At the hatchery in Redfish Lake, the adult salmon, perhaps the only hope for future generations, swim in circles when they once swam an epic journey. And there's no computer chip like that we can ever develop. Eight monolithic dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers stand between the Sockeye and the sea. The turbines can be lethal to young fish and so are the slow moving, warm reservoirs. Most never make it to the ocean.
Some environmentalists blame the decline of salmon on the four dams along the Lower Snake River.
They say it would be more economical in the long run to destroy the dams completely. Some call for temporarily lowering the reservoirs yearly to the let the river run naturally. Then young salmon would be flushed to the sea in cool waters. But that would turn off the hydroelectric turbines, halt navigation, and impact farmers. We already face problems everyday with mother nature and just came out of a drought.