Giant Dams: Mutli-Threats to Humans and Planet

Hydropower dams may play a role in creating and releasing methane but the greater danger has not yet been investigated or evaluated. What's that? What effect(s) does the disruption and rapid change of the larger natural system cause?

Multiple dams on the Ohio, Missouri, and Mississippi Rivers aided river transportation and controlled some annual flooding beginning in the 1930s. The result(s)? The Mississippi Delta not only stopped growing, it has begun to disappear. The natural barrier that helped to protect New Orleans from storm surges undermined - literally. Redistribution of soil along all the rivers - history and greater reliance on fertilizers and pesticides. There is now a 70 mile dead zone at the end of the Mississippi that is growing each year.

The Three Gorges Dam complex in China - its impact(s)? Flyways of migratory birds disrupted/altered. A role in the spread of Avian Flu? Who's got a bandage for my foot, I think we shot ourselves again!

clipped from solveclimate.com Hydropower's Dirty Little Secret There are dams, and then there are bad dams. The Three Gorges Project in China, for example, was a very bad dam, having displaced 1.2 million people. Even the Chinese government admits that it threatens “environmental catastrophe” for a range of reasons. Here’s the science: When engineers create dams, they flood massive tracts of land. The vegetation on that land starts to immediately rot and decompose, while organic matter from further up-stream joins it. In tropical regions, the cycle of exposure-then-flooding, inducing the growth then decay of fast-growing vegetation, adds more bio-mass to the mix. All of that bio-mass produces greenhouse gases as it decomposes. Some of those gases slowly bubble up to the surface, and then into the atmosphere.