An Environmental Disaster

Floor Speech

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Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I am speaking out today about an issue that has been going on in the northern part of my district in northern California. They are touting it, of course, as one of the biggest dam removal projects in American history, but it also is turning out to be one of the biggest environmental disasters in American history.

You can see right here the plume. This is the Klamath River, and this is one of the tributaries that feeds into it. This dark muck that is coming down is a result of what they have done to tear down dams or cut loose the material at the bottom of them under the drain.

This is a tributary coming in with winter water on that. It is kind of greenish and such. So you see, it is two different diverging bodies of water that is turning into muck, and it is an unbelievable mess there. It is killing wildlife, killing fish.

The Klamath River project used to make 70,000 households' worth of clean electricity. Good-paying jobs are very important to Siskiyou County. Now, the project, indeed, is an assault on the people who live there in the basin that are opposed to this, but outsiders are coming in to tear this out.

At a time when the U.S. is trying to electrify everything-- automobiles, stoves, leaf blowers, and everything else--they are taking out clean, hydroelectric power.

The chromium levels in this material, the pollutants in there, is unbelievable. There is a lot more to this story. Keep watching to see what is going on with this Klamath River system and the disaster that it is becoming.

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