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What are two downsides to the dams that make all our hydro-electric power possible?

http://byjus.com/biology/disadvantages-of-dams/

.... and those salmon that I always worry about?

I am also into alewives and eels and shad, even sturgeon. Needless to say we fish around here and in fact just finished tearing a dam out here so the fish could get upstream from the ocean to spawn.

The reference also does not mention that instead of a fast running stream with its fast running fish, you now have a completely different ecosystem upstream as well. You have a pond or lake now, and any silt in the flow upstream will settle to the bottom in the still water. That not only means completely different marine life but probably constant silting in eventually doing what ponds do - turning into swamps.

Let's hope for cheap solar cells :)

:-)

Please keep your alewives. They're considered a harmful, invasive species in our Great Lakes.

Please just send them here. We work like crazy to let them spawn, then they mix with the full time ocean varieties of herring at sea and get swept up by the pair trawlers. I wonder how they survive in the lakes. They must have adapted to full time fresh water.

They may be invasive from the Atlantic via the canal but they seem to love them on Lake Michigan:

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/alewife-crash-on-lake-michigan-raises-concerns-for-salmon-fishing-b99592228z1-331900031.html
(salmon fishing on lake Michigan ?)

For years, every spring, I counted alewives going up a silly concrete fish ladder around a dam here. I always had the early morning shift and there was one doe who often came out of the woods behind to look over my shoulder at my clipboard. If I moved an eyelash she would spring away, white tail flashing. There were fewer and fewer fish despite efforts to restock up above. Finally, this year, we got the dam out.

Thanks for the update.

THAT ISNT FRICKING HELPING