growth, consumption, and climate change hold true, then these dynamics suggest that incidences of violent conflict over food scarcity and food insecurity may increase as
individuals and groups fight over a continuously shrinking pool of resources, including food. A second mechanism involves the existence of logistic support in conflict-prone regions, or lack
thereof. Throughout history and well into the nineteenth century, armies living off the land have been a regular character- istic of warfare. The utilization of motorized transport vehicles and
airlifts has significantly reduced the need of modern militaries to rely on local populations for sup- port, at least among modernized, highly technological militaries (Kress 2002,12 – 13).
However, given the bu- reaucratic and economic capabilities required to maintain such systems, the majority of state and non-state armed groups in the developing world are still unlikely to
be supported by well-developed logistic supply chains (Henk and Rupiya 2001). Taking into account the con- sistent relationship between economic welfare and con- flict (Hegre and Sambanis
2006 ; Fearon and Laitin 2003), unsupported warring groups on all sides of a conflict may move into regions that offer more access to cropland in order to forage and pillage to support them-
selves, which in turn produces higher incidences of hostilities, especially if there is not much food per person available within these fertile regions. Hence, violent conflict in this case is not the

The identified relationships between food security and conflict

direct result of food insecurity, but rather is shaped by food insecurity concerns.

are robust across numerous alternative model specifications, and imply an independent effect of food
insecurity in shaping conflict dynamics and conflict risk. Especially when considered alongside current ,
and projected, climatic and political-economic conditions, this linkage suggests that countries could see an increase
in localized conflict worldwide in the coming years. However, this anticipated trend should be considered with caution for several key reasons.
 2nc Impact – Must Prevent Hunger

Preventing hunger is the upmost priority

LaFollette 3 — Hugh LaFollette is Marie E. and Leslie Cole Emeritus Professor in Ethics at the
University of South Florida St. Petersburg. He is Editor-in-Chief of the International Encyclopedia of
Ethics, published with Wiley Blackwell, and author and editor of several books. ("World Hunger in the
"Blackwell Companion to Applied Ethics” edited by Ray Frey and Christopher Wellman, Hugh LaFollette,
May 1, 2003. https://www.hughlafollette.com/papers/World.Hunger.htm)//JLPark

The claim thatwe have a strong obligation to assist the starving takes two broad forms, reflecting one’s general theoretical framework. The first claims that we
have a positive obligation to ease suffering and promote happiness; hence, we should assist the starving
(Singer 1977/1972: 28). The second claims people have a right to food, and that right undergirds our obligation to assist them. Of course rights, absent compelling obligations or duties, are
effectively empty (Pogge 2000). That is why even those who claim that people have rights to food will claim that the relatively affluent have a strong correlative positive obligation to assist those in need. Hence, although the
distinction between these two positions is theoretically intriguing, and could well have some practical significance, for present purposes I will collapse them and simply talk about the strong obligation to assist the starving.

we
Those who claim the relatively affluent have this strong obligation must, among other things, show why Hardin's projections are either morally irrelevant or mistaken. A hearty few take the former tack: they claim

have a strong obligation to aid the starving even if we would eventually become malnourished. On this view, to
survive on lifeboat earth, knowing that others were tossed overboard into the sea of starvation, would signify an
indignity and callousness worse than extinction (Watson 1977).
 2nc Impact – Turns Climate

Turns climate --- results in more emissions because crops would have to be shipped by
truck and rail instead of barges
Ellis, 20 (February 07, 2020, Sean Ellis, “How dam breaching would hurt ag, economy,”
https://www.idahofb.org/News-Media/2020/02/how-dam-breaching-would-hurt, JMP) ***Note ---
Kristin Meira is the Executive Director of PNWA, a non-profit trade association with 135 members in
Idaho, Oregon and Washington that advocates on behalf of the river system

According to the study, shifting transportation of commodities from barges to truck and rail would
increase carbon and other harmful emissions by more than 1.3 million tons per year. That is equivalent
to adding 181,889 passenger cars or 90,365 homes.

According to the PNWA, it would take about 35,000 rail cars or 135,00 semi-trucks to move all the cargo
that is barged on the Snake River.

Meira said she believes a highlight of the study was its finding that removing the dams would create
more emissions.

“Barging is the cleanest, most efficient way of moving all of that high-quality U.S. wheat overseas,” she
said.

If people say they are in favor of addressing climate change and having a healthy environment, Meira
added, “You can’t be in favor of breaching because that’s headed in the wrong direction.”

During the PNW Export Tour, participants visited Shaver Transportation, which moves wheat headed for
export down the river on barges.

Rob Rich, vice president of marine services for Shaver, said the reason the Columbia-Snake River system
is so successful is that the option of barging or shipping products by rail provides necessary competition
that keeps prices competitive.

“We’re successful out here and the reason we’re successful is that shippers have two options to receive
wheat,” he said. “Where you have barging and rail, you have competition. Where there is less ways to
ship, there’s less ways to make a profit.”
 2nc Impact – Turns Rivers Adv

Snake River dams reduce carbon footprint and climate change threatens salmon and
orcas
Geranios, 20 (5 October 2020, NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS, Associated Press Newswires, “Critics vow to
continue efforts to remove Snake River dams,” Factiva database, Document
APRS000020201005ega500ha9, JMP)

The dams have many defenders, including Republican politicians from the region, barge operators and
other river users, farmers and business leaders.

Republican members of Congress from the Northwest hailed the recent federal decision.

``Federal water infrastructure makes our way of life possible throughout the West,'' said U.S. Rep. Dan
Newhouse, R-Wash., as part of a joint statement that included similar sentiments from Reps. Cathy
McMorris Rodgers and Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, Rep. Russ Fulcher, R-Idaho, and Rep. Greg
Walden, R-Ore.

The Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, made up of river users, also defended the dams.

``Salmon, orcas and other wildlife are threatened by climate change,'' said Executive Director Kristin
Meira. ``The clean power and efficient commerce provided by the system’s hydroelectric dams and
navigation locks are key to our region’s ability to reduce our carbon footprint.''

The four hydroelectric dams were built from the 1960s to the 1970s between Pasco and Pomeroy,
Washington. Since then, salmon populations have plunged.

The dams have fish ladders that allow some salmon and other species to migrate to the ocean and then
back to spawning grounds. But the vast majority of the fish die during the journey, despite $17 billion
spent so far on efforts to save them.

The 100-foot (30 meter) tall dams generate electricity, provide irrigation and flood control, and allow
barges to operate all the way to Lewiston, Idaho, 400 miles from the Pacific Ocean.

The federal agencies concluded that removing the four dams would destabilize the power grid, increase
overall greenhouse emissions and more than double the risk of regional power outages.

The four dams are part of a vast and complex hydroelectric power system operated by the federal
government in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. The 14 federal dams on the Columbia and
Snake rivers together produce 40% of the region’s power — enough electricity for nearly 5 million
homes.
CP Reform Dams
 1nc CP Reform Dams

The United States federal government should put a moratorium on new dam
development and substantially increase funding and resources for:
 risk assessments, engineering designs and necessary safety, repair, and
maintenance for all dams
 Nuclear Regulatory Commission to develop guidance on probabilistic flood
hazard assessment and support the provision of risk information to NRC’s
licensing and oversight framework in the context of flooding hazards due to
dam failure
 dam upgrades, including research and development of expanded fish ladders
 retrofitting all hydropower dams with fish-safe turbines and climate resilient
technologies
 adjusted water flows using designer flow concepts targeted at preserving
existing native fish and deterring invasive species.

Changing water flow patterns protects native fish, deters invasive species and ensure
sufficient water for agriculture
Chen, 18 --- mathematician, ecologist, and environmental writer based in Seattle (April 19, 2018,
William Chen, “We Can Make Large Dams More Friendly to the Environment; We're unlikely to tear
them all down, but math can help us figure out how to reduce their ecosystem impact,”
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/we-can-make-large-dams-more-friendly-to-the-
environment/, JMP+TZ)

Large dams all over the world provide necessary services such as hydropower, flood protection, and
water security. The iconic Hoover Dam, for example, generates enough hydropower to serve 1.3 million
people. Large dams have been estimated to contribute to more than one-tenth of the world’s food
production.

But large dams also profoundly alter the freshwater ecosystems they’re built in. Fish and other native
river species have evolved to thrive among particular natural patterns of river flow that provide cues for
migration and reproduction. Large dams interrupt these cues, which can interfere with the life cycles of
native species. Worse, these disruptions can lead to newly-suitable habitat for harmful invasive species.
It’s no wonder that dams are one of the leading causes in the decline of freshwater species the world
over.

The only hope for restoring rivers entirely would be to remove dams entirely, but that simply isn’t going
to happen; our livelihoods depend on this towering infrastructure. So how can we balance our need for
water against maintaining the river-flow patterns that sustain freshwater ecosystems downstream of
dams, especially in a changing climate?
In recent research published in Nature Communications, my colleagues at the University of Washington
and I looked at potential improvements in dam operations in the hopes of avoiding a world of dwindling
water and invaded rivers.

We chose to study the Navajo Dam constructed in the San Juan River. This is a major tributary of the
Colorado River that flows through New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. And this river system made for the
perfect case study as it epitomizes the water conflicts that arid regions of the world are facing.

On the one hand, the reservoir created by the Navajo Dam holds a capacity of over 1.7 million acre-feet
of water (the volume of around 850 football stadiums), which is essential for agriculture in the region.
But on the other hand, the San Juan River is home to multiple endangered, native fish species, such as
Colorado pikeminnow and razorback suckers. The construction of the Navajo Dam enables multiple
invasive fish to thrive, including common carp and channel catfish, which compete with native adults for
food and prey on the juvenile fish. Colorado pikeminnow and razorback suckers were put on the
Endangered Species Act list in part because of these invaders.

We wanted to know: Is it possible to have a triple-win of meeting agricultural water needs, benefiting
native fish species, and deterring invasive fish species?

We used decades of data on river flow patterns and fish populations in the San Juan River to predict
how native and invasive fish populations would grow or decline in response to increased river flow. By
comparing these predictions with when residents needed to divert water from the San Juan River, we
could determine not only how much water should be released from Navajo Dam, but also when these
releases should happen to benefit native fish while creating a hostile environment for invasive fish.
Designing water releases in this way would also ensure that we met agricultural water needs.

The key to our successful solutions was differences in how native and invasive fish populations
responded to increased river flow at various times of year. Our predictions for fish responses were laid
out to a daily time scale. For example, we found that releasing water in the late winter benefited native
fish. Releasing water during the late summer was more harmful to invasive species, though it did harm
native species a little, too.

One of the leading standards for restoring rivers degraded by dams is to restore the river flows that
were present prior to dam construction. But if we want dams to provide us with water and energy, we
cannot chase a “natural state” that is impossible to return to. Fortunately, we can do better. Our
prescribed water release solutions are a far cry from how the San Juan River naturally flowed. However,
we predict that for the current state of the river, our river flow patterns are superior. Even better, we
predicted that there was enough water to meet agricultural needs and benefit native fish, even when
water was scarce—a situation that is becoming more common with climate change.

The mathematical tools we leveraged are not revolutionary. Amazon Prime uses similar tools to make
sure your order gets to you within the promised two days. Airlines use similar algorithms to gauge how
much they can overbook and still have enough seats on their planes for all the passengers that show up.
However, we are applying these methods in new ways to optimize our use of natural resources while
minimizing our harm to the environment.

No amount of clever design will eliminate the impact that dams have on freshwater ecosystems. Fine-
tuning the flow of water downstream, as we propose, will not single-handedly address how dams block
fish movement, create reservoirs that emit striking amounts of methane into our atmosphere, and
promote invasive species that thrive in altered freshwater environments. But we and other scientists are
working to minimize the harmful environmental impacts of large dams while recognizing that modern
society relies on these structures.

Perhaps we can have our water and drink it, too.

 2nc Solvency / Agriculture Net Benefit

Changing water flows can maximize native fish, deter invasive species and ensure
sufficient water for agriculture --- every drop of water is significant
 method can guide water management in any river with large dams
 applicable in even drought conditions

Ma, 17 (December 18, 2017, Michele Ma, Science Daily, University of Washington, “Fish to benefit if
large dams adopt new operating approach,”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171218090920.htm, JMP+TZ)

Thousands of dams built along U.S. rivers and streams over the last century now provide electricity for
homes, store water for agriculture and support recreation for people. But they also have significant
downstream impacts: They reduce the amount and change the timing of flowing water that fish rely on
for spawning, feeding and migration.

Recognizing that many large dams are here to stay, a University of Washington team is investigating an
emerging solution to help achieve freshwater conservation goals by re-envisioning the ways in which
water is released by dams. The hope is that "designer flows" downstream from dams can be tailored to
meet the water needs of humans while simultaneously promoting the success of native fishes over
undesirable invasive fish species.

The team's approach is described in a paper appearing Dec. 18 in Nature Communications.

"Rapidly changing water availability demands new dam management strategies to deliver water
downstream that balances human and ecosystem needs," said senior author Julian Olden, a UW
professor of aquatic and fishery sciences. "So, the question is whether designer flows can be engineered
to meet human water demands, and take advantage of mismatches between native and nonnative
species' responses to flow to provide the greatest conservation benefit."

The researchers examined the designer flow concept in the San Juan River, a major tributary to the
Colorado River that flows through parts of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. Every drop of
water is significant in this arid landscape, and along the river's roughly 380-mile length, the mighty 402-
foot Navajo Dam is impossible to ignore. The river is home to at least eight native fish species, but over
the years a number of invasive fish species have also taken up residence, including predatory channel
catfish, red shiner and common carp.

By integrating multiple decades' worth of data about dam operations, river hydrology and fish species
abundance into a multi-objective model, the researchers were able to identify specific water-release
schedules that benefitted native fish over the invasive fish -- while still ensuring that all of the domestic
and agriculture needs that rely on the San Juan River's water are met.

"We were also pleased to discover that our model predicts that the ecological benefits of designer flow
releases do not evaporate during times of drought," Olden said.

This method can guide water management in any river with large dams, Olden said. It's particularly
relevant in more arid regions of the American Southwest where water is at a premium, but major rivers
like the Columbia or the Mississippi, which are similarly peppered with dams, also could have their dams
programmed to release water in ways that aim to benefit both humans and freshwater ecosystems.

The key to the researchers' approach is capitalizing on the fact that invasive fishes have only a recent
evolutionary history in these river systems. Consequently, important life events of invasive fishes -- such
as spawning and habitat use -- show slightly different relationships to patterns in streamflow compared
with native fishes. The designer flows in their study exploited these small differences to identify dam
releases during certain times of the year that would benefit native fishes and be detrimental to invasive
fishes.

These tailored water releases are not trying to mimic the natural flow of a river before it was dammed,
but rather emphasize the most important flow events for native fish in an altered river system, the
researchers explained. According to their model, water releases in the San Juan River should occur in
late winter, late summer and mid-autumn to get the best outcomes for native fishes over invasive ones.

While both designer and natural flows were predicted to be beneficial for native fishes, they found that
designer flows could lead to double the loss of invasive fishes in the river, compared with a dam-release
scenario that mimicked natural water flows, before the dam existed. Occasionally, dammed rivers will
flush a deluge of water downstream, attempting to mimic natural river flows -- but with mixed success
for fish. This study suggests that such efforts could be better optimized.

Employing designer flow concept preserves water for growing populations while ALSO
protecting river ecosystems better than returning to a natural flow
Chen & Olden, 17 --- *Quantitative Ecology and Resource Management Program, University of
Washington, AND **School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle (18
December 2017, William Chen & Julian D. Olden, Nature Communications, “Designing flows to resolve
human and environmental water needs in a dam-regulated river,”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02226-4, JMP)

Introduction

Human societies are grappling with the need to supply reliable and affordable water to growing
populations, while at the same time not degrading freshwater ecosystems nor disrupting important
ecosystem goods and services. Climate change is intensifying this challenge as droughts increase in both
frequency and severity in many parts of the world, leading to greater risk of water supply deficits1, 2.
Innovative strategies are now needed to account for, and assess trade-offs among, multiple potential
river uses, taking into consideration the need for water security and the protection of critical ecosystem
functions3, 4.

One of the most promising approaches to integrating human uses into the larger scope of ecological
sustainability is the concept of environmental flows, or the provision of water within rivers to support
positive ecological outcomes while maintaining the water needs of human society5. Recent decades
have witnessed significant advances in the science underpinning environmental flow management,
particularly in relation to prescribing water releases from large dams6, which now number in the tens of
thousands globally, and growing7. These efforts, as well as most traditional water management
practices, are founded on the fundamental principle that native plants and animals are adapted to
natural (unaltered) flow regimes and will, therefore, benefit from dam operations that seek to emulate
historical flow conditions8, 9. Indeed, streamflow alteration is a primary threat to freshwater
ecosystems10. However, the human enterprise has already drastically changed how hydrology regulates
riverine processes11, 12, thus raising the question of whether natural flow mimicry remains the most
appropriate management goal for conserving freshwater biodiversity and ensuring functioning
ecosystems.

The designer flow concept is an emerging paradigm to address the challenge of environmental flow
management in human-altered rivers. Extensive reliance on rivers to produce hydropower, reduce flood
risk, and store water for consumptive use cannot be avoided; therefore, the traditional approach where
natural flow regimes are the target for environmental flow management may only be feasible for the
least-regulated ecosystems13. Building from previous advancements in “holistic” approaches to water
management6, the designer flow concept seeks to define the hydrologic conditions—which may deviate
from natural flow conditions—that promote key ecosystem processes or biological outcomes of
interest while navigating the increasingly competing, societal demands for water and flow13,14,15.
Although dams alter the natural flow of rivers and threaten freshwater biodiversity, they also provide
the prospect to design flows through their downstream release of water. Thus, designer flows have the
potential to support freshwater conservation goals by mitigating dam-related impacts, while also
striving to provide multiple social and economic benefits .

Designing environmental flows for rivers is hampered by the lack of robust models that explicitly
account for multiple human and ecosystem needs4, 16, particularly with respect to contrasting
ecological targets. Water management practices that balance multiple ecological objectives are
challenging to achieve. Dams and their regulation of downstream hydrology have allowed many invasive
species to thrive in rivers where natural flow regimes previously hindered their establishment17.
Invasive fish species are a leading threat in freshwater ecosystems18, and thus are an increasingly
important consideration when defining dam-related environmental flow prescriptions. Although
ecological knowledge suggests that a natural flow regime should simultaneously benefit native species
and disadvantage nonnative species8, the reality is that fishes show a variety of responses to flow
regimes that do not necessarily align with their status of origin19, 20. Thus, efforts to manage river flows
to mimic historical flow conditions may unintentionally assist nonnative species and even fail to achieve
the full benefit to native species8, 9, 17.

Here we apply multi-objective optimization to narrow the knowledge gap between the designer flow
concept and the science needed to support this approach for sustainable water management when
confronted with multiple ecological considerations. Using a large, dam-regulated, dryland river in
southwestern United States (Fig. 1) as an epitome of water-resource challenges in a changing climate,
we forecast the trade-offs among allocating water for three objectives: (1) ensure sufficient water for
agricultural, domestic, and industrial supply (hereafter, termed human water needs), (2) benefit
populations of native fishes, and (3) inhibit populations of nonnative fishes. We first examine the
contemporary relationship between annual hydrographs and the relative abundance of multiple native
and nonnative fishes using functional regression models. Second, we incorporate the resultant flow–
ecology relationships along with a dam operations model into a multi-objective optimization framework.
Finally, we use this optimization model to identify facets of the designer flow regime that are predicted
to efficiently meet both human and ecosystem water needs and support explicit and actionable
prescriptions for daily dam releases. We consider multiple climatic scenarios that encompass the range
of water availability in the region (including hydrologic drought conditions), and we evaluate the
potential of designer flows to promote native fish biodiversity in comparison to attempts to mimic
natural flow regimes.

Designer flows outperformed simulations of natural flows --- can achieve ecological
goals and retain water for agriculture
 useful even during drought

Chen & Olden, 17 --- *Quantitative Ecology and Resource Management Program, University of
Washington, AND **School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle (18
December 2017, William Chen & Julian D. Olden, Nature Communications, “Designing flows to resolve
human and environmental water needs in a dam-regulated river,”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02226-4, JMP)

Results

Quantifying fish–flow relationships

Functional regression models were constructed to quantify associations between daily discharge and
autumn abundances of native and nonnative fishes in the San Juan River. Fish–flow models explained,
on average, 35% of the variance in fish densities as a function of discharge across years and locations
(Supplementary Table 1), and fish responses to flow conditions in the San Juan River were broadly
similar to modeled associations in other major river basins in the region (Supplementary Fig. 1).
Predictions from the fish–flow models provided the basis for the multi-objective optimization described
below.

Designer flows support human and ecological water needs

Designer flows consistently outperformed natural flow mimicry in simultaneously meeting human water
needs and promoting ecological goals (Fig. 2). For illustrative purposes, we focused on one of several
flow designs that heavily prioritized human water security and concurrently sought to balance the
objectives of native abundance gains versus nonnative abundance losses equally (i.e., minimal human
water deficit, moderate native abundance gains, and moderate nonnative abundance losses). Most
striking was that designer flows were predicted to lead to over 200% greater nonnative abundance
losses when compared to natural flow mimicry (Table 1). In addition, designer flows were always
predicted to benefit native species, whereas flow prescriptions that mimicked natural flow regimes led
to small losses in native fish abundance during periods of average or low water availability and only
small gains in high-flow years.

[figure deleted]

The benefit of designer flows for favoring native over nonnative fishes further surpassed those
generated by natural flow mimicry during a period of heightened hydrological drought. Predicted
improvement to native fish abundances from our example designer flows versus natural flow mimicry
grew by nearly 100% when comparing the low-flow, dry (below-average annual river discharge) climate
scenario to the high-flow, and wet (above-average annual river discharge) scenario (Table 1).
Meanwhile, improvement in nonnative abundance losses for this same comparison increased by nearly
40%.

These comparisons represent but one set of priorities for flow designs. Our optimization procedure
identified many possible flow prescriptions as leading to simultaneous benefits to fish conservation
goals (i.e., native fish abundance gains, nonnative fish abundance losses) and to society by meeting
water needs for agricultural, domestic, and industrial use, even during drought conditions (Fig. 2).
Hundreds of different flow designs rarely, if ever, encroached on human water needs, and perhaps most
importantly, opportunities for achieving multiple benefits did not disappear during periods of limited
water availability. Only the dry climatic scenario saw flow designs that resulted in major deficits to
human water needs, and then only when disproportionately prioritizing ecological objectives.

Designer flows highlight fish management trade-offs

Designer flows capitalize on empirically based, predicted differences between native and nonnative
responses to river flow (Supplementary Fig. 2). In general, high late-winter (February) flows
simultaneously benefited native flannelmouth sucker (Catostomus latipinnis) and speckled dace
(Rhinichthys osculus), while disadvantaging nonnative red shiner (Cyprinella lutrensis), fathead minnow
(Pimephales promelas), and channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus). On the other hand, native and
nonnative fishes both benefited from increased mid-spring (April) flow magnitudes, and both responded
negatively to increased mid-autumn (October) flow magnitudes. Higher flow releases late-summer
demonstrated a strong negative influence on nonnative species, with negligible effects on native
species. Consequently, our predictions suggest that flow designs that favor native over nonnative fishes
in the San Juan River could involve large dam releases in late-winter to benefit native species at the
expense of nonnative species, carefully managed releases in the mid- and late-spring fish spawning
months to consider relative benefits to both native and nonnative species, and additional releases in the
late-summer low-flow period to the detriment of nonnative species (Figs. 3 and 4). Flow designs also
tracked changing water availability, reserving water when unregulated Animas River flow could readily
provide for societal water diversions in order to maximize ecological benefit of dam releases at other
times of the year.

[figures deleted]

Despite these overall trends in flow designs, we found individual predicted species’ responses to flow
designs did not necessarily align along nativity groupings (Fig. 5). Across climatic scenarios, flow designs
simultaneously benefited both native fish species, while greatly decreasing abundances of the two
small-bodied, nonnative competitors—red shiner (Cyprinella lutrensis) and fathead minnow (Pimephales
promelas). By contrast, the large-bodied, nonnative channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) consistently
showed weak positive responses to optimal flow designs, thus demonstrating the unavoidable trade-offs
associated with managing dam releases for entire assemblages of species.
 2nc Solvency – Fish-Safe Hydropower Turbines

Fish-safe turbines can restore wildlife and ensure more climate resilient hydropower
Bernhard, 20 (13th July 2020, Adrienne Bernhard, “The most powerful renewable energy,”
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200713-the-most-powerful-renewable-energy, JMP)

Can we harness the extraordinary power of rivers in a way that replenishes ecosystems, rather than
harming wildlife?

The world’s most relied-upon renewable energy source isn’t wind or sunlight, but water. Last year, the
world’s hydropower capacity reached a record 1,308 gigawatts (to put this number in perspective, just
one gigawatt is equivalent to the power produced by 1.3 million race horses or 2,000 speeding
Corvettes). Utilities throughout the globe rely upon hydropower to generate electricity because it is
cheap, easily stored and dispatched, and produced with no fuel combustion, meaning it won’t release
carbon dioxide or pollutants the way power plants burning fossil fuels such as coal or natural gas do.

As with other energy sources, however, hydropower is not without an environmental cost. Beyond the
profound ecosystem impact of damming and diverting huge waterways, hydropower can wreak havoc
on native aquatic species and their ecosystems. The majority of watersheds around the world – some of
which have operated on hydropower for more than a century – are highly degraded, with polluted
waterways and outmoded technology. Traditional reservoirs are often stagnant bodies of water;
because of this, they are frequently sites of harmful algal blooms, or HABs, which are toxic to people,
fish, shellfish, marine mammals and birds.

As well as profoundly altering the watercourse, large hydro dams can be a death-zone for fish. As well as
obstructing their migratory routes, the fast-spinning turbine blades can cut them. If they make it past
the blades, sudden changes in pressure can kill the fish, as can shear forces during passage through the
turbine.

Is it possible to make clean, renewable energy from rivers while actually restoring wildlife and the wider
habitat? Engineers have been looking to change the future of hydropower through fish-safe turbines.
The California-based company Natel Energy has partnered with Microsoft founder Bill Gates’ investment
firm Breakthrough Energy Ventures to create a new, blunt-edged turbine that improves fish survival. As
well as saving fish, Natel’s turbine aims to create climate-resilient hydropower that can withstand the
vagaries of unpredictable rainfall.

Wildlife-friendly

“The challenge we address is how to harness the great attributes of hydropower as a renewable energy
resource – its reliability and dispatchability – while reducing environmental impact and cost,” says Abe
Schneider, chief technology officer of Natel and a mechanical engineer by training. “A fish-safe,
compact, high-performance turbine does exactly that; when paired with better information about how
much water will flow and when, the whole solution works together to create a modern hydropower
system.”
Traditional hydropower plants work by harnessing the force and pressure of water flowing from a high
point to a lower point through chutes in a dam. Near the bottom of the chute sits a turbine; water spins
the turbine, which creates power that can be transmitted to businesses and homes. But this is also the
main passage for migrating fish such as salmon or eel, which can get caught in the mechanism’s thin,
sharp blades

Natel’s turbine, by contrast, uses curved thick blades; because of the nature of their design, the turbine
can double allowed strike speeds, allowing for relatively small and inexpensive turbine size that also
offer migratory fish safe passage. A pinwheel configuration (rather than spokes issuing straight out of a
turbine’s hub) means the turbine’s blades deliver a glancing blow instead of a knife-like strike. “From an
engineering perspective, a thick blade creates a pressure zone that helps shed material out of its path,
almost like an airbag for the fish, so the impact is minimal,” says Abe. This design also obviates the
need for a “trash rack” – a fine screen traditionally used to capture debris at the entrance to the turbine,
often installed to keep small fish out of the machinery.

Climate resilient

Abe co-founded Natel Energy with his sister Gia Schneider, also an engineer and the company’s chief
executive; together, they recognised the conventional approach to hydropower wasn’t suited to modern
conditions, because rain and weather patterns themselves are changing. As extended drought or
flooding threatens regions throughout the world and climate change prompts unusual weather patterns,
Natel’s reimagined form of hydropower can actually make watersheds more adaptable.

“Climate change is water change,” explains Gia. “We saw an opportunity to rethink hydropower facilities
with civil and environmental engineering techniques, using fish-safe turbines, machine learning and
satellite imagery.” Indeed, extreme year-on-year climate variability and unpredictable rainfall will only
make innovative solutions more urgent. If done sustainably, hydropower can work as a green fuel source
with a number of side benefits, including flood control, irrigation, drought mitigation and water supply.

Natel’s turbine is paired with satellite technology that allows hydropower plant operators to monitor
changing watershed conditions such as the spring “green up” (that is, when snow melts and plants begin
to grow) and more accurately forecasts waterflow. As conditions on the ground change, this software
uses machine learning to create real-time models of the surrounding landscape, which in turn enables
more accurate water forecasts.

“The… concept is quite important to the future of hydropower because it provides an environmentally
sustainable alternative to more conventional hydropower systems” says Stephen Amaral, a principal
fisheries biologist at Alden Research Labs in Massachusetts. Alden Labs works to solve flow-related
engineering and environmental problems across industries. Last year, the company conducted a series
of blade-strike tests using a specially designed apparatus that allowed them to expose anesthetised fish
to different turbine blade speeds and geometries. “Our most recent tests were with Natel’s turbines,”
says Amaral. “We were able to demonstrate that fish survival was improved with the [turbine].”

Natel’s vision, called Restoration Hydro, moves away from conventional large dams to a more
distributed approach based on biomimicry. Before human intervention and the creation of aqueducts
and canals, most North American rivers were clogged with woody debris and beaver dams. Cascades
that mimic beaver structures cause water to slow down, creating small ponds and wetlands; this gives
sufficient time for water to seep into the ground, which in turn raises the water table. A higher water
table means more groundwater storage, which helps watersheds ride out long stretches of drought.

These linked distributed systems are specifically designed to restore river connectivity for fish and
other wildlife, enhance water-supply sanitation and agricultural productivity, and support the
livelihoods and socio-economic development of local communities, making Natel’s system an obvious
choice for developing countries. “Our approach is a distributed one,” says Gia, “with smaller individual
projects that are linked into groups operated in coordination so that we can generate hydropower
without large dams.”

Because hydropower plants can generate power to the grid immediately, they provide essential back-up
power during major electricity outages or disruptions (water power has in fact been in high demand
during the Covid-19 crisis, as electricity generation has been little affected due to the degree of
automation in modern facilities).

Though still in its early stages, Natel Energy’s turbine is already operational: the company opened their
first hydropower plant in 2019 in the United States, and a second is in construction with commissioning
planned for later this year. As companies throughout the world look to transition to a low or zero-
carbon grid, better designed turbines can help achieve high reliability and power storage, enhancing
climate resilience while keeping salmon happily swimming upstream .
 2nc Solvency – Fish Ladders

Expanding resources for fish ladder research and development is critical

Palpini, 13 (April 09, 2013, Kristin, “UMass professor’s research casts doubt on fish ladders,”
https://www.gazettenet.com/Archives/2013/01/fishways-hg-020113, JMP)

But the state’s Fish and Wildlife Service acknowledges fishways aren’t living up to their promise.
According to Curtis Orvis, a fish ladder engineer with the state fish and wildlife department’s Springfield
office, in general, fishways are about 28 percent effective.

Orvis said the best way to improve fish ladders is for the scientific community to focus on conducting
more data-driven research.

“All our research, or a large part of it, to date has just been too empirical, just by the seat of the pants,
try this, try that,” Orvis said. “We’re only at the tip of the iceberg as to how much research we need.

“The problem is, is we have a zero budget for this,” Orvis added. “They’ve been trying to get money, but
there is no money set aside for fish passage research.”

Removal of most dams isn’t feasible --- fish ladders critical on most dams
Palpini, 13 (April 09, 2013, Kristin, “UMass professor’s research casts doubt on fish ladders,”
https://www.gazettenet.com/Archives/2013/01/fishways-hg-020113, JMP) *Note – Adrian Jordaan is a
UMass assistant professor of fish population, ecology and conservation and one of the researchers on
the paper, Curtis Orvis is a fish ladder engineer with the state fish and wildlife department’s
Springfield office

But, like a growing number of conservationists, Jordaan and Orvis, the fish ladder engineer out of
Springfield, said the best fishway is no fishway — that is to say, complete dam removal.

“That’s the ultimate fish passage,” Orvis said. “Always, our first preference is to take the dam out, but
that’s just not going to happen in some places where they’ve been there a long time and are part of the
infrastructure, where the dam may be critical to our power grid.”

Because many dams can’t be removed, Jordaan said it is important to design more effective fish
passages and to have a national conversation about balancing conservation with energy needs. The
community needs to take a systemwide approach to improving fish passage instead of studying each
dam on its own.

“What kind of future do we want?” Jordaan said. “What infrastructure do we want? What kind of
restoration do we want? These are the big questions that are not part of the public discourse. ...
Fishways have always been seen as a solution, but we never took a hard look at them. But that’s a hard
way to look at something we’ve put so much time and effort into.”
Fish ladders have been successful --- proper design improves outcomes
Palpini, 13 (April 09, 2013, Kristin, “UMass professor’s research casts doubt on fish ladders,”
https://www.gazettenet.com/Archives/2013/01/fishways-hg-020113, JMP) ***Note – Adrian Jordaan is
a UMass assistant professor of fish population, ecology and conservation and one of the researchers
on the paper

Fishway success

Not all fishways are failing. On the West Coast, massive fishways over hydropower dams have had good
records of fish passage. And in New England, rock-ramp or natural-looking fishways are among the most
successful fish passages, according to a 2008 study by the National Marine Fisheries Service Office of
Habitat Conservation, which in the first paragraph of the report, notes that researchers had little data
with which to work. They were only able to find two studies of nature-like fishways in the Northeast —
one in Plymouth and another in Guilford, Conn. The studies focused on alewife. Passage was modest, at
about 41 percent in Guilford, to good at 94 percent in Plymouth.

“Fish are believed to find natural substrates more acceptable than concrete channels or channels with
baffles in structural fishways,” the study, “Design and Evaluation of Nature-Like Fishways for Passage of
Northeastern Diadromous Fishes,” concluded.

Jordaan also noted that tiny coastal ponds with fishways designed to provide access to alewives and
some blue back herrings have been relatively successful.

“If you’re looking at one species, in one situation, you can find some pretty good evidence for success,”
he said.

Michael Tautznik, the mayor of Easthampton where a fish ladder is anticipated for installation this
spring, is an enthusiastic supporter of fish ladders.

“I suspect (the researchers) looked at the large dams on the subject rivers and decided they were not
effective,” Tautznik wrote in an email to the Gazette. “My only experience with any of these is the
Holyoke Dam lift system. I’ve been there a few times and it seems to work. The city continues to
cooperate with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to complete the project on the Manhan River.”

And Jordaan noted that it’s the larger fish ladders that are less succesful than the smaller scale passages,
like the Easthampton fish ladder will be. The smaller fish ladders become a problem mostly because of
the sheer number of them.
 2nc Solvency – Dam Upgrades + Habitat Improvements

Fish and other species can co-exist with dams --- dam upgrades and habitat
improvements protect salmon
Britain, et. al, 19 (Updated March 28, 2019 at 8:37 am, Don Britain is mayor of Kennewick, Matt
Wakins is mayor of Pasco, Robert Thompson is mayor of Richland, and Brent Gerry is mayor of West
Richland, “Salmon and dams can coexist,” https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/salmon-and-dams-
can-coexist/, NZA+JMP)

For more than 20 years. there has been an ongoing debate about the impact of the four Snake River
dams on the Pacific Northwest’s salmon population. Since the 1970s, billions of dollars have been spent
to upgrade the dams and to improve salmon habitat.

The results? According to the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), the average number of returning
salmon and steelhead are more than double what they were when counts first began when the
Bonneville Dam started operations in 1938. Despite this clear evidence that dams and fish can coexist,
the debate continues.

More recently, the struggles of the southern resident orca population have further stoked the debate.
No one disagrees that the health and future of the orca population must be preserved. However, the
numbers clearly show that removing the dams will not save the orcas. In fact, in 2016, NOAA stated that
previous federal “biological opinions concluded that hatchery production of salmon and steelhead in the
Columbia and Snake systems more than offsets any losses of salmon from the killer whale prey base
caused by the dams.”

Likewise, a state-funded study on the impacts of dam breaching as proposed by the Southern Resident
Orca Task Force is an unnecessary duplication of efforts already underway by the federal agencies
responsible for the Columbia River Systems Operations Environmental Impact Statement. That EIS is a
regional, comprehensive study to evaluate a range of operations alternatives for the 14 federal
hydropower facilities located along the Columbia and Snake rivers. All Northwest states and tribes are
participating in this process, which includes a comprehensive evaluation of the four lower Snake River
dams as well as economic impact analysis and stakeholder input.

A state-level effort would not be as comprehensive, nor would it result in a product that can be relied
upon for future decisions about the dams. Simply put, the proposed study would not be a good use of
$750,000 in Washington state taxpayers’ money.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries, the agency with the expertise and
responsibility for the recovery of the Southern Resident orcas, has assessed the four lower Snake River
dams and their effects on listed salmon and steelhead in the 2008 Biological Opinion and again in 2014.
Neither study concluded that breaching the dams is necessary for recovery of the Snake River salmon or
Southern Resident orcas. NOAA determined the hatchery production of salmon and steelhead in the
Columbia and Snake River systems more than offsets any losses of salmon caused by the dams .

Investments in salmon restoration have included a complete overhaul of the federal dams. The
Columbia and Snake River dams have been retrofitted with state-of-the-art fish passage technologies
that are helping young fish migrate safely and swiftly, with survival rates for spring salmonids averaging
96 percent past each dam, BPA stated in January. Moreover, Oregon State University and U.S.
Geological Survey researchers have determined that fish survival rates through the Columbia-Snake river
system are similar to those seen in British Columbia’s undammed Fraser River.

Ironically, at the same time there is a push for the Washington state Legislature to fund this study on the
impacts of removing the dams, there are also several bills to push for carbon reduction. If the goal in
Washington is to reduce carbon, the existing clean hydropower resources play an essential role in
keeping our air clean. These dams generate some of the cheapest, most reliable, carbon-free electricity
in the Pacific Northwest.

BPA markets power from 31 federal dams along the Columbia and Snake rivers and their tributaries. Of
these dams, only 10 are able to quickly change how much power they are generating in order to
maintain a constant balance between power production and energy use. This capability is essential for
the power grid to accommodate intermittent renewable energy generation, such as wind and solar
power.

The four lower Snake River dams are among those 10 more flexible dams. Because of their location, size
and ability to help meet peak power loads, these dams are a critical component for transmission grid
reliability. They are necessary to ensure the lights are on, every minute, every day. If the dams were to
be removed, their on-demand grid balancing capabilities would need to be replaced, most likely with
carbon-emitting natural gas plants.

In addition to reliable, low-cost, carbon-free hydropower, the Snake River dams have other key
attributes. The dams create a river highway for shipping, provide recreational and tourism opportunities,
and enable irrigation for some of the most productive agricultural land in the country.

The Tri-City region has always strongly supported robust salmon recovery efforts, including
improvements to hydro, habitat, harvest and hatchery programs, and we will continue to support them
in the future. The state funding a study that focuses on the Snake River dams, and one that is redundant
of exhaustive federal efforts, however, serves only to shift the focus away from actions that will truly
help the iconic southern resident orcas.
 2nc Solvency – Dam Repair + NRC Guidance

Expanding funding and developing NRC guidance on risk solves dam collapse ---
including threat to nuclear plants
DeNeale, 19 --- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (December 2019, Scott T. DeNeale, Gregory B. Baecher,
Kevin M. Stewart, Ellen D. Smith, and David B. Watson, “Current State-of-Practice in Dam Safety,”
https://info.ornl.gov/sites/publications/Files/Pub121717.pdf, JMP) ***Note – NPP = nuclear power
plant, PFHA = probabilistic flood hazard assessment,

As dams continue to age beyond their design lives, they will be exposed to continued risk of large floods,
earthquakes, and other hazards, and the threat of dam failure disasters may grow in the future. Climate
change may exasperate this exposure, and shifting technological paradigms, cyber security threats, and
operational demands may impact risk. Yet federal and state dam safety frameworks have provided a
valuable safety net for preventing major calamities, and risk prioritization tools have been leveraged
with success.

As dam owners and regulators (both federal and state) know well, funding to support dam safety, repair,
and maintenance is low compared with the need. Given a recent ASDSO estimate of $64 billion needed
to rehabilitate the nation’s dams, and continued low funding, the financial needs will continue to grow.
With luck, significant disasters such as those which occurred in the US before the 1980s will be avoided;
yet, with more than 90,000 dams across the country and increasing at-risk populations, high-fatality and
highcost events are inevitable. Some risk, however small, is unavoidable. Yet it is in the interest of the
nation to invest in dam upgrades and safety programs to sustain our critical infrastructure and protect
downstream communities and infrastructure (including NPPs).

Given the potential threat that dam failure flooding poses to NPPs, this report supports the NRC in
surveying the current state-of-practice in dam safety risk assessment. The information assembled herein
is intended to aid the NRC in developing guidance on the use of PFHA methods and support the
provision of risk information to NRC’s licensing and oversight framework in the context of flooding
hazards due to dam failure. Over time, the state-of-practice of dam safety will continue to evolve, yet
many foundational principles described here will remain unchanged.
 2nc Solvency – NRC Guidance

NRC can incorporate information to developed guidance and implement license

applications to minimize risks to nuclear plants from dam failures
DeNeale, 19 --- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (December 2019, Scott T. DeNeale, Gregory B. Baecher,
Kevin M. Stewart, Ellen D. Smith, and David B. Watson, “Current State-of-Practice in Dam Safety,”
https://info.ornl.gov/sites/publications/Files/Pub121717.pdf, JMP) ***Note – NPP = nuclear power
plant, PFHA = probabilistic flood hazard assessment,

The information contained in this report is intended to aid the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
in developing guidance on the use of probabilistic flood hazard assessment (PFHA) methods and support
the provision of risk information to NRC’s licensing framework in the context of flooding hazards due to
dam failure. This information will support and enhance NRC’s capacity to perform thorough and efficient
reviews of license applications and license amendment requests. It will also support risk-informed
determination of the significance of inspection findings, unusual events, and other oversight activities.

NRC can adjust licensing to reduce risk of flooding to nuclear plants

DeNeale, 19 --- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (December 2019, Scott T. DeNeale, Gregory B. Baecher,
Kevin M. Stewart, Ellen D. Smith, and David B. Watson, “Current State-of-Practice in Dam Safety,”
https://info.ornl.gov/sites/publications/Files/Pub121717.pdf, JMP) ***Note – NPP = nuclear power
plant, PFHA = probabilistic flood hazard assessment,

Given the risk that dam failure flooding can pose to nuclear power plant safety, this project supports the
US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in surveying the current state-of-practice in dam safety risk
assessment to support risk-informed operating and new reactor licensing and oversight. The information
assembled in this report is intended to aid the NRC in developing guidance on the use of probabilistic
flood hazard assessment methods and support the provision of dam failure flooding risk information to
NRC’s licensing framework.

NRC has to take responsibility to address risk of floods to nuclear power plants
UCS, 13 (Sep 22, 2013, Union of Concerned Scientists, “Flood Risk at Nuclear Power Plants,”
https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/flood-risk-nuclear-power-plants, JMP)

The NRC's responsibility

Almost as worrisome as the threat of dam failure itself is the fact that the NRC apparently was aware of
the increased risk for years before addressing it—and passages indicating this were blacked out in the
2011 report on its original release, according to an NRC engineer, Richard Perkins, who contacted the
agency's Inspector General in September 2012. The NRC had claimed that the redactions were necessary
for security reasons, but Perkins asserted that the agency's real motive was to avoid embarrassment.
The NRC should fulfill its responsibility to the public and act to ensure that the threat of flood risk is
adequately addressed at our nation's nuclear plants.
 2nc Solvency – Dam Repairs

Expanded funding protects high risk dams from collapse

Lieb, 19 (November 10, 2019, DAVID A. LIEB, “New federal grant program allots $10M for dams in 26
states,” https://apnews.com/article/nj-state-wire-wa-state-wire-id-state-wire-tx-state-wire-or-state-
wire-259744ceaf9c4edba862b3d630592a66, JMP)

Built for irrigation in 1884, Smith Reservoir in Colorado no longer can hold as much water as it once did.

To keep the dam from leaking, the water level at the suburban Denver reservoir is kept at least 2 feet
below the level of the spillway — a critical safety precaution for the shopping center, preschool, assisted
living facility and hundreds of homes now located in its potential inundation zone.

Improvements could be coming.

Smith Reservoir is among the first batch of dams nationally to get a slice of a new $10 million grant
program run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for high hazard dams that have failed
safety standards and pose an unacceptable risk to the public. About $130,000 will go toward Smith
Reservoir.

The grants announced this fall for 26 states will pay for preliminary steps such as risk assessments and
engineering designs, not the actual repairs. State or local entities are to provide a 35% match.

“I think this is a great start,” said Bill McCormick, Colorado’s dam safety chief and president-elect of the
Association of State Dam Safety Officials. “Certainly, we’ve got a long way to go.”

The federal grants amount to a mere fraction of the $70 billion the dam safety organization estimates it
would take to repair and modernize the nation’s tens of thousands of aging dams .

An Associated Press analysis identified at least 1,688 dams that could cause particular concern — those
rated by inspectors as in poor or unsatisfactory condition and located in high hazard places where
people could die if they failed.

Colorado’s Smith Reservoir is one of the dams on that list. So are several others slated to receive FEMA
grants, including the leaking, 177-year-old dam at Pawtuckaway Lake in New Hampshire, Minnesota’s
Lake Bronson near the Canadian border and Guist Creek Lake Dam, located about 15 miles west of the
Kentucky capital of Frankfort.

Some states have yet to determine which dams will benefit from the federal grants.

New York, which along with Ohio received the largest award of more than $1.2 million, plans to take
applications from a pool of as many as 150 potentially eligible dams. Oregon plans to use its $260,484
grant to assess the risks posed to 16 dams from potential floods, earthquakes and landslides as a way to
prioritize future safety improvements.

Fewer than half of all states have their own grant or loan programs for dams, according to the
Association of State Dam Safety Officials.
Over the past decade, FEMA’s various programs have provided more than $400 million for projects
involving dams, mostly to repair facilities damaged by natural disasters. Until now, there had been no
national program focused solely on improving the thousands of dams overseen by states and local
entities.

The Rehabilitation of High Hazard Potential Dams Grant Program was authorized by a 2016 federal law
to supply $445 million over 10 years to repair, improve or remove dams. But Congress didn’t fund the
$10 million annual allotment for 2017 or 2018, and funded just $10 million of the $25 million authorized
for 2019.

FEMA could provide less than half of what states sought — “a strong indicator that there’s high interest
in the need for dam rehabilitation across this country,” said James Demby, senior and technical policy
adviser for FEMA’s National Dam Safety Program.

Congress has yet to agree on an appropriation for 2020, though the law authorizes up to $40 million.

“In general, funding is severely lacking nationwide for dam repairs,” said Wendy Howard-Cooper,
Virginia’s director of dam safety and flood-plain management.

“To rehabilitate a high hazard dam could cost $10 million by itself — one dam,” she said. “So more
definitely needs to be done from a national level, because I don’t think states have the capacity to
manage this nationwide infrastructure problem on their own.”

Federal funding helps repair local dams --- owners often can’t afford it
Belva, 19 --- Water Resources Program communications manager (Oct. 4, 2019, Keeley Belva, “Federal
grants go toward repairing two Washington dams,” https://ecology.wa.gov/Blog/Posts/October-
2019/Federal-grants-go-toward-repairing-two-Washington, JMP)

Our Dam Safety Office regulates 1,055 dams in Washington. Many of those are doing just fine, but 409
pose a potential risk to people living and working below.

Unfortunately, there’s no reality tv show that renovates dams, and most owners are left to cover repair
costs themselves. So, we were excited to hear this week that we received $153,007 in grant funding to
assist two dam owners in repairing their dams.

The funds are part of a new grant program administered by the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA). FEMA had $10 million to provide assistance for planning and other pre-construction
activities such as data collection, design and permitting. We applied for funds to assist three dam
owners, and two of these were accepted.

The funds will be split evenly between the city of Aberdeen to work on slope stability issues at their
Fairview Reservoir #1 and the city of Newcastle to stabilize and remove the Newcastle Railroad
Embankment Dam. For the next year, both owners will use dam engineer consultants to collect and
analyze data and develop solutions and designs.

“Through our inspection program, we identified both of these projects as being in poor condition and
needing engineer assessments and repairs,” said Joe Witczak, Ecology’s Dam Safety Office manager.
“This is the first year this grant funding was available and we intend to apply again next year in support
of other high hazard dams in need of repair.”

In addition to the funds that Ecology was awarded, the dam owners must provide a 35 percent match.

In Washington, a dam owner (such as private, local government or public utilities) is legally responsible
to safely maintain, repair and operate their dam. The Dam Safety Office helps to ensure dams are
properly designed and constructed. We also inspect existing dams for proper operation and
maintenance.

There are an additional 134 dams in the state that are owned and/or regulated by federal agencies.
 2nc Solvency – Protects Ecosystems

***Note when prepping file --- the two cards under “2nc Agriculture Net Benefit” are
also useful to substantiate this solvency claim.

The CP is the best of both worlds --- ensures human water security AND supports
ecosystems --- even when water becomes more scarce
 superior to historical flow conditions

Chen & Olden, 17 --- *Quantitative Ecology and Resource Management Program, University of
Washington, AND **School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle (18
December 2017, William Chen & Julian D. Olden, Nature Communications, “Designing flows to resolve
human and environmental water needs in a dam-regulated river,”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02226-4, JMP)

Discussion

The past decade has seen considerable empirical and methodological advancements in understanding
the functional flows required to support ecosystems (e.g., refs. 14, 21,]), thus providing the foundation
for the multi-objective optimization framework implemented here. We found that designer flows could
provide greater potential for disadvantaging nonnative species compared to natural flow mimicry, and
that dam release schedules informed solely by historical flow conditions may fail to achieve native
species conservation goals fully (Table 1). This trend in native fish responses is not predicted by the
ecological literature8, 9, and instead likely suggests that the response of native fishes to flow regimes
within our study system may be mediated by the presence of nonnative fishes or influenced by other
environmental drivers12. Previous studies have shown the potential of introduced fishes to affect native
fishes’ behavior and habitat use22, which can modify native flow responses23. Building on theoretical
frameworks that propose greater opportunities for ecosystem sustainability resulting from designer
flows13, 14, we provide a quantitative illustration for these predictions in a human-altered river.

A suite of dam operation strategies that simultaneously met both societal and environmental water
needs underscored the potential benefits provided by designer flows (Fig. 2). Ensuring human water
security versus supporting ecosystems services via natural hydrology have long been considered
conflicting objectives in water-resource management24, a perspective that has been reinforced by
previous optimization studies25, 26. Most multi-objective optimization studies have focused on
balancing human water needs with the goal of releasing environmental flows to mimic a natural flow
regime or of solely benefiting native fishes27, 28. By contrast, our approach looks beyond the natural
flow paradigm and considers multiple native and nonnative species explicitly in the design of
environmental flows. The notions that societal water-use inherently precludes the ability to achieve
positive conservation outcomes, and that the severity of trade-offs between these two goals only
intensifies as water availability continues to decrease, is pervasive among scientists, practitioners, and
the public4, 29. Our results suggest that these trade-offs can be overcome through multi-objective
optimization and careful planning.
The CP preserves human water needs AND protects river ecosystems
Chen & Olden, 17 --- *Quantitative Ecology and Resource Management Program, University of
Washington, AND **School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle (18
December 2017, William Chen & Julian D. Olden, Nature Communications, “Designing flows to resolve
human and environmental water needs in a dam-regulated river,”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02226-4, JMP)

Abstract

Navigating trade-offs between meeting societal water needs and supporting functioning ecosystems is
integral to river management policy. Emerging frameworks provide the opportunity to consider multiple
river uses explicitly, but balancing multiple priorities remains challenging. Here we quantify relationships
between hydrologic regimes and the abundance of multiple native and nonnative fish species over 18
years in a large, dryland river basin in southwestern United States. These models were incorporated into
a multi-objective optimization framework to design dam operation releases that balance human water
needs with the dual conservation targets of benefiting native fishes while disadvantaging nonnative
fishes. Predicted designer flow prescriptions indicate significant opportunities to favor native over
nonnative fishes while rarely, if ever, encroaching on human water needs. The predicted benefits
surpass those generated by natural flow mimicry, and were retained across periods of heightened
drought. We provide a quantitative illustration of theoretical predictions that designer flows can offer
multiple ecological and societal benefits in human-altered rivers.
 2nc Solvency – Environmentally Friendly Hydropower / Greenhouse
Emissions

The counterplan allows for environmentally friendly hydropower and mitigation of

C02 and methane emissions from dams
Chen & Olden, 17 --- *Quantitative Ecology and Resource Management Program, University of
Washington, AND **School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle (18
December 2017, William Chen & Julian D. Olden, Nature Communications, “Designing flows to resolve
human and environmental water needs in a dam-regulated river,”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02226-4, JMP)

Considerable scope also exists for designing environmental flows that are informed by multiple social
and economic objectives, while still supporting functioning freshwater ecosystems. For example,
designer flows are equally pertinent to managing potential conflicts between hydropeaking operations
and biodiversity conservation48, a particularly relevant challenge given the thousands of existing and
new hydropower dams planned for construction around the world49. Optimizing flow designs around
minimizing operational costs creates opportunities for evaluating the economic value of ecosystem goals
and increasing potential ecological benefits per dollar spent15. Furthermore, dams provide
opportunities to manage, and thus optimize, downstream water temperature regimes12, leading to
discussions on whether dam operations can mitigate warming effects from climate change50. Finally,
the modular nature of multi-objective optimization allows for evaluating additional societal dimensions,
such as accounting for lake-level fluctuations and thermal structures that influence greenhouse gas
(carbon dioxide and methane) emissions from reservoirs51.
 2nc Solvency – Temperature Pollution and Sediment Transport

CP allows targeted solutions that restores river ecosystems and reverses negative
effects on thermal regimes and sediment transport
Chen & Olden, 17 --- *Quantitative Ecology and Resource Management Program, University of
Washington, AND **School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle (18
December 2017, William Chen & Julian D. Olden, Nature Communications, “Designing flows to resolve
human and environmental water needs in a dam-regulated river,”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02226-4, JMP)

Quantitative models that support more diversified options for utilizing environmental flows to target
multiple species and ecological processes provide exciting opportunities to tailor prescriptions for entire
ecosystems. For example, experimental floods have successfully restored native riparian vegetation43,
returned aquatic macroinvertebrate communities to pre-dam conditions44, and invoked food web
responses in river ecosystems45. Moreover, environmental flows have the potential to reverse the
detrimental effects of dams on riverine thermal regimes12, 46 and sediment transport47. A central
challenge for the adoption of designer flows will be the explicit consideration of desired physical and
biological outcomes, leading to a truly holistic or ecosystem approach. Not meeting this challenge will
ultimately impede the translation of flow designs from theory to practice. Our study suggests how we
might accomplish this integration via multi-objective optimization to inform dam operation strategies.
 2nc AT: Can’t Solve Modeling Scenarios

Can be used on river systems across the world --- designer flows incorporate multiple
species associations to control nonnative species that are major threats to native
biodiversity
Chen & Olden, 17 --- *Quantitative Ecology and Resource Management Program, University of
Washington, AND **School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle (18
December 2017, William Chen & Julian D. Olden, Nature Communications, “Designing flows to resolve
human and environmental water needs in a dam-regulated river,”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02226-4, JMP)

Despite mounting pleas and accumulating science to define environmental flows for freshwater
ecosystems, previous efforts have overwhelmingly focused on single species or ecosystem surrogates for
river restoration30,31,32, with little consideration of explicit targets for biological communities33. By
incorporating multiple species associations with the entire hydrologic regime, we suggest that designer
flows may be engineered to meet human water demands and take advantage of mismatches between
native and nonnative species responses to flow. These mismatches create small, but powerful, windows
of opportunity to allocate water for dam releases that deliver multiple ecological outcomes ; in this case,
supporting native species conservation and nonnative species control. Capitalizing on such
opportunities are admittedly challenging and require interdisciplinary collaborations among researchers,
engineers, watershed planners, and policy makers, just to name a few.

The sheer prevalence of nonnative fishes in dam-impacted rivers and the considerable similarities in life
histories exhibited by native and nonnative fishes20 necessitate a multi-species approach to water
management. Native and nonnative fishes did not always demonstrate contrasting responses to high
flows (Figs. 3 and 4), which is indicative of ecological and flow-preference similarities19. Flow responses
varied within nativity groupings, as seen with the channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus), which responded
to flow designs more similarly to native species compared to other nonnative species19. The fact that
flow designs may have a net negative effect on nonnative fish communities, but that a spectrum of
species-specific responses are possible, reinforces multi-faceted strategies to nonnative species
management. For example, while populations of small-bodied fish species are infeasible to control
physically in river systems, opportunities for active mechanical removal efforts for larger species exist34.
Given that predation and competition from introduced species are major threats to native biodiversity
and are exacerbated by human alteration of rivers18, it is critical to quantify the trade-offs inherent in
environmental flow prescriptions that seek to disfavor multiple nonnative species.

Most dam release experiments—while founded on a robust understanding of species’ responses to

natural flow conditions—have predominantly implemented only simple flow recommendations based
on single flow events33. We found that isolated flow events often failed to simultaneously bolster native
species and deter nonnative species (Fig. 3). Indeed, flood manipulations in other southwestern rivers
of the United States have benefited some native fishes, but with limited to no effect on nonnative
fishes35, 36. Increased flooding in the Murray–Darling River Basin, Australia, showed similar
inconsistency in responses of native and nonnative fishes37. By contrast, environmental flow
prescriptions that were motivated by multiple ecological processes created more opportunities for
native fishes to flourish over nonnative fishes32. Evaluating trade-offs and informing flow management
in human-altered rivers require identifying the manifold facets of the flow regime that support desired
ecological structure and function14. Our study quantifies this knowledge and integrates regime-wide
flow ecology for multiple species into environmental flow prescriptions for the river basin under study;
this analytical approach is readily transferable to other river systems across the world and could be
prioritized towards dams where benefits to river biodiversity are likely to be maximized38.
 2nc AT: CP Fails In Drought Conditions

Designer flow can be employed even during drought --- creates opportunity for
freshwater conservation
Chen & Olden, 17 --- *Quantitative Ecology and Resource Management Program, University of
Washington, AND **School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle (18
December 2017, William Chen & Julian D. Olden, Nature Communications, “Designing flows to resolve
human and environmental water needs in a dam-regulated river,”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02226-4, JMP)

Environmental flow management is often overlooked during years with below-average flow because of
the perceived scarcity of water available to meet ecological objectives after human demands have been
satisfied. We assert that this represents a potential lost opportunity. Although low water availability
creates challenges for prescribing the flood pulses that often form the basis of natural flow mimicry, our
results demonstrate considerable scope for achieving ecological outcomes using designer flows of all
magnitudes and timing. Specifically, hypothetical flow designs that prioritized dam releases in late-
winter, late-summer, and mid-autumn were predicted to favor native over nonnative fish populations,
even in drought conditions (Fig. 4). Here, flow designs depended on the unregulated inflow of water
from the Animas River into the San Juan River. During high-flow years, Animas River inflow provided
water for societal water diversions, whereas drought conditions placed greater weight on environmental
flows relative to unregulated flow for meeting ecological and societal water needs. Low-flow hydrology
is critical for fish movement, spawning, and recruitment39, and environmental flow management has
shown some success in reversing the impact of human alteration on low-flow events40. Elevating the
value of targeted environmental flow management under water scarcity will reveal new and
unexpected opportunities for freshwater conservation in an increasingly drought-stricken future 41, 42.
CP States
 1nc CP States

The fifty states and all relevant territories should limit water pollution in the United
States through a cap and trade system for dams, including at least environmental
performance requirements for existing dams, periodic procedural opportunities for re-
examining the status of dams, and a meaningful dam safety program. States should
fund dam repair and removal where appropriate and hire and pay sufficient wages to
retain people to implement these new dam related policies.

States can establish the conditions for a dam trading systems --- will effectively
manage dams even if trading doesn’t materialize
Owen & Apse, 15 --- *Professor at the University of Maine School of Law, AND **Freshwater
Conservation Advisor, The Nature Conservancy (February 2015, Dave Owen and Colin Apse, “Trading
Dam,” 48 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1043, Nexis Uni, JMP)

IV. Integrating Reforms: A Model Program

The preceding discussion identifies a variety of challenges and implies many reforms. To bring our
reform ideas into focus, we therefore close with a sketch of a model reform program. For several
reasons, we focus on states (though some analogous changes could occur at the federal level). First,
state dam laws have tremendous room for improvement. As discussed above, state dam law is often
highly underdeveloped, and what law exists is not always implemented in any meaningful way. 359
Second, in the literature on dams, states have received the least attention. Consequently, while we think
promising reforms could and should occur at the federal level, 360 the prescriptions that follow explain
what a thoughtful state might do with its dams.

If implemented, the reforms below should help facilitate the trading of dams. But, as we have discussed,
dam trading will still present [*1103] challenges, and improvements in dam management would be
possible even in the absence of trades. For that reason, we have emphasized reforms that would
encourage trading but would also produce more sensible dam management even if true trading systems
do not emerge.

A. Environmental Regulation

An effective dam policy requires regulatory sticks, and on that front states have ample room for
improvement. At a minimum, a state dam regulatory program ought to include three elements.

The first, and most important, step would be to create environmental performance requirements for
existing dams. While states might choose to establish lower performance standards for existing facilities,
or might choose to phase those requirements in, there is no compelling reason to grant environmentally
destructive facilities near-permanent exemptions from environmental law. 361 Second, and relatedly,
the state should create periodic procedural opportunities for re-examining the status of dams. Here, the
FERC relicensing process provides a useful starting point, though shorter license terms would be
preferable, as would schedules creating concurrent review processes for all dams within a watershed.
362 Rivers, dams, and societal needs all change over time, and a relicensing process provides a valuable
opportunity to examine whether a dam still makes sense, or whether it should be operated differently,
or removed. Third, and finally, the state should have a meaningful dam safety program that actually gets
implemented. 363 Dams do fail, sometimes with tragic consequences, and a failure to monitor dam
conditions therefore is a public safety problem as well as a missed opportunity to reconsider dams'
existence or operations. 364

All of these recommendations might raise one question: do states have the power to make these
changes? Legally, at least, the answer should be a clear yes. Dams and the associated water rights do
implicate systems of property law, and to many people, property rights connote permanence. 365 But
property rights nearly always are subject to [*1104] reasonable regulation, and that has been
particularly true of rights that implicate water resources and wildlife. 366 Dams themselves fall well
within that tradition. Even at the time of the Founding Fathers, statutes requiring fish passage and,
sometimes, dam removals were quite prevalent. 367 James Madison himself sponsored one such law,
and the Framers appeared to view those laws as entirely compatible with property law. 368 That
compatibility should persist to the present day, and should offer states ample latitude for more robust
regulatory governance. 369

B. Information

While legal constraints are essential to the success of any trading schemes, softer forms of regulation
also have key roles to play. Most importantly, a reform-minded state could improve its dam policy by
providing more information about dams.

A model dam information program would include several elements. At the most basic levels, states
could maintain more thorough dam inventories, which include the results of recent environmental and
safety reviews, and make the information in those inventories publicly available. States also could work
with federal agencies and non-profits, many of which already are engaged in mapping projects to
identify fish passage impediments and sites with hydropower potential, to make the results of their
studies available on-line. 370 And, more ambitiously, [*1105] states could sponsor and disseminate (or
require dam owners to fund) basin-scale dam optimization studies, and could make those studies
available for public review. 371 All of these changes still would leave information gaps, for the
complexity of river systems would ensure that some key information is left out. But they would at least
provide would-be dam traders with information about which dams to target and which people to
contact.

C. Trading System Guidance

The state also could provide informational support in another key way. Established environmental
trading systems often are supported by detailed, pre-specified rules and ample agency guidance. 372
The Army Corps of Engineers and EPA, for example, have spent years refining and explaining their
approaches to wetlands mitigation, and the resulting guidance has helped create predictability and build
public-and private-sector expertise. 373 If dam trading is to succeed, a similar level of effort will be
necessary.

States could offer that guidance in several ways. First, following the recent example of North Carolina,
they could pre-specify generic currencies and trading ratios for mitigation projects involving dam
removals. 374 Second, they could study river basins, identify potential removal and upgrade sites, and
establish basin-specific or even dam-specific trading ratios. Third, if states decide that pre-set currencies
and trading ratios are too crude to capture the environmental complexities of dam systems, they at least
could set forth criteria and procedures for reviewing potential trades. Absent that sort of guidance, each
dam trade will be a one-off exercise, with all the time, costs, and risks associated with doing something
almost completely new. With it, potential trade participants will at least have a set of structured
expectations and a starting point for institutional learning.

For the state, fulfilling this recommendation will not be easy. Any set of trading system rules will
necessarily ignore some of the complexity of the real world, and thus will allow traders to dismiss some
[*1106] consequences that reasonable people would care about. 375 For that reason, the scientists
involved in basin-scale studies often seem quite reluctant to translate any of their recommendations
into policy prescriptions. But some messiness is an unavoidable component of any regulatory system,
including the status quo. 376 The key question, then, is not whether a trading system would involve
serious flaws; no doubt it would. Instead, it is whether trades could improve on existing legal systems
that leave a problematic status quo largely entrenched. The answer to that question might well be yes,
and until innovations are tested, no one will know.

D. Institutional Support

Implicit in all the suggestions we have made thus far are two more recommendations. First, the state
needs to have people who come to work thinking about improved dam systems. Second, the state needs
to pay for those people's work.

The former recommendation is important because dam regulation requires policy innovation, and
innovation is not the sort of thing that can be automated. Instead, all of the steps we have described
require human expertise and judgment. And these steps are just the tip of the iceberg, for implementing
an improved dam removal program will necessarily require working with other state agencies, federal
agencies, local governments and communities, water users, the hydropower industry, other dam
owners, and environmental non-profits. The track records of state dam programs bear this out. It is no
coincidence states with particularly robust dam removal programs (Pennsylvania, for example) have had
environmental agency staff assigned to dam management. 377

The latter recommendation follows from the former. In an era of limited general funds, one cannot
simply assume that financial support for dam management will magically appear, and we recommend
that our model state consider alternative funding mechanisms. One [*1107] possibility is a general dam
ownership fee, which could be pro-rated to the scale of the dam. An alternative possibility is a revolving
loan fund, which would use planning to support a mixed program of dam removals and hydropower
upgrades, and then use some of the profits from the hydropower upgrades to replenish the fund and
support new rounds of hydropower planning. A third, and more ambitious, possibility would be to
impose a fee requirement on some other related activity, like energy use or water consumption.
Obviously all of these possibilities have their strengths and weaknesses, but the key point is that our
state should avoid the circumstance, presently quite common for dam safety programs, in which a
superficially robust program languishes for lack of financial support. 378

E. Pricing Incentives
So far, our recommendations have focused primarily on increasing environmental constraints upon
existing dams. That is appropriate, for those constraints are presently too weak, but positive incentives
also have a role to play. Some of the most important incentives involve creating a favorable economic
environment for environmentally sensitive hydropower.

There are several ways to do this. One is to ensure that the environmental impacts of other energy
sources are adequately regulated. Every subsidy or exemption directed at the fossil fuel industry, for
example, effectively negates an economic edge that hydropower ought to receive. 379 Similarly, any
regulatory program that prices greenhouse gas emissions, like the northeastern states' Regional
Greenhouse Gas Initiative or California's AB 32 program, will create collateral benefits for hydropower.
380 An alternative, or perhaps complementary, mechanism is to pass a renewable portfolio standard
that includes sustainable hydropower and to use environmental performance, not size, as the key
criterion for inclusion in that standard. 381 Massachusetts already has modeled this approach, and its
[*1108] innovation encourages hydropower while also providing incentives to generate that
hydropower in relatively sustainable ways. 382

* * * These reform proposals hardly exhaust the field. But a state that adopts the program we have
described would be taking huge steps toward a more progressive dam policy , in which exchanges like
the Penobscot River Restoration Project help lead to more sensible uses of rivers and dams.
 2nc Solvency – Cap-and-Trade

States can establish a model for cap-and-trade of dams

Workman, 7 --- adviser and consultant on water and natural resources issues to governmental and
nongovernmental organizations, including the World Commission on Dams (FALL 2007, JAMES G.
WORKMAN, “How to Fix Our Dam Problems; Thousands of aging dams should be repaired or destroyed,
at a cost of billions. A cap-and-trade policy could speed the process and help pay the bills,”
https://issues.org/workman-water-crisis-drought-fix-dams/, JMP)

Let us close where we began, with Governor Schwarzenegger. If states are indeed the laboratories of
U.S. democracy, he stands in a unique position to mount a market-based experiment for the United
States as part of his agenda to build bigger, higher, and more new dams for water storage. He has
already expanded in-state cap-and-trade schemes in water transfers, endangered species habitats,
ocean fishery rights, and carbon emissions. He is open to the idea of removing the O’Shaughnessy Dam
that has submerged Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park, even while he seeks more water
storage elsewhere. Now, as the governor makes his pitch for big new multibillion dollar dams to save
California from parched oblivion, he and other governors, not to mention heads of state from Beijing to
Madrid to New Delhi to Washington, DC, could institute effective new policies to protect Earth’s liquid
assets.

Smaller policies can be scaled up to produce a national cap-and-trade policy

Workman, 7 --- adviser and consultant on water and natural resources issues to governmental and
nongovernmental organizations, including the World Commission on Dams (FALL 2007, JAMES G.
WORKMAN, “How to Fix Our Dam Problems; Thousands of aging dams should be repaired or destroyed,
at a cost of billions. A cap-and-trade policy could speed the process and help pay the bills,”
https://issues.org/workman-water-crisis-drought-fix-dams/, JMP)

Fourth, start small, then replicate and scale up with what works best. The pilot exchanges could be
structured by geography or by type of effect. But both kinds of pilot programs have already begun. One
creative company in North Carolina, Restoration Systems, has begun to remove obsolete dams to gain
wetlands mitigation credits that it can sell and trade, in most cases, to offset the destruction of nearby
wetlands by highway building. In Maine, several dams in the Penobscot River watershed have been
linked through mitigation as part of a relicensing settlement. On the Kennebec River, also in Maine, the
destruction cost of the Edwards Dam was financed in large part by upstream industrial interests and
more viable dams as part of a package for environmental compliance. On the west coast, the Bonneville
Power Administration is using hydropower funds to pay for dam removals on tributaries within the
Columbia River basin.

These early efforts are fine, but restricted geographically; each approach could be allowed to expand.
The larger the pool of stakeholders, the greater are the economies of scale and the more efficient the
result. But a national consensus and standards do not emerge overnight, nor should they, given that
there are so many different dams. Each dam is unique in its history and specific in its effects, even
though the cumulative extent and degree of those effects are statewide, national, and sometimes even
global. A cap-and-trade policy will emerge nationally only as it builds on examples like these.
 2nc Solvency – Repair + Remove Dams

States can repair or remove many dams

Walls & Gonzales, 20 --- *senior fellow at Resources for the Future, AND **Research Analyst at
Resources for the Future (OCT. 22, 2020, MARGARET A. WALLS AND VINCENT GONZALES, “Dismantling
Dams Can Help Address US Infrastructure Problems,” https://www.resources.org/archives/dismantling-
dams-can-help-address-us-infrastructure-problems/, JMP) ***Note – NID = US Army Corps of
Engineers’ National Inventory of Dams

Dams by the Numbers

Of the approximately 91,500 dams in the NID, 63 percent are privately owned. This includes dams like
the Edenville and Sanford dams in Michigan, owned by power companies, along with scores of others
owned by individual property owners, businesses, irrigation districts, country clubs, colleges and
universities, and homeowners associations. The next-largest ownership group, accounting for 20 percent
of dams, is local governments.

Dams have been erected all over the United States, but Texas has the most and Delaware the fewest,
according to the NID. Relative to state land and water area, Connecticut has the most, with 57 dams per
square mile. Three more New England states join Connecticut among the top six states in terms of
number of dams relative to state size. The six states with the fewest dams are all in the West. Alaska has
the fewest by far, relative to its size, followed by Arizona and New Mexico. The oldest dams are in New
England, but old dams exist all across the United States. In six states—Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts,
Colorado, South Dakota, and Montana—more than three-fourths of the dams are more than 50 years
old.

Dams serve a wide variety of purposes. Hydropower dams make up only 2 percent of all dams in the
NID. Across 13 dam purpose categories, recreation is the most common, accounting for 32 percent of all
dams, followed by flood protection at 19 percent and fire protection at 12 percent. Figure 1 shows a
map of the most common dam purpose in each state.

In the western states of Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming, where agriculture relies on
irrigation, irrigation dams account for between 44 percent (Colorado) and 59 percent (Oregon) of all
dams. One-third of the dams in California and nearly half of the dams in South Dakota primarily supply
water, but only 6 percent of dams nationwide are in this category. Flood control dams make up 66
percent of dams in Nebraska and 48 percent in Oklahoma.

[image of map removed]

Recreation dams include those that create large reservoirs for flat water recreation such as boating and
swimming—in a state park, for example—or small ponds that serve an aesthetic function in a
community or business development. “Recreation” also can serve as a catch-all category for dams that
no longer serve their original purpose, or the purpose has become unclear. This is another way in which
dams differ from most other infrastructure: a large number are still in place, in varying states of repair
and disrepair, built in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and no longer serve a useful function.
Many early dams were built to provide power for textile mills, gristmills, steel plants, and other
industrial activities. Over the years, the plants closed, but the dams stayed behind. The Whittenton Pond
Dam on the Mill River about 40 miles south of Boston in Taunton, Massachusetts, highlights issues that
can arise with these dams. The wooden dam, built in 1832, originally provided power for a mill complex,
but over the years, the condition of the dam deteriorated. After several days of heavy rains in October
2005, the dam began to buckle and was on the verge of failure. Local officials evacuated downtown
Taunton and called in the National Guard. The dam was eventually shored up, which prevented its
failure, and it was removed several years later. The event was an eye-opener for Massachusetts state
officials, who realized that thousands of similar dams existed all over the state. In 2014, Massachusetts
launched the Dam and Seawall Repair or Removal Program, which has since provided $34 million in
grants and loans for dam repairs and removals.
Kritiks
 K Set Col – Link / AT: Dams Harm Natives

Even if dam construction hurt Natives, removal now just creates more disruption
because they have rebuilt their existence around them
Olson, 20 --- was a climate and energy analyst at Breakthrough Institute (Oct 1, 2020, Erik Olson,
“Bringing Down Dams Doesn’t Have to Threaten Climate Goals,”
https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/climate-and-dams, JMP)

Though removing many high-hazard dams wouldn’t significantly jeopardize climate goals, we should
reckon with the potential non-energy tradeoffs of dam removal, since communities adapt to and
sometimes depend on the altered environment created by the dam.

Consider the high-hazard, 1.3GW, Glen Canyon Dam (GCD) in Page, Arizona. GCD has long been despised
by river conservation and restoration groups for causing the Colorado River to run dryer than it would
undisturbed (among other environmental impacts). Its history is also highly problematic from a cultural
perspective. After settlers and the US government violently displaced the Native American communities
in the region, the GCD’s construction ignored their cultural ties to the region and made traditional
livelihoods more challenging.

But the GCD is also a major economic force for the surrounding northern Arizona, southern Utah, and
Navajo Nation communities. In one form or another, Lake Powell tourism, Colorado River rafting,
casinos, and numerous other businesses all benefit from the dam’s cheap electricity or controlled water
flow. Removing it would disrupt thousands of lives who have adapted or grown around the dam’s
existence, including the descendants of those unjustly displaced in the first place .

The benefits of removing the Glen Canyon Dam probably outweigh the costs. Nonetheless, it illustrates
how complicated dam removal can be. Even if not strictly “necessary” from a clean energy perspective,
removal must be weighed against other human impacts beyond just decarbonization.
 K Capitalism – Capitalism Destroys Salmon

Industrial capitalism is destroying salmon --- goes beyond just dams

Long, 14 --- founding editor of HistoryLink.org, a free online encyclopedia of Washington State history,
Seattle-based science essayist and poet (October 2014, Priscilla Long, “What Can Humans Do to Save the
Pacific Northwest’s Iconic Salmon? The fish is facing an upstream struggle to survive. Can human
ingenuity find a solution? https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-can-humans-do-
save-pacific-northwests-iconic-salmon-180952769/, JMP)

Beyond navigational improvements, industrial capitalism and its enterprises wreaked havoc on the wild
salmon of the Pacific Northwest. Loggers built splash dams, blocking a stream to build up a force of
water, releasing it each day or week to shoot logs (and the streambed) downstream. Logging roads
eroded hills and caused landslides; silt buried redds. Canneries wasted fish, driving salmon runs to
extinction. Sawmills clogged streams with sawdust. Farmers and householders cleared land down to the
water’s edge, and streams silted up and warmed up. Industry fouled the waters. Dams provided
inadequate fish ladders or no fish ladders (underwater steps that enable fish to traverse the dam). The
first hatchery was built in 1895; early hatchery managers ignored fish biology even after it was
understood.