After 70 million years on earth, the fate of the pallid sturgeon depends on what officials decide to do about a single dam, says High Country News. A prehistoric-looking fish with ghostly white skin, the species is down to fewer than 125 wild-born adults in Montana’s upper Missouri River Basin.
“While the Yellowstone is nominally the longest free-flowing river in the lower 48, migrating pallids find their passage blocked by Intake Diversion Dam, a chain of jagged boulders near the town of Glendive (Montana) that raises water levels just enough to shunt flows into an irrigation canal,” says High Country. “The diversion, authorized by Congress in 1904, provides water for some 200 family farms and 58,000 acres of sugar beets, barley and hay.”
The federal government has proposed replacing Intake with a so-called fish-friendly dam that would offer a side channel for the sturgeon to swim down. But conservationists argue that pallid sturgeon are extremely difficult to steer down tight passageways, and that the only way to really help the fish is to do away with the idea of a dam altogether. “The government wants to spend $57 million despite not having any certainty about whether it will provide tangible results,” says Steve Forrest, senior Rockies and Plains representative with Defenders of Wildlife.
Forrest and others would rather install pumps that could draw water from the Missouri into a drainage ditch meant for farmers. But at $138 million, that plan is more than twice as expensive as the government’s and would require an additional $2 million for yearly upkeep. As the debate continues, America’s pallid sturgeon are dying off one by one.
To learn more about the fate of sturgeon and their relatives, the paddlefish, read FERN’s story, “Caviar’s Last Stand,” by Michelle Nijhuis and co-produced with Medium.