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Read the Undammed Press Release, including Author Q&A
Dams have always been news — they are ubiquitous, as old as civilization, and can be big enough to literally move the earth. However, Tara Lohan, in her new book, Undammed: Freeing Rivers and Bringing Communities to Life, chronicles a growing countervailing movement to remove dams and liberate natural streams.
I strongly recommend folks read Lohan’s author Q&A in her publisher’s press release, which provides an excellent overview of her journalistic approach to covering the topic of dam removals and summarizes her findings. In my following interview, Lohan discusses her literary influences, mitigation strategies for dam removals, and why it’s important to write water stories of hope.
Who do you consider to be the intended audience of Undammed? Another way of asking this might be, who do you most want to read Undammed?
Everyone! The book is written for a lay audience, so readers don’t need to be experts in water issues to understand it. But by writing about many dam removal projects that haven’t gotten national attention before, I hope even those with experience or interest in the field will also find it engaging. For those looking for a book that offers solutions to environmental problems, and a bit of hope in a time of darkness, then Undammed is it.
Was there a particular book or books that inspired you to write, or inspired you while you were writing, Undammed?
There were a lot that helped me along the way. But a few that top the list include Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Three Ages of Water by Peter Gleick, Watershed by Elizabeth Grossman, Running Silver by John Waldman, Finding the River by Jeff Crane, and the Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert.
What would you say is the thesis or central argument for Undammed?
I crisscrossed the country following dam removals big and small to see their impact on people and nature and I found a few things. The first is that the U.S. has a lot of dams, but thousands of them no longer serve a useful purpose. Many others are also unsafe or are doing significant harm. The need for a reckoning with our dams is paramount. Secondly, decades of dam removal work has shown amazing benefits for river restoration, but also sweeping benefits for communities, too, including for public safety, water quality, climate resilience, economics, recreation, and wildlife.
While environmentally damaging, dams have played an important role in water management for agricultural and urban water needs. What are the best practices for mitigating the impacts of dam removal on these needs?
In most cases I’ve seen dams that provide for critical water needs aren’t removed unless an engineered solution can be worked out. For example, a diversion dam was removed on the Middle Fork of the Nooksack River in 2020. The dam provided water for the city of Bellingham, Washington, but a new water intake system was built upstream that allows the city to still keep its water source without needing to block the river to withdraw water. The dam removal restored 16 miles of habitat for imperiled salmon and steelhead.
Similarly along the Cuyahoga River in Ohio, a diversion dam that directed water into a canal was removed and replaced with a pump that can siphon flows without impeding the river.
Sometimes water sources are no longer needed. I visited a dam removal site on Chest Creek in Pennsylvania where the town switched from using river water for its water supply to groundwater and no longer needed the dam and reservoir.
In some places it may be possible to store water in aquifers instead of reservoirs to eliminate the need for dams and to better protect water supplies from evaporation.
What book(s) would you like to see next to Undammed on the water shelf? Are there specific books that you think would pair well with Undammed, that you see Undammed in dialogue with, either reinforcing, challenging, or playing off each other’s arguments?
There are three books that take deep dives into some of the watersheds in Undammed that are both beautiful and necessary reading: The Water Remembers by Amy Bowers Cordalis about her family’s fight for the Klamath River; Life After Deadpool by Zak Podmore about the future of Lake Powell and the Colorado River; and Catherine Schmitt’s look at the fate of Atlantic salmon, The President’s Salmon.
What was the process like for getting Undammed published? What is your advice for anyone writing about water?
The process of putting together a book proposal is a bit laborious. There’s a lot of up-front work that’s needed. But after I submitted that to Island Press, which was a publisher I had been a fan of for years, the process moved quite quickly.
For anyone writing about water, I’d say, “Thank you, and keep going.” This is critical work to be doing now and I appreciate those who stay engaged in it. I know from experience that it can also be difficult and disheartening. Finding stories of hope, like dam removals, has kept me going. I hope that others find their spark of light.
