Plan to open dams could restore migrations of fish

[Judi Lynn]

Plan to open dams could restore migrations of fish
Sunday, May 25,
BEN RAINES and JEFF DUTEStaff Reporters

Alabama's great fish migrations ended the year man first walked on the moon.

When the gates closed on the new Alabama River dam at Millers Ferry in 1969, an ancient connection between the Cahaba River and the Gulf of Mexico was severed, and a multitude of fish and mussel species began a long, slow spiral that could mean extinction for some.

Now, on the heels of a similar effort in Georgia, federal and state regulators and a coalition of environmental groups are working on a plan to restore Alabama's lost migrations by helping the fish get around dams. They hope to reconnect the Cahaba to the Gulf by next year, pushed into action by declines for some species so severe that there is concern those populations may never rebound.

The problems in Alabama were compounded with the addition of the Claiborne Lock and Dam in 1971. Annual spawning migrations involving tens of millions of fish disappeared overnight, with the twin dams blocking more than a dozen species from moving upstream just as surely as dams out West have nearly wiped out the Pacific Ocean's salmon runs.

Success in Georgia

This year in Georgia, however, fish are once again migrating past the Woodruff Dam and moving hundreds of miles inland thanks to a solution so simple and easy it's a wonder it took decades to come up with it.

More:
http://www.al.com/news/press-register/index.ssf?/base/news/1211706989253550.xml&coll=3

[glowing]

1. Or it could destroy the new habitat that has grown up around the damn since the blocking.

[Vincardog]

2. WTF? How is "We're running the lock a couple of times a day. We'll open the lower gates, let the

fish in raise the water level and let them out the other side," going to destroy and habitat?

[glowing]

3. When you change the environment, a new habitat forms. I'm not sure

if this particular case will actually do any habitat damage.. but there are cases where "undoing" the "damage" sometimes creates a new damage.. I studied this in enviromental science.. mitigating natural resources etc, etc. I'd have to go back to the books to actually give you a specific example of this occurence... I didn't read the entire article.. and the entire article isn't the specific plans.. most times these involve wildlife and corp of engineers and mitigation reports.. dry read, but the most helpful in understanding the specifics...