Note: The following was sent to President Biden on June 1, 2021
Dear Mr. President:
Congratulations on a successful Leaders Summit on Climate. The strong emissions reductions target underscores your historic commitment to elevating the climate crisis as a defining priority of your administration, and Patagonia looks forward to working with you to help protect our planet and communities. The American Jobs Plan is also an exciting prospect—perhaps the best opportunity in a generation to build a clean energy future. But as both move forward, we must also commit to ending the era of greenwashing dams and hydropower.
Your administration clearly sees infrastructure as more than just bricks and asphalt, steel, and mortar. We have an incredible opportunity to build back better, create jobs and provide aid in the fight against climate change. Including additional funding for dam removal would amplify these benefits as well as protect Indigenous cultures and communities and restore wild fish and wildlife populations.
Of the 91,457 dams in the United States it is estimated that 75–90 percent no longer serve any functional purpose and are a detriment to ecosystem health. The National Inventory of Dams lists 30 percent of dams as having high or significant hazard potential, and about 65 percent of our dams are at or near their 50-year life expectancy. The costs of removing a dam can be much lower than the costs of maintaining one.
A growing body of scientific study indicates that dams are neither “green” nor are they carbon neutral. Many dams cause significant greenhouse gas emissions through processes like anaerobic digestion of vegetation at the bottom of reservoirs, which releases methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The direct climate impacts extend far beyond emissions.
On a national and global basis, dams significantly reduce carbon sequestration through flooding millions of acres of wetlands, grasslands, and forest carbon sinks. Because of the massive amounts of sediment trapped in reservoirs behind dams, many coastal communities and wetlands are starved of desperately needed silt and sand to replenish beaches and coasts and fend off rising seas.
As climate change continues and global temperatures rise, the negative effects from dams and reservoirs also increase while their efficiency decreases. With temperatures on the rise, hundreds of thousands of salmon have perished due to warming waters in stagnant reservoirs in the Columbia River system. Dams for water storage have also been compromised, as evaporation from reservoirs increases with warming. And, with increasing extreme weather patterns and events, managing the risks of aging infrastructure will worsen. Storms, flooding, and debris flows that follow catastrophic fires, like those we’ve seen in California, will mean that dams become filled with sediment faster and become less efficient at storing water and/or producing power. These realities require a closer look at the cost/benefit of investing in these structures going forward.
By contrast, the direct climate benefits of removing dams are many. Dam removal offers opportunities to restore currently submerged wetlands, forests, and grasslands as carbon sinks. With sea levels expected to rise 3–6 feet by the end of the century, coastal communities are looking at shoreline protection projects that could be a major burden on local municipal budgets. In Ventura, California, where Patagonia is based, removal of the Matilija Dam would release trapped sand and sediment that would provide desperately needed, low-cost coastal replenishment and protect our beaches from increased erosion. The recent removal of two dams on the Elwha River resulted in almost 100 acres of new coastal land as the released sediment rebuilt the formerly starved delta.
Not only will removing dams help avoid emissions, restore carbon sinks and increase resilience, but it would allow our nation and communities to redirect funds away from costly dam maintenance or modifications and toward truly renewable, cleaner energy and water solutions like wind and solar power, battery storage, groundwater recharge and aquifer storage. And all of this will come with major benefits to ecosystems and communities—for example, providing a real chance at survival for the many endangered runs of Pacific and Atlantic salmon, and the many species and communities that depend on them.
Finally, inspired by your own climate plan’s focus on environmental justice, it is critical to note that many sovereign tribes and Indigenous groups support dam removal—which not only restores food resources, including salmon, but also protects cultural traditions which have thrived in connection to wild, healthy rivers for thousands of years. While many cultural sites and ancestral lands remain submerged behind dams, others have recently been recovered and restored with dam removal.
We would request respectfully your administration consider these steps:
• Direct economic stimulus and infrastructure funding to priority dam removal projects. As your administration works with Congress to support economic recovery of our nation coming out of the pandemic, an infrastructure package should include stimulus investments that prioritize dam removals that enable climate resilience, ecosystem restoration, carbon sequestration, wildlife and community benefits, and new employment opportunities, particularly for tribal, rural and economically marginalized communities. Restoration projects (dam deconstruction and aquatic restoration included) are often labor-intensive efforts, requiring science, planning, engineering, construction, and logistics trades— including both skilled and unskilled labor, which bring a diverse set of good jobs and decent wages. Finally, the future and ongoing economic benefits of restored rivers and fisheries are many, including the creation of new, sustained jobs and significant annual contribution to local economies.
• Direct the EPA to require measurement and evaluation of methane emissions and other greenhouse gas emissions and estimates of lost carbon capture from all US dams and reservoirs, as part of an overall climate impact assessment of dam facilities. Methane is 86 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a heat-trapping gas, so measures to curb emissions can have a large impact. Just as your administration has already shown intention to manage and reduce methane emissions from oil and gas facilities, we need to begin monitoring, tracking, and evaluating methane and the other climate impacts of dams. Dam assessments must be done with attention to their locations and current science—recent estimates indicate that dams emit about 25 percent more methane per unit of surface than previously estimated. The carbon equivalent for these facilities must be determined since dams and reservoirs not only produce emissions but also prevent carbon capture from submerged lands. We also request that federal agencies require applicants to submit the above assessment during dam-related permit applications under NEPA.
• Remove electricity from hydropower dams as part of all US clean energy standards, including any new federal Clean Electricity Standards and/or Renewable Electricity Standards, and strengthen Federal TradeCommission guidance for environmental claims related to dam facilities and hydropower. The persistent and false myth that hydropower dams produce carbon neutral energy is not supported by the growing science around dam-related emissions and the prioritization of reforestation and expansion of carbon sinks.We must measure and account for emissions and other climate impacts of these facilities or else efforts meant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and expand carbon sequestration could risk doing the opposite.In addition, Federal Trade Commission guidance for environmental marketing claims should be strengthened to indicate that hydropower and other dam-related water interests do not qualify as “clean energy,” “emissions free,” “green,” or “renewable.” Government resources are best spent on infrastructure projects that advance real climate, ecosystem, and community solutions.
Your infrastructure plan can be an historic step forward for humanity and the protection of our planet, particularly if we harness a once-in-a-generation opportunity to tear down the destructive dams of a bygone era and invest in less harmful and more efficient solutions that are now available. As we work with others to share the rapidly growing science around the impacts of dams, we hope to find ways to work closely with your administration. Please let me know how we can help advance policies that enable a future with free-flowing rivers, wild fish and resilient local communities and economies.
Sincerely,
Ryan Gellert
CEO, Patagonia, Inc.