What are the climate emissions from dams and reservoirs, whether for irrigation, hydropower, watering the grass and flushing the toilets at our homes, flood control, or all of the above? The more scientists examine this question, the more the data shows the emissions are very large. So large, in fact, that in many places hydroelectricity has the same or even greater climate emissions as energy produced from fossil fuel sources. Emissions from dams storing irrigation water can double the climate emissions from agriculture. In this presentation, Ecologist Mark Easter will describe the life cycle emissions from constructing, operating, and inevitably decommissioning reservoirs, with examples of emissions from the four Klamath River Dams decommissioned in 2024, the four Lower Snake River Dams, and Hoover and Glen Canyon Dams. 

Mark Easter is an ecologist and greenhouse gas accountant who has researched the carbon emissions from food, forestry, fiber and water in academia and private industry for nearly three decades. He spent much of his career working with farmers, ranchers, water managers, foresters and scientists around the world, researching how historical and modern agriculture contributed to the warming climate, and identifying both new and old farming and ranching methods that not only reduce the dangerous climate emissions behind our daily plates of food, but reverse those emissions wherever possible by drawing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere back into the Earth’s ecosystems.