Lookout Point Dam blocks nearly 100% of historic spawning habitat for salmon on the Middle Fork Willamette River, which once had the most abundant salmon populations in the Willamette Valley. The Corps has drawn down the Lookout Point reservoir to aid salmon migration but proposes replacing that measure with a giant floating structure to collect fish.
Caden Perry / OPB
You’ve probably heard about fish ladders and other mechanisms to help adult salmon get upstream past dams. It turns out that on the Willamette River, more than half of baby salmon die on their way downstream past the dams trying to get to the ocean. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency that operates the dams, has proposed building massive and costly fish collectors to try to save a fish population increasingly in danger of extinction. But reporting by OPB and Propublica casts doubt on the plan, as many outside the Corps consider the collectors unnecessary and unlikely to succeed.
We hear more from Tony Schick, OPB investigative reporter and editor, who reported on salmon and Willamette River dams in collaboration with Propublica.
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