The West has been cooking in June. Even Seattle, which was avoiding the heat wave, is now expected to reach nearly 100 degrees for several record breaking days in a row beginning this weekend. Drought in California has reduced water levels in the reservoirs to record lows, and rationing water and power is being discussed from California to Texas.
At the same time, massive infrastructure bills are being discussed in Washington D.C., including how to accelerate a change over to clean renewable energy before things heat up so much that crops fail, fish die, and our lives are forever altered. The conclusion of most policy makers is that there is no one silver bullet, we must throw the whole kitchen sink at the climate change issue. It makes good business sense, they argue. We believe it does too. Because the fish in the rivers have been the canary in the coal mine, we have been focused on exactly these same issues for years, building the solutions that address it.
Only a short time ago, it seemed like we were in a very lonely place, while today we often get questions about our solutions from federal and state officials charged with addressing these issues. Our Passage Portal systems enable hydropower to produce more power without having to build new dams, and they do it by helping the fish past those dams without using massive amounts of water, while preserving the energy of the fish so they can get to safe havens in higher cooler waters faster, before the water in the lower elevations heat up to lethal levels.
We have a true win win solution. When the President talks about “Building Back Better” we agree. It doesn’t mean tearing down all the dams, it means being smarter and more efficient about how we use the water and power that they hold. It means having smarter fish passage systems that only let native fish into the rivers above, not non-native predators that compete for habitat. It means capturing more accurate real time data about the migrating fish, so that we can help manage the waters better. It means creating better economic models, and tax credits so that capital reaches the renewable energy industries such as hydropower and incentivizes their growth.
While we don’t like the extreme heat this summer, we like the renewed focus on combatting it, and we’re ready to play a role in it.
Vince
Vincent E Bryan III, CEO
Whooshh Innovations, Inc.