Popular Science - USA (2020 - Spring)

offshore, a long

line of floats marking the location of traps

runs parallel to the beach. The operation

provided an unexpected economic boost.

Of the 1,605 dams toppled nationwide

since 1912, the two on the Elwha remain the

largest, according to the advocacy organiza-

tion American Rivers. Some 1,200 have come

down in 46 states and the District of Co-

lumbia in the two decades after the Interior

Department’s Babbitt, who led the agency

under President Bill Clinton, made river

restoration a priority. In 1999, the Edwards

Dam in Augusta, Maine, became the first

major hydroelectric dam razed by the fed-

eral government. The structure, built in 1837

to power bygone grain mills along the Ken-

nebec River, nearly killed off the herring,

striped bass, and sturgeon. Today the water-

way draws sport fishers, and the city gained

a popular riverfront district with a park,

pavilion, and kayak and canoe launch.

To keep the momentum going, American

Rivers is working with public agencies and

private organizations to bring down dozens

more dams throughout New England, and

restore riparian habitats across the nation.

Meanwhile, the Army Corps of Engineers

is considering the future of two

dams at St. Anthony Falls, where

the Mississippi River flows

through Minneapolis. Authorities

hope to breach four others on the

Klamath River in Northern Cali-

fornia within the next few years,

a move that would reclaim 300

miles of salmon-spawning habitat.

Major projects like that at-

tract a lot of attention, but the

cumulative impact of many more-

modest removal plans could yield

equally profound ecological and

economic dividends. “You can

get a lot of species recovery and

some very diverse ecosystem recovery with

much-smaller sledgehammers,” Doyle, the

Duke University hydrologist, says. Now that

the usefulness of these man-made barriers

has run its course, it is time to let the rivers

they restrain return to theirs.

RUN WILD, RUN FREE

(CONTINUED FROM P. 61)

BIGGEST. DIG. EVER.

with what has
become an increasingly unpopular infrastruc-
ture project. Prime Minister Boris Johnson
ordered a review to determine whether the
rail should be scrapped because of balloon-
ing costs and delays. Critics argue that the
benefits won’t outweigh the environmental
disruption, the land seizures, and the finan-
cial burden to taxpayers. The community
around Euston Station protested the con-
struction, which gouged a green space, and
leveled homes, offices, and hotels, displacing
longtime residents who complained about
shoddy compensation. The vicar of a nearby
church even chained herself to a tree.
In such a controversial effort, any inciden-
tal cultural benefits are bound to conjure a
degree of suspicion. “I’m fascinated by the
stories that the dig at St. James’s Gardens is
helping to bring to light,” says Brian Logan,
the artistic director of the Camden People’s
Theater, located at the doorstep of the site.
“But I think you can be enthusiastic about

archaeology while being a little skeptical of

the purposes to which it’s being put.” In the

first act of a 2019 performance that dealt with

those issues, Logan knocked the project’s PR

department for casting the rail as a bonanza

for discovery: “Is archaeology really a profes-

sion we want to run on a bonanza basis?”

In the era of developer-led digging, that’s

a question practitioners are reckoning with

too. Costain archaeologist Raynor, whose

focus now turns from St. James’s to the 15

miles of track leading out of Euston Station,

would at least agree that her profession lacks

sustainability. According to Darvill, half of ar-

chaeologists work in jobs tied to construction.

Bonanza-like conditions also create a

gold rush of information—a blessing and

a curse. With overstuffed basements, mu-

seums around the world face a storage

crisis, and more digging might only com-

pound the problem, especially now that

archaeologists consider sites as recent as

World War II worthy of study. Raynor sees

the management of all that information as

the bigger challenge— not just for scientific

analysis, but also for public consumption.

The excavation at St. James’s alone gener-

ated 3.5 terabytes of data. “It loses meaning

if you don’t communicate it,” she says.

Luckily, communication is the easier

piece of the puzzle. In Raynor’s experience,

people viscerally react to pots, bowls, tools,

and other bric-a-brac from the past. “As

human beings, our wants, needs, and desires

haven’t changed that much,” she says.

While the saga of HS2 is still being

written, those small finds might resonate as

much with the public as the discoveries of

icons, like Matthew Flinders, whose life sto-

ries are embedded in the UK’s ever-changing

stratigraphy. Flinders himself wouldn’t rec-

ognize Euston Station today, nor would

he have thought he’d be an interesting

scientific specimen. For better or worse, he

helped chart a course through history, only

to find himself in its path.

(CONTINUED FROM P. 93)

AN

SW

ER

(^) K
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OR
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118 SPRING 2020 / POPSCI.COM