“There are about 150 hydroelectric projects and about 470 dams on the Columbia and its tributaries. Bonneville is one of the four dams on the Lower Columbia River operated by the Corps.
Together, those four dams produce more than 30,000 gigawatt-hours of power. That’s enough electricity to power nearly 3 million average U.S. homes.
Bonneville is the closest dam to the mouth of the Columbia River and has the potential to power about 900,000 homes at any given time, tour guide and Corps Park Ranger Meg Sleeper said as reporters looked at rumbling turbines.
The [fish] ladders … were designed with only fish in mind. The fast-moving water and sharp bends in the ladders can be challenging for lamprey. But small boxes on the bottom of the ladder and bypasses aim to make it more hospitable to the important, if unusual-looking Columbia River fish species.
Efforts like these to mitigate the ways Columbia River Basin dams harm fish highlight an increasing tension: Washington needs more clean energy to meet its mandate of cutting fossil-fuel-generated power from its grid by 2045, but dams like these have also jeopardized salmon species’ survival in the Columbia.
Compounding the issue, the Department of the Interior report acknowledged federal dams in the basin “disproportionately harmed” Native nations. That included flooding some tribes’ homelands, as well as altering the river for economic ends that harmed their treaty-protected rights to fish.” (The Columbian, H Brannan 8.23.24)
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US Interior report here: