By studying hydropower dams, WVU researchers shed light on pitfalls of natural resource extraction

Nov. 15—MORGANTOWN — The research of Carolina Arantes might focus on a region more than 3,000 miles away from WVU's Morgantown campus, but its implications reach as far as rural West Virginia.

Arantes, an assistant professor at West Virginia University's Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design, who has long studied the relationship between Amazon communities and ecosystems, has recently been examining the impact of mega dams constructed along the Madeira River, which extends across Bolivia and Brazil.

These dams were constructed to create hydropower, converting the flow of water into electricity. While hydropower can be a beneficial means of generating energy, Arantes said that, like any form of environmental modification, it has changed the experiences of people and other organisms who call the Madeira River region home.

Specifically, Arantes said her work focuses on fishing in the river. She is researching how the construction of hydropower dams changed the fishing industry socioeconomically, as well as how it impacted fish abundance and biodiversity.

"My research program in general is addressing the effects of global processes [on] aquatic systems and biodiversity," Arantes said.

In much of the Global South, including the Amazon, Arantes said large-scale hydropower dams have been constructed without a full understanding of the impact they have on local communities and wildlife.

After dam construction, rivers might experience reduced fishing and an expansion in fish habitats due to flooding. This might cause fish populations and biodiversity to surge at first, but in the long term environmental disruption from dam construction has been linked to a loss in both abundance and biodiversity.

Around the Madeira River, the construction of dams also spurred the forced relocation of many families with ancestral ties to the river basin, who had to move upwards of 50 miles because the area surrounding the dams would be flooded, Arantes said.

With increased distance from the river, many long-time participants in the local fishing industry found other jobs, and overall fishery productivity in the river fell by 37% after the dam was constructed, according to Arantes's research.

"A lot of the communities around these areas are heavily reliant on fisheries," said Sam Grinstead, a WVU graduate student who works with Arantes on her research. Dams in the river are "permanently inundating places that were never before inundated — places where people used to live and fish."

Not only does disrupting fishing practices curb sources of socioeconomic development within the region, but it could also erase "Indigenous knowledge of fishing techniques" developed over generations, he said.

Local communities do not always reap the benefits of the dams' construction either, Grinstead said. "These hydropower dams might be providing power for cities far away," but "the local communities tend to suffer when the dams are created."

For Arantes, demonstrating the negative impacts these dams can have, in addition to the resilience of local communities in adjusting to changing environmental conditions, urges companies involved in their construction to consider the socioeconomic and environmental implications of their projects.

Pursuing alternative or mixed forms of sustainable energy, like solar power and wind turbines, can help reduce the overall burden on river communities whose waterways are claimed for dam construction, Arantes said.

Arantes and Grinstead agreed that their research's broader lesson of the dangers of unmitigated environmental modification and resource extraction can be applied around the world, even in West Virginia.

"A through line between West Virginia and these dam developments is industrial exploitation of small, vulnerable communities," Grinstead said. "Big industry coming in, telling a small community that something they're going to build is going to give them jobs and opportunity and economic stability, whereas what's really happening from the industry is exploitation of people that live there."

When dam construction companies arrived in the Madeira basin they often told residents the dams would provide jobs or financial opportunities, but instead they merely usurped preexisting industries and ways of life, Grinstead said.

Whether it be the fishing industry in the Amazon or the mining industry in West Virginia, the "extraction of finite resources" for "economic gain typically in the short term" greatly changes ways of life, and can leave communities and ecosystems vulnerable, Grinstead added.

Arantes hopes that her research can lead companies and local governments to reconsider how they engage with energy and development projects, seeking alternatives that support the needs of those who call home the regions under consideration.

And supporting their needs after dam construction requires both financial aid and new approaches to renewable energy, she said.

"The main message that we take from that is the dam companies should really be compensating fairly, thinking how to implement fair and just compensation to this community," Arantes said. "The government should be thinking about how to combine the dams that already exist with other potential sources of renewable energy."

Reach Jack Walker by email at jwalker@timeswv.com.