River Management. Technological Challenge or Conceptual Illusion? Salmon Weirs and Hydroelectric Dams on the Kemi River in Northern Finland - Implementing Environmental and Resource Management - page 242

turbed, among which the disappearance of salmon 10 was only one, albeit probably
the economically most significant. Other locally highly valued fish species, such
as grayling and trout, need a river habitat with fast-flowing and oxygen-rich water
at least during one crucial stage in their life cycle; exactly these habitats, however,
are the very rapids that have to be dammed for hydroelectricity production. The
vanishing of grayling and trout leaves the river to other species, that many people
consider hardly worthwhile catching. Arguably, this is one of the factors why the
inhabitants of the river's banks do not engage with its waters as much as they used
to. Another reason for this might be that today the river is - in many places - ab-
sent from the acoustic environment: whereas a rapid is constantly present acousti-
cally for the surrounding population, the pool that stretches for kilometres up-
stream from hydropower stations is mostly inaudible. Furthermore, the regulation
of the river's flow regime changed the ice conditions along its course, thereby of-
ten compromising popular winter practices such as ice-fishing and moving on fro-
zen watercourses by ski or snowmobile.
19.6 Challenges to Hydroelectricity Production
Regulating the river is necessary to adjust the rhythm of the river to the rhythm of
electricity consumption. It has to flow more intensely during morning and after-
noon peaks of microwave and electric light use. Its spring flood waters should be
contained for electrical heating during the next winter. And - particularly in times
where carbon dioxide emissions have to be curbed - every drop of water that is al-
lowed down the river without turning the turbines is a waste of energy, or even a
furthering of global warming. People have to manage the river, determine how it
flows and thereby decide what is and is not to live there.
But, does the power company actually succeed in such a control? Can its com-
puter systems and concrete masses really determine how the Kemi River flows?
To what extent is such a view - that a river can be made to conform to a strategy
thought out in a control room or determined by the electricity market - an illu-
sion? In how far can solid structures and hard data control a river? Turning away
from the stark impressions of the control room and the armoured concrete struc-
tures of the hydropower stations and focussing on the actual tasks of those engi-
neers and other staff who actually make the decisions about how to produce a par-
ticular amount of electricity with a current state of the river, helps to qualify this
issue. In many ways, of course, these actors do manipulate the river substantially:
controlling generator intakes, floodgates and reservoir outlets with just a click on a
computer gives them considerable power over some of the river's processes. But
naturally there is more to a river than these mechanical structures. The state of the
river not only depends on how far floodgates or generator intakes are opened or
10 Damming the river's mouth led not only to the displacement of salmon, but of other mi-
gratory fish species as well, most notably - in terms of local use - white fish and lam-
prey.