234 T'he Lije Story of the Fish 



succeed in passing up over the dam, but the young succeed 

 in reaching the ocean. We can have both a Bonneville Dam 

 and a salmon fishery on the Columbia River. 



Whether we can have the salmon fishery as well as the 

 other dams which are scheduled for the Columbia is another 

 question. One of these, Grand Coulee, already constructed 

 some 600 miles from the mouth, is 550 feet high — far 

 beyond the limits practicable for fish ladders as well as for 

 the safe passage of young fish returning to the ocean. Solu- 

 tion of this problem has centered around the transfer of the 

 runs by trapping the adults and either allowing them to 

 spawn naturally in streams tributary below the dam, or 

 spawning them artificially in hatcheries and planting the 

 offspring in such waters. The program has been under way 

 long enough to show that new generations of salmon are 

 coming back to these "adopted-home" streams, but not in 

 as large numbers as had been anticipated. Eleven dams in all 

 are proposed for the main stem of the Columbia, entirely 

 aside from projects for its tributaries. When these eleven are 

 completed, all but eighty- four feet of the total drop of 1,288 

 feet below the Canadian boundary will have been utilized 

 for power developments. The river will be a series of dams, 

 with the backwaters reaching from the crest of one to the 

 toe of the next. Will the current in these lakes be strong 

 enough to guide the spawners up and the ocean-bound young 

 down? And what about the spawning areas submerged by 

 these impoundments? 



The problem at Bonneville was a great one because of the 

 magnitude of the river and the magnitude of the runs of 

 spawning fish, but it was free of two major complications 

 which exist on many of our other salmon streams. At Bonne- 

 ville the whole river passed either over the dam or through 

 the turbines. There were no irrigation diversions and no im- 

 poundment of water. Frequently conditions are less favorable. 



