[kixiQu]

Just in case anyone who isn't from the PNW is wondering at the energy and number of replies OP has gotten about this:

Water quality and the salmon-centered river/stream ecosystem is, like, the local environmental thing everyone gets slammed with in school. Your biology class has you go look for arthropods. Your chemistry class has you go test for pH and dissolved oxygen and fertilizer contamination. Way more species (including plants) rely on the salmon than you'd guess but oh boy do you learn about it in a PNW school system.

And on the other side, the history of the dams is the history of the growth of the Northwest -- "your power is turning our darkness to dawn, so roll on, Columbia, roll on" is in the Washington state folk song and it's not even an aberration re: the region's folk songs / culture. ("Skagit Valley, Skagit Valley, / They would turn you to a mud pond / To run the Coca Cola coolers in Seattle, U.S.A.")

I just thought this would be interesting to contribute because I've found people from other regions sometimes have an ambient awareness more on the level of "Um, I guess there are fish in the water? And runoff seems bad?" and that just isn't possible for locals here, so that's why it's all somewhat heightened.

[mordechai9000]

That's an interesting song in its own right. It was written under commission for the federal government by Woody Guthrie, and it was really about two of his favorite topics: improving the lives of workers and stopping fascism.

    "Now in Washington and Oregon you can hear the factories hum,
    Making chrome and making manganese and light aluminum
    There goes a flying fortress, to fight for Uncle Sam
    Spawned on the great Columbia by the big Grand Coulee dam"

[kixiQu]

"[Woody Guthrie's] 30 days at [the Bonneville Power Administration (the relevant hydroelectric institution)] is considered one of the single most productive bursts in his fruitful songwriting career."

https://www.bpa.gov/news/AboutUs/History/Guthrie/Pages/defau...

It's salmon all the way down!

[swlabrtyr]

From South Louisiana, it's the same for us growing up only instead of a dam it's the offshore drilling. We learn about the ecology of the delta, then go cheer the Saints in their black and gold jerseys (Who dat!).