A perspective on calls to provide legal personhood to rivers (or more broadly to 'nature') is provided in “You kill the dam, you are killing a part of me”: Dam removal and the environmental politics of river restoration' by Coleen A. Fox, Francis J. Magilligan and Christopher S. Sneddon in (2016) 70 Geoforum 93-104.
The authors comment
River restoration through dam removal provides an opportunity to investigate the changing nature of environmental conflicts and politics in long-humanized landscapes. In New England, where over 14,000 dams fragment the region’s rivers, dam removals are often highly contested. This is due, in part, to how the intertwined roles of history, identity, and aesthetics coalesce to create attachment to place and inspire the defense of dammed landscapes. Dam removal provides a useful lens to consider the following: How do the historical and geographical contingencies of this region shape and alter conflicts over dam removal in specific ways? In instances where conflicts emerge, what do the conflicts reveal about the politics of ecological restoration in highly altered landscapes? We use a political ecology approach to reveal how complex cultural dynamics, competing interpretations of science and the environment, micropolitics, and the role of multiple actors generate and shape conflicts over dam removal. We show that the historical geography of New England influence conflicts over removal in important ways, particularly with regard to the roles of aesthetics and identity in landscapes that are characterized largely by consumptive as opposed to productive uses. Our findings also suggest that restoration in long-humanized landscapes will embroil new constellations of human and nonhuman actors, requiring attention to the political and cultural, as well as the ecological, dimensions of restoration. This paper contributes to research on the political and social dimensions of dam removal, as well as to research at the nexus of ecological restoration and environmental politics.
In 2008, following an eight-year study by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the Town of Greenfield, Massachusetts (MA) agreed to remove both the Wiley and Russell and Mill Street dams as part of a broader river restoration project on the Green River. After town officials determined that removing the Mill Street Dam would be too costly due to upstream infrastructure issues, the focus of the project shifted to the Wiley and Russell Dam. The dam, which the MA State Office of Dam Safety had previously labeled as “high hazard,” blocks passage for migratory fish such as American eel, blueback herring, sea lamprey, and Atlantic salmon. It is, according to nearly all independent estimates, an economic liability that no longer serves its original purpose of providing power to 19th century industrial facilities. All told, 17 agencies and organizations, ranging from the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to Trout Unlimited, partnered in the proposed removal, spending >$500,000 over five years. Yet, in August of 2014, after a campaign by community members concerned about the loss of the dam and the landscape that it created, which “have been an essential part of the ecosystem for 200 years,” the Mayor of Greenfield unilaterally decided to halt the removal.
Similar stories are emerging across New England. In Warren, Vermont (VT) local townsfolk are fighting to preserve the village’s dilapidated crib dam (and surreptitiously repair it, if necessary) as a crucial element of the area’s industrial heritage, while the VT Agency of Natural Resources (ANR), the dam’s owner, has said that the structure is irredeemable and must go. In Durham, New Hampshire (NH), townspeople angrily protested in 2009 when state officials attempted to discuss removal of aging dams on the Oyster River ( ...). The proposal was subsequently dropped. In central Massachusetts, local residents galvanized a remarkably potent grassroots movement to protect a dam on the Swift River, with one man proclaiming that if “you kill the dam, you are killing a part of me” (Swift River Preservation Association, 2011). While many dam removals in New England have progressed with relatively little opposition, a significant number stall or fail completely, dividing communities (and even families), in the process. In contrast to the long-observed NIMBY (“not in my back yard”) phenomenon (see van der Horst, 2007), “not out of my backyard” (NOOMBY) is rapidly becoming the informal rallying cry of the individuals and groups opposing dam removal in the region.
The cases described above and others throughout New England raise intriguing questions about the political and social dimensions of efforts to restore, repair, or rehabilitate ecological systems in areas highly altered by human activities (Helford, 2000, Hobbs et al., 2011, Seastedt et al., 2008). Specifically, we ask: how do the historical and geographical contingencies of this region shape and alter conflicts over dam removal? In the instances where conflicts emerge in dam removal, what do those conflicts reveal about the politics of ecological restoration in highly altered landscapes? Accordingly, a goal of this paper is to investigate what the political ecology of dam removal in New England reveals about the changing nature of environmental conflicts and politics in what many have theorized as the Anthropocene epoch (Crutzen and Stoermer, 2000, Steffen et al., 2007, Castree, 2014, Ogden et al., 2013). Because environmental conflicts in the twenty-first century will increasingly center on intentional interventions to improve long-humanized landscapes according to specific (and often contested) ecological criteria, they will embroil new constellations of human and nonhuman actors, competing interpretations of nature, and complex cultural dynamics. An approach grounded in political ecology directs attention to the political and cultural dimensions of restoration, both of which could be more fully explored in the literature on ecological restoration.
Contested dam removals in New England are particularly interesting, since these conflicts are not primarily about access to and control over resources, which is often the case in other environmental conflicts across North America, where use of forests, restrictions on fishing, or access to land for grazing or mining are key issues (see Walker, 2003,Prudham, 2012). Rather, in this region conflicts over dam removal often involve a perceived loss of access to a cherished cultural and biophysical environment (the dammed landscape), as well as a sense among anti-removal voices that the dam removal process runs roughshod over community-based stewardship of “local” resources. The cases presented here contribute to a more robust understanding of environmental conflicts and environmental politics as played out in recent years in the US and further afield. Given recent calls to re-examine the epistemological and strategic foundations of US environmental politics (see Chaloupka, 2008, Buck, 2013) and, at a more global scale, to direct attention to multiple possible socioecological futures (see Braun, 2015,Mansfield et al., 2015), such an intervention seems timely. The paper proceeds with a discussion of a how a political–ecological approach facilitates a more critical examination of the political and social dimensions of ecological restoration by underscoring hitherto less visible aspects of the restoration literature. We also explicate our position on dam removal as a cogent example of a broad range of ecological interventions undertaken in the name of restoration. We then outline our methodological and epistemological framing, followed by a brief overview of the historical and current landscape of dams in New England. We follow with findings from our research, using key themes in political ecology to frame our analysis. We conclude with some thoughts on the implications of our findings for environmental politics and ecological interventions more generally.
