Educational Media Reviews Online

The documentary film DamNation is a work of environmental advocacy that calls upon Americans to—as University of Washington geology professor David Montgomery puts it in the film—“rethink every dam in the country and . . . decide which are the ones that actually still make sense in the twenty-first century.” For the dams that don’t make sense anymore, the filmmakers have a solution: remove them and restore free-flowing rivers and wild fisheries. Beautifully filmed and supplemented by historic photographs, archival footage, and clever animation, the film inspires and entertains.

DamNation tells the story of dam building in America from the Progressive era though the 1960s. Dams brought irrigation, flood control, and hydroelectric power to a growing nation. The filmmakers argue that dams began as a good idea, but over time the country took the idea “too far,” building too many of them (there are 75,000 dams in the United States today) in inappropriate places where they ultimately did more harm than good.

DamNation also tells the story of the dam-removal idea. Removal began as a radical idea spawned by Ed Abbey and Earth First! on the fringe of the environmental movement, but over time became increasingly mainstream, and is now a common-sense, conventional-wisdom solution being applied on many rivers nationwide. Interviews with Mikal Jakubal, the guerrilla artist who helped draw public attention to removal by painting enormous cracks on dams, provide moments of humor and adventure as he recounts his narrow escapes from park rangers.

Interspersed throughout the documentary are segments focusing on successful dam removal campaigns, such as the Elwha Dam and Glines Canyon Dam on the Elwha River and Condit Dam on the White Salmon River (both in Washington). The footage of the removals is dramatic—dynamite blasts and torrents of rushing water—but most impressive are the images of salmon returning to upper reaches of rivers that had been blocked for decades.

While it celebrates the obsolete dams that have been removed, it also targets other dams for removal. Foremost among these are four dams on Eastern Washington’s Lower Snake River, built and operated by the Army Corps of Engineers. Built in the 1960s to make the town of Lewiston, Idaho, a seaport, the dams have come to be regarded as the greatest threat to the survival of the inland Northwest’s endangered salmon species, while generating little economic or social benefit.

In addition to dams, the film targets the systems created to mitigate the loss of fish resulting from dam building. Early mitigations included building fish ladders to allow fish to pass the dams on their way upstream and fish hatcheries to bolster fish populations. The filmmakers and on-camera interviewees argue that the increasingly expensive mitigations, which now include such measures as barging young salmon down the Columbia, offset the economic benefits of dams while destroying the genetic health and vigor of wild fish populations. Salmon and steelhead trout have evolved to be effective at repopulating fishless streams, they say, and river restoration efforts should allow nature to take its course, relying on native, wild fish to repopulate newly opened streams, rather than planting their hatchery-raised cousins.

DamNation also explores the ways in which dam building has had destructive impacts on Native American cultures. For the Northwest’s fish-dependent peoples, dams represent a violation of the treaties that guaranteed their fishing rights. Worst among them was the Army Corps of Engineers dam on the Columbia River at The Dalles, Oregon, which inundated Celilo Falls. Once the West’s most important native fishing site, the filmmakers call its destruction an act of “cultural genocide.” Interviews with members of the Nez Perce, Klallam, and other tribes attest to the damage dams have done to native peoples.

Although the film strongly advocates dam removal, the critics of dam removal—former Reclamation Commissioner Floyd Dominy, a dam operations manager, hydropower lobbyists, and western Republicans in Congress—also have opportunities to state their case, although their assertions are often intercut with images that counter their message. Their shrill complaint that environmentalists are conspiring to remove every dam in the country also undermines the credibility of their claims.

One criticism is that the film tends to place blame for dams and their associated problems on federal agencies such as the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers. Although these agencies certainly worked to expand and advance their bureaucratic interests, they were not free to build dams on their own. Building dams required congressional authorizations and appropriations. Elected officials bear responsibility, and in a democracy, that responsibility also ultimately belongs to the people who elected them. Just as building dams had strong public support throughout most of the twentieth century, removing or breaching the most harmful dams in the twenty-first century will require building a new public policy consensus.

DamNation is well suited for courses in environmental history, environmental politics, and the history of the American West. Teachers will appreciate that the film is available in two versions, the full-length “theatrical version” and a shorter 52-minute “classroom version.” There is some language in the theatrical version that might not be appropriate for younger audiences. It has been “bleeped” in the classroom version.

Awards

• Audience Choice, Documentary Spotlight Award, SXSW 2014
• Best Conservation Film, International Wildlife Film Festival 2014
• Audience Award, MountainFILM 2014
• Best Feature Award, San Francisco Green Film Festival 2014