Letter: Dam spills are a good thing

I take issue with Del Lathim’s recent letter where he says dam spills should only be used for flood control.

He implies that the “little fish” — which I assume means migrating smolts — are better off going through the turbines than over the spillway. I recently saw a presentation by a PNNL scientist which indicated that in fact both methods of getting smolts through the dams are about equally effective now.

He also says that we are better off running all of the water through the turbines to generate power. The spill is mainly intended to increase overall river flow to speed up the smolt migration process beyond what could be accomplished through the turbines. Since the water management regime has been changed to spill water in the summer the salmon runs have increased dramatically.

Finally, in most years the hydropower system has an excess of power generating capacity and there is no market for running all of the water through the turbines anyway. The current water management system is giving us among the lowest power costs in the nation as well as vastly improved salmon runs. There is no need to change it.

This story was originally published February 16, 2016 at 4:57 PM with the headline "Letter: Dam spills are a good thing."