Spill, which is now happening at each federal dam along the Columbia-Snake river system that has fish passage, allows out-migrating salmon to dodge the dams’ deadly turbines, increasing their survival rate and eventual returns.
But this year, in addition to battling hundreds of miles of near-still water, predators and a warming ocean, the roughly 6.6 million roughly pinky-finger-sized young fish also face a Trump administration that has attacked the notion of using the West’s rivers for anything but pure and immediate commercial gain.
Why spill?
“Before the dams were in place, there was a huge flood every spring and early summer of cold water that pushed tens of millions of salmon and steelhead
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