Salman,

The dam won't help the fish. I already pointed that out. And the negative impacts to fish are estimated as negligible, which is in stark contrast to the many dams that have devastating fisheries impacts. My point is about choosing one's battles, and I choose to expend my energy opposing those projects that have significant impacts and that would be difficult or impossible to mitigate.

Energy doesn't have to come from rivers, but hydro is renewable, cleaner, and more cost effective than natural gas, oil, and nuclear. And while not cleaner than solar and wind, hydro is more reliable and cost effective. Leaving hydro out of one's energy portfolio is a deliberate choice to increase pollution of the environment.

The logical alternative would be to reduce one's energy consumption. However, that is exactly the point that makes this subject relevant to fishermen. Fishermen are notoriously heavy energy users. As a group we travel long distances, and usually in fuel guzzling vehicles to tow our boats that also burn excessive fuel, or to enhance our manly self images. You can't have it both ways. Fish need healthy rivers in order to be abundant, but fishermen consume massive amounts of energy in order to pursue them. I guess this makes fishermen unavoidably hypocrites, so it becomes a matter of how far down that path one goes.

And while the Sunset Falls dam won't directly help fish, as has been pointed out, the PUD would upgrade, and I think also assume operational costs, of the fish passage facility that is well beyond its useful economic life. At a time when WDFW needs to make tough budgetary choices, abandoning the uneconomical Sunset Falls fishway is a realistic option. It's difficult to ignore a relatively benign hydro project that could pre-empt making that tough choice about the obsolete fishway.

As I said in my initial post, the best reason for opposing the project is the NIMBY position. The project definitely will not enhance the aesthetic value of Sunset Falls. Might as well be clear and straight about the reasons for opposing the project.

Sg