million salmon would return to the columbia every year. now it s about a million. and most of those are hatchery fish with weaker genes and less fat than their wild cousins. so the southern resident killer whales that live on chinook are starving. there are only 73 of this kind of orca left on the planet. and after a grieving mom pushed her dead calf around pujet sound for weeks last summer, it rekindled a debate, salmon versus dams. what would you say to folks who say the best thing that could happen for these animals is to take these dams down? i d say for the army corps of engineers, we re looking to do the right thing. we re looking to operate the dams that are here while we re taking a close look at what the future of these dams are in the region. reporter: to find their birth stream, many chinook coming out
million salmon would return every year, the greatest salmon fishery in the world. and now it is about a million. reporter: and most of those are hatchery fish. with weaker genes and less fat than the wild cousins. so the southern resident killer whales that live on chinook are starving. there are only 73 of this kind of orca left on the planet. and after a grieving mom pushed her dead calf around puget sound for weeks it rekindled a decade s old debate, salmon versus dams. what would you say to folks that would say the best thing that could happen for these animals is to take the dams down? i would say for the army corp of engineers, we re looking to do the right thing. we re looking to operate the dams that are here while taking a close look at what the future of these dams are in the region. reporter: to find the birth stream, many chinook out of the
pacific must navigate eight dams. four on the columbia, four on the lower snake. these are the four that would likely come bound first. but removing a dam takes an act of congress. and will meet stiff resistance from special interests like wheat farmers who need dams and locks to float their crop to market. and since bonneville dam alone could provide carbon free power to a city the size of seattle, the debate divides on all sides. wee doing our best to improve the conditions through the migration and the river for the salmon and make sure that we keep power and fish could coexist in the columbia basin. reporter: but 13 species remain threatened or endangered even though the federal government has spend over $16 billion trying to make damned rivers more fish-friendly. yes. the salmon could cross the fish ladder but the columbia river is too hot. the reservoirs behind the dams