Being a former intern at Bonneville Power Administration, I would like to contribute to the article about the removal of dams in the Pacific Northwest (“In Our View: Removing dams would damn N.W. economy,” The Columbian, Oct. 23).
These dams have been around for 70 years, providing electricity for the entire Pacific Northwest ever since. The removal of these dams would not only impact the daily lives of the Northwest’s population, but also impact the economy and the environment significantly with detrimental effects.
However, I think that the biggest impact would be on everyone’s daily lives. Without the dams, which provide 28 percent of the electricity in the area, many people would suffer this loss. In addition, many people would become jobless. Still being in high school myself, the loss of electricity would significantly impact my life as many of my classes are becoming more and more technology based, and the loss of electricity would definitely not positively impact my learning.
In order to keep our economy from tanking, and keep our community alive, we must make the people in our community realize that our dams are under potential danger of destruction, and rally forth to prevent one-third of our electricity supply from disappearing. Hydropower has been a symbol that has represented the Northwest for a long time, and I hope to not see it disappear.
