Mika Lappalainen | Saturday, 18 December 2021
Thursday evening I contacted Paul and asked if my FP could be on Saturday this week. On Friday afternoon I was invited to talk with power company, Kemijoki Oy. They have 8 dam in Kemi river, all without system that fish could pass. That river used to be best salmon river in Europe, over 60 years ago. If dam company wants to hear fisherman and guide, well you don’t say no, at least right away.
They say that one man can make a difference. They also say that one person’s action is not enough to make a difference. I don’t really give a shit what they say, if I got chance to make a difference I will take it, especially when it comes to fishery and fishing. So I drove from Kuusamo to Rovaniemi about 200 km to have this meeting. I didn’t have any expectation about meeting, I just knew that board wants to hear my thoughts.
That meeting was really interesting and we had could chat around fishing and river. And like everything, it is not black and white issue, first time in my life I thought that is just grey. First they showed me their plan to built first bypass flow to dam. For me it looked good even great, on that case they need to built some parts with technical bypass and rest will be natural. I really got feeling that they are into that.
We talked about fishing between dams. When bypass are ready there will be some restriction in fishing and locals have showed green light for that. It is huge step to future. Fishing restrictions in Finland are not easy to get in use, reason is that people who are fishing will decide about fishing rules localy also. Who would like to give up preference that you have got?
This year they have renovated one river which is first side river after first dam they have. WWF has checked that one and I was told that they have been happy about work, in this case I just have to believe it was like that. Shortly back to first bypass flow, company is now waiting permission from authoritative, and they will start work right away. That how it would go in dream world, I just hope that no-one complains about permission because it will easily take 5 more years to go thru. Of course there is chance that permission has so strict bounds that power company will complain by themselves.
Authoritative is using at the moment next scale, between dam there can be only 7 procent lost of running fish. It means that if there are 100 salmon top of first dam, over next dam there has to be 93 fish and after next 86 and so on. After 4 dam there has to be 70 fish going up. So 30 fish can be missing, there is over 10 rivers coming between those dams. And if fish are going on those smaller rivers they are not rising over next dam. Authoritative is using quite impossible scale to decide if bypass flow will work or not, or is it just me who is thinking that it is weird scale. For the smolt scale is that 60 procent has to make it to sea. Authoritative don’t think about natural lost of smolt, pikes, zander, fishing or rising fish deciding to go other river to spawn or fishing.
There is huge work to be done still. I do have good feeling about bypass flows. Company seems to built those and they are doing some other nature work also around rising fish. They want to have a new meeting with me on January. Yes, company is blocking river now. They are doing something to “free” it, dams have been built 60 years ago for social needs. Company has clear vision that they will built 4 bypass flows so river will be free all the way to Rovaniemi, where Ounasriver (which is unbuilt and free) meets Kemiriver. I know that everyone is not happy about this plan, for me it is first step and they will built 4 more bypass flows in coming years and ”free” whole Kemi river.
It is not black and white, it is just huge scale of grey. I have been throwing big rocks when talking with company earlier years, after this I will use little bit smaller rocks. They do listen when you use right stones. (at least I want to believe so)
Have a nice weekend
Mika the Legend