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Dam Busting Checklist

The pictures were everywhere last year: Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, shirtsleeves rolled up, sledgehammer in hand, standing before a dam, heralding a new era for the nation's rivers. Yet even as the federal government gives its very public blessing to dam removal as a strategy for habitat restoration, a San Francisco State University scientist cautions that it is not always the best approach.

"Community watershed groups need to make sure that they are spending their resources in the best possible way," says Michael McGowan of the University's Romberg Tiburon Center. Working with hydrologist Barry Hecht, economist Bruce Lord and fellow biologist Bud Abbott, McGowan is developing guidelines to help groups assess the relative costs and benefits of dam removal. The guide will include checklists that will help groups weigh the existing beneficial uses of dams - including water supply, flood control, irrigation and hydroelectric power - against the endangered fish habitat improvements created by dam removal. The guidebook will also address related issues such as seismic safety and sedimentation. "We see a strong need out there for technical information, and we don't think groups should have to keep having to reinvent the wheel."

Although dams harm steelhead and salmon populations by interfering with migration and destroying habitat, McGowan says removing them is not always in the best interests of fish. "If you have a dam located far upstream, with little habitat above it, it may be better to leave it in place and use releases to regulate downstream water temperature," he says.

McGowan and his colleagues expect the guidebook project, which is being funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the Marin Municipal Water District, among others, to be completed in 1999. In the meantime, later this spring they will hold three workshops with watershed groups and other interested parties.

"We are not advocates for or against dam removal," says McGowan. "We are just trying to present facts so that the best decisions can be made to improve things for the fish."

Contact: Michael McGowan (415)338-3514

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