Sure, for new dams. The ones built a hundred or more years ago are the ones with huge problems. Well, there is always a cost, the Columbia will never run free, for example.
There must be some solution to the huge problems. The entities operating and maintaining these old hydro electric facilities probably don't have the budgets to resolve the huge problems, but it is hard to believe the situation is so bad and so hopeless that we'd be better off removing all of the dams and installing natural gas turbines in their place.