Good news for Columbia River - Jim Norton said so....

I drove from Santa Cruz to Portland to catch a good riot, then along the Columbia River and Snake river to Boise to catch up with my friend Jim Norton. I pulled into Boise, grabbed a six-pack of beer and started getting strange looks from the locals.  It could have been the Porsche with California plates (bad) or my gay looking plaid pants.  The combo with my “Elect Women” shirt from Nancy Pelosi = not good. The shirt is a chick magnet in California but might get me shot in Idaho. 

Jim is a river guide and despite or because of getting hit by lighting (true story) he’s got quite a spark when he sits down and writes. He has some shocking news for us, and I encourage YOU to read his contribution, Power Shift, that’s on the Patagonia website under ’stories’. 

An extremely optimistic (potential) turn of events challenging the great conceit of ‘harvesting’ power by controlling nature with dams and hatcheries; missing the (gigantic) point that those projects have (always) failed to pencil out - even without consideration of the (gigantic) contribution a healthy salmon run provides to our souls, ecology, economy. Just let nature do its thing man…. 

"Wild salmon numbers have declined over 95 percent, not a single endangered or threatened salmon run has been recovered despite more than $16 billion spent on the enterprise, and a growing portfolio of research enumerates the deleterious effects of hatchery fish on wild populations”. - Jim Norton