Energy Production, Sprawl Threaten America's Rivers

By Cat Lazaroff

WASHINGTON, DC, April 11, 2001 (ENS) - Energy production is slowly strangling some of nation's most beloved rivers and the species that rely on them, a new report charges. The 16th annual "America's Most Endangered Rivers" report from American Rivers finds that almost half of the 13 rivers cited have been damaged by impacts of hydropower dams, fossil fuel drilling and pollution from fuel burning.

The report by the nonprofit river protection group, released today, lists 13 rivers that flow across 27 states as the most endangered waterways in the country. Though many of the rivers named have made the group's list before, American Rivers says that ongoing power shortages in the American West lend urgency to the plight of western rivers.

High energy prices have renewed the oil industry's determination to extend its reach from Alaska's Prudhoe Bay oil fields, across the Canning River, and into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (Photo courtesy USFWS)

For example, the Eel River in California has been parched by a small, two dam hydropower project, causing salmon and steelhead populations in the once robust fishery to fall by 97 percent. The Big Sandy River between Kentucky and West Virginia was smothered last year under millions of gallons of sludge from a coal mine.

"We can't solve 21st century energy problems with 19th century solutions," Wodder said. "We need to embrace new technologies and policies that will provide for a more sustainable energy future."

Each year, American Rivers and dozens of environmental, outdoor recreation and taxpayer groups team up to release the "America's Most Endangered Rivers" report. The report issues a call to action on behalf of rivers that face threats to their health and a crucial turning point in the coming year.

Cape Horn Dam, on the Eel River in California, is one of two dams that have cut off water flows to downstream coho salmon, chinook salmon and ocean going steelhead trout (Photo by Rob Badger, courtesy Friends of the Eel River)

Six of the rivers on the 2001 list are endangered by conventional energy production, American Rivers charges. Besides the Eel and the Big Sandy, these include:

The Canning River in Alaska, threatened by proposals to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration.

The Hudson River in New York, polluted by PCBs manufactured for use in electrical transformers.

The Powder River in Wyoming, threatened by thousands of proposed natural gas wells.

A broken impoundment dam sent tons of coal slurry into Kentucky's Big Sandy River (Photo courtesy Southern Alliance for Clean Energy)

The nation's 2,400 hydroelectric dams cause disproportionate damage to rivers, even though they generate less than 10 percent of the nation's electricity, the report says. Poorly run dams drown important wildlife habitat under reservoirs, block migratory fish from spawning grounds, and vary downstream flows between a trickle and scouring torrents.

"This transforms a river as profoundly as clear cutting a forest," says the Endangered Rivers report.

Meanwhile, millions of acres of land and countless river miles have been scarred by the extraction of fossil fuels through coal mines and oil and gas wells. Coal mines leach acid into thousands of miles of stream, while mountaintop coal mines bury others under rubble. Most of the 14,000 oil spills reported during the recovery, refining or transportation of petroleum each year occur in or reach fresh water.

The emerging practice of coal bed methane extraction, tapping coal aquifers for natural gas, sends billions of gallons of frequently poor quality groundwater and topsoil rushing into fragile streams.

Acid rain, linked to emissions from coal burning power plants, threatens trout streams throughout the eastern U.S., including Paine Run in Virginia (Photo courtesy American Rivers)

The carbon released from coal, oil and natural gas is responsible for warming water temperatures which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said could wipe out many stocks of trout and other coldwater fish.

"Energy is the cornerstone of modern society, and many years of stable low prices have made us complacent about our long-term needs," Wodder said. "The consequence of the current energy crunch on our rivers is a wakeup call that we can't put off doing the right thing any longer."

BIG MUDDY CALLED MOST ENDANGERED

But other problems also plague America's rivers, the report notes. The group named the Missouri River as the nation's Most Endangered River of 2001. The Missouri, which ranked number two on last year's list, is on the endangered list for the eighth straight year.

According to American Rivers, several Missouri River species face extinction unless the Army Corps of Engineers changes dam operations to provide more natural water flows and dramatically accelerates efforts to restore habitat.

The Missouri River's endangered pallid sturgeon needs a return to more natural river flows to recover (Photo courtesy North Dakota Department of Game and Fish)

The nation's longest river, the "Big Muddy" makes its 2,500 mile journey from western Montana to the Mississippi River just north of St. Louis, passing through a total of seven states.

Historically, the seasonal rise and fall of water levels defined life along the Missouri. Snowmelt and rain increased water levels in the spring, building sandbars and cuing fish like the federally endangered pallid sturgeon to begin spawning.

In the summer, the waters receded, exposing sandbars where birds like the federally endangered interior least tern and the federally threatened piping plover made their nests. These low flows were also critical for young sturgeon and other fish, which depend on easy access to shallow, slower flowing water.

"The free flowing segments of the Missouri River need to be managed more naturally," said Jim Heisinger, president of South Dakota's Living River Group of the Sierra Club. "That's obviously what fish and wildlife need, and it also turns out that is what will benefit the people of this basin the most."

The endangered interior least tern needs exposed sand bars to nest successfully (Photo courtesy USFWS)

"It may be difficult to completely restore the dynamics of the free flowing, pre-dam Missouri River, but it is possible to mimic natural flows by timing dam releases to accommodate the seasons," said Jonathan Bry, conservation program coordinator for the Dakota Chapter of the Sierra Club.

The Corps will take public comments starting this summer on options for revising dam operations to benefit at risk species and boost recreation and tourism along the river.

SPRAWLING DEVELOPMENT THREATENS THREE RIVERS

Sprawling development threatens the future of the Snoqualmie River in Washington state, which produces some of the largest salmon runs in the state of Washington. Despite valiant efforts by King County, forests and farmlands are disappearing in the increasingly urban watershed, threatening both the salmon listed under the Endangered Species Act and some of the Pacific Northwest's most scenic landscapes.

State and local governments will be making key decisions this year that will test their commitment to protecting the Snoqualmie. If successful in limiting sprawl, local governments will establish a model for sustainable management of Puget Sound rivers and salmon recovery.

Sprawl contributes to erosion, runoff and poor water quality around many rivers, such as the Snoqualmie in Washington state (Photo by Connie Kelleher, courtesy American Rivers)

This year, federal, state and local authorities must demonstrate resolve to protect the river from an unpopular proposal to construct an enormous shopping, entertainment and office complex in the Meadowlands.

Officials also have an opportunity to take steps to slow housing developments that are multiplying upriver, increasing the amount of pollution entering reservoirs that supply drinking water for one million people.

Explosive urban growth along the Catawba River in North and South Carolina threatens to overwhelm the river's capacity to provide drinking water, assimilate sewage, support wildlife and serve the recreational needs of Charlotte and growing communities throughout the basin.

New houses and other development threatens the Catawba River in the Carolinas (Photo courtesy Catawba Riverkeeper)

"Otherwise, continued "first come first served" allocation of the river's finite resources could well lead to the Southeast's next water war," the report warns.

FLOOD CONTROL, RESERVOIRS, GRAVEL MINING

Corps projects also threaten the Mississippi River, number six on this year's endangered list. Two large flood control projects proposed by the Corps would destroy more than 200,000 acres of rare floodplain wetlands - three times more wetlands than the rest of the nation destroys each year.

These projects jeopardize the successful implementation of the Gulf Hypoxia Action Plan, a federal and state effort to reduce polluted runoff that produced the so called dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico each year. The dead zone is caused by massive algae blooms that feed off excess nutrients in agricultural and municipal runoff, then die off, absorbing all the oxygen in the water.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will accept public comments later this year as it decides whether or not to proceed and present the two projects to Congress.

The endangered razorback sucker could suffer further declines if the proposed Animas-La Plata reservoir project is allowed to proceed (Photo courtesy USFWS)

Disguised as a tribal water rights settlement, the decades old project was reinvigorated last year when Congress authorized a scaled down, yet still costly and environmentally damaging version, American Rivers charges. The project would divert about one quarter of the river's flow, pumping it 500 feet uphill into a storage reservoir.

"Animas-La Plata is one of the last relics from the age of behemoths. This project costs too much and does too little," said Jill Lancelot of the public interest group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

The groups hopes to persuade Congress to reconsider its decision and not ask taxpayers to foot two thirds of the project's $450 million price tag - creating a water supply which is not and may never be needed.

The proposed expansion of a massive gravel mine could destroy spawning habitat for chum salmon and other threatened fish in the East Fork of the Lewis River (Photo by Manu Esteve, courtesy American Rivers)

Private landowners and local governments have invested hundreds of man hours and more than $10 million to preserve and restore salmon habitat in the river, one of the last free flowing rivers in the entire Columbia River basin. The proposal must clear three hurdles this year, and federal, state and county officials will accept public input as they determine whether or not to allow the proposed expansion.

"Concerned citizens should speak up and tell the authorities that this proposed mine expansion is clearly not in the public interest," said American Rivers' Wodder. "There is no good reason to allow the East Fork of the Lewis River to be placed in peril by this unwise mine expansion."