More on Enloe
Dear Editor:
I sympathize with Randy Brook’s impatience at the pace of the effort to remove the Enloe Dam. A couple of points, however. There are potentially large amounts of heavy metals trapped in the silt behind the dam, and until that risk is understood and mitigated no one is going to undertake the huge liability of releasing them downstream after a dam removal.
Aside from that, despite the repeated claim that as much as 300 miles of salmon habitat could be made accessible by the removal of the dam, there is some debate as to whether any fish can migrate up river once the dam is removed. There is a large drop-off under all that water and some accounts say that salmon could not jump it in the days prior to the creation of the dam.
None of this isn’t to say the dam shouldn’t be removed, but it might be wise to manage expectations.
Bob Hunt
Twisp
