Why are we against dams?
A Note From James
Tim Morton has a great quote:
“You think ecologically tuned life means being all efficient and pure. Wrong. It means you can have a disco in every room of your house.”
This is the type of pragmatic talk happening around the picnic tables outside The Bike Company headquarters Reykjavík as our group recovers from a great hike with Anna Ásbjörnsdóttir and Tómas Gudbjartsson, our local heroes and guides.
“We” are a small group who have traveled from California to discuss the proposed fate of Iceland’s Westfjords and add some constructive ideas and insight to the conversation. We are Americans, but please don’t hold that against us just yet. We are trained economists, geologists, developers, biologists, ecologists and one English guy named Tom who has zero academic qualifications (but a great accent and is charming and handsome). None of us voted for the Trumpapocalypse.
As Americans, we have some experience with environment and natural resource management issues, both the good (National Park System) and the bad (thousands of dams and Superfund cleanup sites).
Hoover Dam, USA
We are turning our attention to Iceland and the proposed Hvalárvirkjun hydroelectric power plant—and associated dams—because this scenario is all too familiar to us. Our country experienced a sort of dam-mania beginning in the 1930’s, probably with the advent of the massive Hoover Dam and the incessant need to harness nature. Who has the biggest dam? The tallest dam? Which creates the biggest reservoir? Sure, projects such as these represent engineering mastery—but economically, they just don’t pencil out. The real sad fact is that the “license” to build a dam includes the understanding that it's going to benefit the community and environment directly. However, the costs—both economic and environmental—are seldom represented properly so that they can be deliberately agreed to.
There are now over 2.5 million dams in the United States, and we wonder why there isn’t a single remaining wild salmon run on the east coast. And, the costs have been insane. Insane for construction, insane for maintenance and insane for the mostly failed efforts to restore salmon runs—not to mention the fish-farm fiascos that Fish and Wildlife has been wrestling with to solve the above issues.
When we learned of the proposed dams in the Westfjords, we had to ask ourselves how can a project like this still be under consideration in 2019, after all we’ve learned in the United States—and in Iceland for that matter? As you peel back the onion—and not very far mind you— nothing, even at a high-level, looks right.
Is the company building the dam for Iceland? No. Is the mining company that wants the power from this proposed dam from Iceland? No. Is there a HUGE history of dams, power plants and false promises in Iceland? Yes. How quickly we all forget…
It’s important to understand that we are pragmatic. Iceland is amazing when viewed through the lens of good, possible and practical solutions. I (we) believe solutions to complex problems can be win-win and support good, global environmental agendas as well as local needs as long as costs are not externalized. Externalization is the devil in the details. Let’s not pass the buck to future generations. If we can agree on good economic modeling, we can find solutions that work.