rivers

Once a wasteland, Howe Sound comes back to life

Humans can royally muck up the environment, but sometimes we can put things right again. Seven years ago, Vancouver's Howe Sound was a lifeless chemical stew, poisoned by contamination from a copper mine. And now, according to the Globe and Mail, there's this:

Sightings of grey whales, killer whales and schools of hundreds of white-sided dolphins are now being made regularly in the Sound, where massive herring spawns are once again occurring. “We are seeing the revitalization of an entire ecosystem. It is really uplifting,” said John Buchanan, a Squamish conservationist who voluntarily walks streams in the area to help count spawning salmon.

And this:

Destroying dams could save a salmon species

Twenty years and $350 million after President George H.W. Bush first signed an act to restore Washington State's Elwha River, the process to bring down two gigantic dams has begun. That could save the Elwha’s population of salmon.