Abstract
Documentary Film, Directed by Ben Knight and Travis Rummel. Presented by Patagonia, 2014, 87 minutes (52 minutes classroom version available). Grade Level: 7–12, College, Adults.
America has had a long love affair with dams. As Bruce Babbitt, a former US Secretary of the Interior, says near the beginning of DamNation: ‘On average we have constructed one dam every day since the signing of the Declaration of Independence.’ The US Army Corps of Engineers has catalogued at least 80,000 dams higher than 6 feet along the waterways of the United States. Dams have been part of the American landscape for centuries, and at times and in some places, a critical provider of electricity generation, irrigation water and flood control. At the dedication in 1935 of the massive Hoover Dam, a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, Franklin D. Roosevelt said of the ‘the mighty waters’ of the Colorado, ‘Today we translate them into a great national possession.’ This preceded the so-called golden age of dam building between 1950 and 1970, during which 30,000 dams were completed.
But the tides have changed since that golden age. Environmentalists, academics and citizens alike have become increasingly aware that the benefits of dams are often outweighed by their considerable harms: depleted fisheries, degraded river ecosystems and diminished recreational opportunities.
The basic premise of this documentary film, directed by Ben Knight and Travis Rummel, is that like so many other forms of natural resource development in the USA, America took dam building too far. The film has two main protagonists. The first are several environmental activists (members of Earth First!, the radical environmental advocacy group founded in 1979) and others who have taken risks over the years to perform acts of civil disobedience for dam removal. The second are the fish themselves, specifically salmon and steelheads, who are presented repeatedly and majestically through drawings and underwater filming. After all, the fish and their habitats are at stake. Other ‘characters’ include the rivers in question, the canyons through which they flow, various dams, and river lovers from indigenous people to farmers to scientists, who offer their stories and perspectives. We hear from vocal defenders of dams as well, who appear to be the last stubborn holdouts for an old form of life, and who embody the conservative view in America, railing against the liberal destroyers of civilization as we know it.
Overall DamNation provides a powerful visual and somewhat emotional experience. It tells a good and interesting story. As is so often the case, however, it presents a narrow view of a complex issue. Hydropower is barely mentioned, for example, which accounts for about 7 per cent of the US electricity generation, a little more than all other renewables combined. In an age of rapidly advancing climate change, how do we replace the loss of hydropower? What are all the facts on both sides of the argument, the groups that represent those sides, and the efforts underway to resolve disputes and make progress? We’re never told that ‘most dams across the country could be operated in a fashion that reduces their current impacts on the river’ (according to American Rivers, a nonprofit started in 1973 to protect rivers—
This is a beautiful film for those who already believe in the cause of dam removal. It is, as they say, ‘preaching to the choir’. We are desperately in need, however, of more articles and films that will be viewed by both sides of the issues we must solve together. Is DamNation worth seeing? Yes, but with the understanding that it only tells part of the story. For teachers and professors, it would be a valuable addition to the classroom for precisely this reason.