Looking back, its clear that one major recurring theme for 2008 was environmental responsibility. Not just in our normal daily activities, but in our shops as well. Many companies are feeling the pressure to “go green” and many individuals are measuring their worth by the size of their carbon footprint (not my favorite term). So its no surprise that woodworkers are becoming concerned about how their behavior impacts the environment. In the last few months alone, I have received a number of emails dealing in one way or another with environmental issues. These emails come from well-meaning individuals who should be commended for their pro-active approach. But the same thing happens at the end of each email: I am left wanting more information, more statistics, and more concrete solutions. Of course there are the standard recommendations like “use water based finishes and dyes”, “use recycled wood”, and “use wood from sustainable resources”. I have two problems with these generic solutions: First, they are easier said than done. Water-based finishes can be tricky to apply, and although they are getting better, the finish does not yet match what we get from traditional lacquers and oil-based finishes. So its not all that appealing for people to switch. And depending on where you live, buying local, sustainable, or recycled lumber may be difficult or impossible. My second issue is one of knowledge, meaning, what is the REAL impact of me buying that one mahogany board? If every hobbyist stopped using exotics, what would be the potential impact on the industry? What percentage of the wood from these exotic forest-clearing efforts actually goes to hobbyists and individual craftsmen, and how much goes into other areas like the flooring and cabinet industries. I am hungry for facts, not hearsay. And some of the conversations I see in forums about this topic remind me of the recent high fructose corn syrup commercials.
I really have mixed feelings on this. I am always game for helping the environment, but only when it makes sense. And some things just don’t add up. I completely understand the concept of everyone doing their part. But even if every Joe/Jane Woodworker in his/her small shop stopped using solvent-based lacquers and oil-based finishes, would that still just be a drop in the bucket when compared to all the big companies out there spraying industrial coatings for flooring and kitchen cabinets? I guess what I want to know is will our efforts be rewarded with more than just a clear conscience? Or should we be focusing our attention on getting legislation passed that will affect the industry at large? I don’t know the answers, I’m just posing the questions.
I have always been the kind of person who never just took someone’s word for it. If you tell me something is bad for me, I want to know why. And when someone says we should stop using exotics because its hurting the environment, I want to know more information before making any major decisions. So this is pretty much a request for information from anyone who can contribute. Some of the things I would like to learn:
Statistics concerning exotic lumber sales and the impact of the small-shop woodworker. Any information you can provide about foreign logging industries and their business practices. More information on where people can buy recycled lumber. If you use recycled lumber, where do you get it? How can we make sure we are buying lumber from sustainable resources? Some guidelines would be great. Are any exotics considered “acceptable”, and if so, why?
I would like to also start a thread on the Wood Whisperer Forum that goes along with this post. The forum will allow for a lengthier discussion as well as uploading of pictures/documents that might be relevant to the topic at hand.
45 Responses to “Environmental Responsibility (Yep, I’m going there!)”
My thoughts exactly!! I am about to start final finish on my end tables (waiting on warmer weather) and I am currently planning on using polyacrylic semi-gloss more for (1) convenience of cleanup/handling, and (2) quick drying so it avoids dust nibs better than slower drying oil based. Third and last is it is lower voc and more environmentally friendly, but for two end tables, we’re talking minuscule contribution, considering that here in the Washington, DC, area, impact is less than minuscule.
Although I am probably going to use polyacrylic, I do have a bit of concern about whether I will truly be happy with it in daily use in the living room.
Let us know where the forum thread is.
Say it ain’t so. Al Gore has gotten to you too.
I think the “green” movement, while well intentioned at the small level, has been picked up as a marketing item and is now being pushed and exploited to the max. If you try to go “green” it is going to cost you some green.
I’m a little saddened to have read this on a woodworking site. :( My escape has been infiltrated.
I’m kind of surprised at your response Jason. I really thought the tone of the article was one of cautious skepticism. I share your feelings on the marketing of the green movement and all I am asking for is information that can substantiate some of the claims I hear. I want facts before I make any drastic decisions. I really don’t think this is a pro-”green” blog post, do you?
Whether we like it or not, there are social pressures at play these days that are effecting change. While I don’t believe everything I hear/read, I do think completely ignoring it would be irresponsible of me.
Anything I read about environmentalism is done with skepticism. Unfortunately, I seem to have done the same with your post. My viewpoint is biased as everything I see or hear is done to shame me or persuade me to buy something and I don’t always agree with that approach.
I did not mean to attack you and hope you took no offense. You’re the “Norm Abram” of the next generation, I’m 27, and look forward to your work for years to come. I was just voicing my opinion in hopes that the tone and direction of what I enjoy wouldn’t veer to the extreme.
No offense taken man. Understandable reaction. I will admit to almost instinctively rolling my eyes when I read one of those doom and gloom articles. lol. But that’s the reason for this post. At the very least, if we have some facts to work with, people will be able to make the right decisions for themselves.
Wow, Marc, nicely put! Very timely topic.
This has often weighed heavily on my mind as the company I work for is largely involved in “Green Collar†and renewable resource projects and initiatives. Environmental issues and conservation are a main focus of our business so we are exposed to it daily. Just yesterday we hosted a ‘Renew Year’ seminar with Home Depot and others to discuss this very thing. However, even with this much exposure many (I would guess most) of us still find it difficult to walk the talk. It is getting easier though.
Of course we should all do our part; I think everyone would agree with that. But the lack of statistics/facts as they pertain to the average woodworker is probably too small to measure at this point. So, until we have that info, I suggest we continue to fight the good fight and make conscious decisions about our materials and deliberate efforts to find out as much as we can about where they come from and what impact they have on the environment. With practice, it will become much easier.
This is a double edged sword – even though I do find myself thinking about all of these issues, they tend to take a back seat whenever I come across an incredible piece of cocobolo or bubinga. I guess I’m a hypocrite with a conscious but venture to say I am not the only one.
I agree with Jason. Green has become a marketing buzzword on par with Organic. Sad. Very sad.
Marc,
Though I agree that the hobbiest woodworker makes a very small relative impact on the environment when it comes to use of exotic materials or even chemical solvents, I do believe that small changes can make a huge difference. If every hobbiest were to realize the personal benefits of switching to water-based finishes (clean-up, dry time & low VOC’s) then maybe they start thinking about their environmental impact in other parts of thier lives. In my opinion, the best way to make a big impact is to get a large group of people to make one small change.
If woodworkers start to realize that water-based finishes hold up over time than perhaps they’ll start requesting similar finished on the mainstream projects that they purchase. Personally, I love the hobby of woodworking but I can’t imagine building all of my own cabinets when it comes time to remodel my kitchen. That said, you can bet that when that time comes, I’ll be looking for a cabinet shop that offers an environmentally friendly option, even if it costs me a little more.
Kudos for bringing up a topic that will reflexively irk some folks (who probably need to learn to read your whole post before writing a comment).
My prediction is that you will find that what we (hobbyists) matter almost not at all. If you look at the amount of wood and finishing materials used by the cabinet industry in the US and the furniture industry in China, we woodworkers are tiny. I mean TINY. That’s not to say I think we should be willfully irresponsible, but in practical terms we’re going to have a much greater effect by shaping opinion than adjusting our consumption.
My choices for wood and finishing products will remain utilitarian, although maybe some day that will change. For example, I can’t imagine buying lead paint or ivory today. I’m sure there will be something that is commonplace now that will seem equally absurd 10 or 20 years from now.
Read the entire post. I suppose I should have checked my emotions and opinions after reading the headline. Better yet I could have not posted at all. Thanks for the info Matt.
Hi Jason, I agree: Marc probably invited some negative comments by less than ideal choice of headline. Maybe making the title be “environmental responsibility (what are the facts?)” would have been better?
I think just having the word environment in there would invite negative comments. :)
How about making the caption be “Env… Nevermind, Read the Whole Post (Dammit)”. I’m afraid there is no way around it: you will attract highly opinionated people with this one…
I’ll try to give my opinion about this subject the best as I can. English is not my first language.
I live in Chile South America, I’m very far away of the green propaganda and I can talk about what I see here.
The fact that you have a certified source of lumber in a third world country doesn’t mean anything. In South America, and I believe that in Africa too, the big companies do what they want with the forest.
Just doing some maths, how can you sustain a forest of trees of 500 years old? If you cut some trees, are you going to put a new tree of the same specie? It’s going to take another 500 years to grow.
How a forest of trees like that can be a sustainable resource? It cannot. It’s impossible.
What the companies do here, they replace the trees with regular pine, eucalyptus or any other specie that grow fast.
What I do about it? I know that I cannot make a difference. But I don’t use wood that came from trees that take more than 80 years to be ready. Why? Because I cannot be sure about were the wood came from, even if they say that is all legal.
And why I do it if I’m not doing any difference?
The answer for me is simple, because I care my planet and if nobody else cares, I will still do it.
I think your scientific background is helping you much on this subject, Marc. I’m old enough to remember activists predicting the world’s fresh water supply would be gone by the mid 1980s. I remember activists predicting population explosions would result in the doom of the human race; and it was going to happen long before the 21st century.
And now we’re hearing everything we do, including breathing, is killing the planet. Well, I’m willing to be environmentally friendly, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
It’s a good idea to find out what’s really going on and not just listen to activists. For example, I used to recycle and learned my recyclables were ending up a landfill because there was no market for them. By putting this stuff on a separate truck bound for the same destination as the trash truck, it seems to me I was adding to the problem.
I commend you, Marc, for asking for further information. Unfortunately, you’re not going to get it. I doubt anyone could produce any hard data demonstrating how my opening of a can of Arm-R-Seal is going to make any difference to the planet. Or, everyone who opens a can of Arm-R-Seal, for that matter. Setting fire to thousands of acres of rainforest is certainly bad for our orbiting, spherical life support system. But making a trestle table is not.
Long-time reader, first-time commenter.
I’m relatively new to woodworking, and I don’t have any answers to Marc’s questions; but I would like to address Jason’s and Pete’s comments up the thread: It is true that the green movement has been commoditized, that “being green” has become a sort of status symbol, and that this has resulted in the end-user cost of green products to be quite high. What needs to be pointed out is that this is not a bad thing – it’s just our market economy doing it’s thing. As supply begins to keep up with demand, prices will drop, green products will become ubiquitous, and the feeling that we’re being sold a buzzword will fade. Like Mattias said, 10 or 20 years from now “green” products will be as common as lead-free paint is today. You will rarely even see the word “green” used, because it will no longer differentiate products as special – like “lead-free,” the term “green” will be almost a given.
It’s important to point this out because the newness of the market for green products, plus the lack of reliable information about what exactly is green and what isn’t, plus the inevitable feeding frenzy of marketers trying to increase their profits by “greensploitation”, create an atmosphere where some people dismiss the whole thing as BS (I mean, $250 for a sheet of bamboo plywood? Gimme a break!) But there are very real, tangible merits to the green movement. We just have to wait for the (saw)dust to settle so we can reliably enjoy the benefits of it.
Best,
Al.
P.S. – Awesome blog and podcast, guys!
Good or bad for the environment, I’d be pretty sad to see exotic woods start to slim out in the woodworking community. I feel that half of the joy of being a woodworker is being able to sift through the grains and colors of exotics. I can’t imagine being a woodworker if my only medium could be local woods (unless its figured) and mdf.
I’ve known people to drive around looking for old dilapidated barns that they offer to tear down for the small price of taking all the wood they find. I think thats great if you like barn wood but if you are doing it to be green, you are wasting you time just by driving around to look for the stuff.
Great topic, I’d like to hear some statistics too. Maybe I can get my mom to feel guilty about putting in those Brazilian Cherry floors.
Bravo for not just drinking the Green kool-aid… while just broaching the subject seems to have set off some people’s cynic radar, and understandably so — we live in cynical times — it’s not unreasonable to ask these kinds of questions. In fact, it would be irrational to just buy into they Green agenda and NOT ask them.
Not that I have anything of substance to contribute, mind you, but I do love to hear myself talk… B-)
I met with a designer today and we were discussing my “going green”. She thought it was a great idea. NOT from the marketing view but from a social view. Yes, I’m one little person who will switch over to “green” products. How does that compare to the big companies who aren’t? Personally, I don’t care. I have to look at what is MY impact on this planet. We all get to choose to make a difference. My going green will probably have a negilible impact on this planet, but it will have a huge impact on how I feel about living on this planet. Just my two cents. Incidently, I was researching “going green” when this website article came up. I had to chime in.
Bravo!
The cautious approach is the best one in most situations, especially one like this where emotion tends to overpower facts and statistics.
Hi Marc
The title of your article made me nervous but I’m glad I read it because I appreciate a young person with a healthy dose of skepticism, which is the exception nowadays.
I disagree with the premise that woodworkers are harming the environment by using exotic woods. A tree is a tree, they suck in CO2 and expel O2. Whether it’s African or Honduran Mahogany or a trash tree like Eucalyptus.
What we woodworkers are doing is keeping this wood out of landfills. My wife, family and friends refuse to throw out every project I’ve ever made. From the piece of crap un-level bookshelf made out of reclaimed pine boards to the entertainment system I just completed, all of the wood used would eventually be wasting away in a landfill somewhere.
One thing just occurred to me… when it comes to groceries, my wife is a champion of “buy local” — we want to support farmers in our area and buy as much of our food as we can at the local markets.
So when there are choices to be made in woodworking materials, there’s every good reason to choose locally harvested wood. No sense burning up tons of jet fuel to bring me something from Africa when this lovely local hardwood will do the same job.
I have to agree to that! Especially after all the wind storms we have had in the Portland, Oregon area lately! Mother nature has given up an abundance of local wood. Too bad some of it ended up in homes before it became beautiful furniture!
Lots of good comments on this one Marc!
I have another point of view as I work in a cabinet shop that does mostly commercial work. Hospitals, restaurants, office buildings, schools. That sort of thing. What I have noticed is that quite a bit of the quote “GREEN” material that we are asked to use on jobs is not so much wood as wood based products or I should say they used to be wood based products! Now the fiber board is made from wheat fiber or some other grass. MDF has been replaced with a product that is supposedly more environmentally responsible except that it is not as good as MDF.(That is not saying much) All of these green products are much more costly to buy and they are not as durable which means they will have to be replaced sooner due to damage and wear. It reminds me of CFL’s compact fluorescent lights. They are supposed to be GREEN but they forgot to mention that your not supposed to put them in your trash and they shouldn’t go into landfills and if one breaks in your house you are being exposed to an unhealthy amount of mercury! I maybe wrong but I never thought that problem existed with tungsten filament bulbs. Sorry, off the subject. I do have to agree with Jason that it seems too often it is about the money not really the planet! I agree that we should be responsible. Shouldn’t do stupid things like pouring old paint, stain, or other finish down the drain but we do need to know what is truly a good thing vs. what is “CHIC” at the time. ;-)
Actually the so called “unhealthy” CFLs contain less than 3 milligrams of Mercury per bulb. The standard household mercury thermometer that you have probably had in your mouth at least once in your life contains 500 mg Hg. That means that it would take 125 CFLs to equal the amount of mercury in one thermometer. The amalgam filling that a dentist can put in your mouth contains 100 times more mercury than a CFL. Just for reference, the lethal dose of mercury to humans is thought to be between 1 to 4 g (even as much as 200 g!!!) depending on which type of mercury and how you ingest it. That would mean, at MINIMUM, there would have to be 250 CFLs break simultaneously in your home and you would have to somehow ingest ALL of that mercury for it to potentially be life threatening.
And you can throw them in the trash if a recycle program is not available in your area. Just make sure it’s sealed in two plastic bags before you do so.
And for more informative literature:
http://www.energystar.gov/ia/p.....ercury.pdf
http://rais.ornl.gov/tox/profi.....f_V1.shtml
Before spreading erroneous information you might want to check your facts. Ignorance is not an excuse.
3 milligrams times oh say 30 lights per household times what about 400 million people or 100 million homes in the US(remember it will be law that you have to buy them)and just how many people are going to double bag anything going to the trash and there is the problem with when the light breaks, broken glass doesn’t care much about plastic bags. Glass tends to make it’s own why out. But at least your thinking about the details. There is another analogy you can use. It is that cough syrup has a very very small amount of alcohol in it and won’t hurt anyone or make them drunk but it is enough to have disastrous results to someone that is an alcoholic. Sometimes a little can do a lot of damage. Thanks for the feed back :-)
There are more statistics regarding mercury on the Energy Star site. Specifically, as incandescent bulbs use more energy, and most of that energy comes from burning coal, incandescents actually “generate” 2x more mercury over their lifetimes than CFLs, including the mercury in the bulb and the energy used.
I’m with you Marc! When people at NASA and CERT start to say that they are unsure about our impact on the earth and the fact that the ice caps are now back to 1976 levels (sorry i can’t site this i can’t find the artical) then it makes it hard for me to believe that there is anything i can to to harm the earth. Furthermore, I think that humans are arrogant to think we could wreck the earth, i think she would get rid of us before that would happen.
Back to making sawdust
Matt,
The ice grew back some in the winter of 2007-2008, a whole lot in area and also some in thickness, but the following summer both the northeast and northwest passage were open at the same time. That’s a first, ever. No, we’re not done worrying about the ice caps (if that’s the sort of thing you like to worry about).
Here’s an interesting article about a shipping line that was able to cut 4000 nautical miles off the trip between Europe and Japan because of this fact:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....melts.html
I imagine they also save a nice amount off the Panama canal fees. Here’s the Wikipedia article about the ice caps with lots of references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_ice_packs
But I do think the point about the Earth not caring one bit about us is very true. There is no such thing as “Save the Earth”. What does that even mean? We’re stuck on a small ball of churning lava with a wafer thin crust, spinning around a small star, and anything we do pretty much will be contained on the planet. In a million years I’m betting there will be absolutely no trace of us whatsoever. Our environment seems really static and unchanging to us, but that’s because we only have a few thousand years of recorded history. That’s peanuts.
So what we’re saving, if anything, is our own environment. Or maybe rather we’re trying to prevent it from changing. That itself is a pretty nutty idea. How do we know how we affect the environment? Of course everything we do has some effect, but what should we care about? I guess CFCs in hair spray and refrigeration systems was bad, so now we get Cancer from being in the sun. What else? Who knows. We don’t know for sure until it’s probably too late, and the only way to get people to change their habits is to try your best to scare the crap out of them which (maybe) saves the environment and (definitely) creates cynics. What a wonderful world it is. I agree we should all go back to making sawdust and let other people worry about this.
Whoops, wrong about the Beluga Shipping routes. They plan to do that next summer, and as opposed to going through Suez, not Panama. The big deal is that they would be able to do this without ice breaker assistance, and that’s how they save. Oh well, so much for facts.
“I guess what I want to know is will our efforts be rewarded with more than just a clear conscience?”
Do you need a “reward” for doing the right thing?
Is a clear concience not enough to start with?
Human actvity is accelerating the problems of the world.
Fact.
Wake up America – Use your fresh start for good.
Yours in wood.
Facts,Statistics—depends on where you get them. You can make statistics say anything you want them to. This is just another way for “BIG BROTHER” to cash in on going “GREEN”.
The social pressures are causing business to get on the “green” band wagon so they can cash in also, who could blame them, they have stock holders to answer to. No one wants to be blamed for hurting the planet. I believe it is so arrogant of us to believe that human activity is having any impact on our environment, it’s much bigger that all of us. I would do nothing to damage the planet I live on, as I know no of would, but we have to get real here. This is an incroachment on our freedom.
As FDR said, and I’m not a big fan of him, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”, is exactly what I believe is happening. We are being manipulated through fear.
If we let this “green” movement escalate, it will become much more in the future than any of us could imagine today.
Someone once said “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.†I really want to see the stats as well. Marc I think you are on to something here, no matter the outcome. If I’m screwing things up, I will try to fix myself. If I’m not making a dent, I really don’t want to be bothered. That’s the selfish capitalist kind of guy that I am.
Cheers
p
Its not about being “green”, which I accept can be over used and over comercialised, its about doing the right thing personally and as a society. Cutting down trees, digging huge holes for a wee diamond, daming rivers etc etc will surley have an impact on the planet and our environment. Sayin “the big guys do it so whats the point” or ” look at china” (both of which are very true doe’nst absolve any of us from the reponsibilty of not trashing the place. I’m not a sack wearing tree hugger. I live in house with modern appliances etc but I do think we all need some kind of social concience about the way we live and the things we use (and don’t reuse), both in your continent and mine.
The key word here to me is “personally”. Personal resposibility. Do the right thing according your morals.
Prove to me that the cutting of a tree, digging a hole for a diamond, or damming a river has caused anything detrimental to the environment. You say it surely would.
We all have a conscience which guides us, some better than others. You do your thing, I’ll do mine. I just don’t think we need government intervention in every aspect of our lives, they already have too much.
If everyone personally held themselves responsible, we wouldn’t need the government telling us what to do.
Unfortunately, that’s not how most people see.
How does damming a river cause detriment?
http://www.wise-uranium.org/mdafin.html
This is a is a very interesting discussion that I really didn’t think I would ever read about on the wood whisperer. Just one thought about the use of wood for furniture. If everybody started consuming less disposable, cheap, trendy furniture that will be thrown out in a few months, and say bought one nice piece of furniture that could last a lifetime. would that be justification enough to be building furniture out of exotic woods. I think the consumption of so much disposable crap has a much greater impact on the environment.
I totally agree with that. We might even become a nation of creators instead of consumers again!
Excuse me.
We are a nation of creators. The greatest nation of creators. Yes and we are consumers. Better be thankful, that’s where jobs come from.
If you look at the numbers we are not, sorry to say. Most of the jobs are retail, health care, educational, food services, government. We used to be a great mfg nation. Not so much now. :-(
Check out the numbers:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.t02.htm
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, from a different angle. I have developed a strong sense of my consumption over the years, and the great wave of “green,” rather than making me feel better about the choices I’ve made, has made me feel more guilty about the choices that I have not made. Incidentally, I agree that it has been USED as a marketing ploy, and there are as many unscrupulous people in the world as there are scrupulous people.
My wife went without a car for 8 years (San Francisco), then moved to Berkeley and spent the extra money for a hybrid, and the (way) extra for a green condo. The place is very greenâ€â€cellulose insulation, radiant, bamboo flooring, skylights for days, double-paned windows, plot leveled by biodiesel equipment, ad nauseum.
Because of these choices, perhaps childishly, I feel like I’ve earned some “carbon credits” with all of this. I’ve just gotten into woodworking, mostly out of necessity (building shelves and such), but am going to tackle some basic furniture because we can never find what we want… Where this relates to the “green” discussion is that I am always thinking, for example, gotta buy clamps… gotta buy a portable work bench (no room for a shop)… gotta get a block plane, etc etc. That’s a lot of new consumption for someone starting out.
To the point, it’s often a matter of perspective: Is the initial consumption of the tools and the materials any worse than buying a piece of furniture that was made by a machine on another continent, shipped in huge palettes on giant ships, trucked across hundreds of miles to live, shrink-wrapped, on a palette in a warehouse, delivered to my door in a truck that only had 1 delivery that day?
You get the idea… it’s a personal choice, and one can argue either angle. I have made the choice to gear up so I can skip all of those middlemen some day. You might choose to stay with oil because it works, but since I’m new I’m willing to travel that path and see what happens. Maybe my path will be more difficult, but it’s less toxic to me (remember that I don’t have proper extraction devices and such), and there’s a green building supply place about a half mile away, so I’m willing to try.
Marty: I love exotics, too; but I’d be loath to call any tree “trash”…even ‘lyptus. The desk I’m at right now is a perfect example: It was once decent oak; but it was built up with *zero* thought to grain matching (the front is just comical) and then slathered in a nasty red stain.
Compare that to the pipe organ case in the chapel at Wellesley College. Knotty pine, yet it’s a fabulous piece and every knot looks like it was custom ordered in exactly the right spot.
Conclusion: It’s not the wood; it’s the working.
Of course they’re detrimental. And of course we’re all environmentalists. Both statements are simply issues of degree. As a species, we’re going to control and mold our habitat to suit our lifestyle just like any other creature. And just like any other creature, we want and trust our habitat to remain hospitable to our existence. So we’re all treehuggers, but some people just hug harder than others. And we’re all afraid of damaging our environment, but some people are more afraid than others. Both perceptions exist because we all have imperfect information and different life experiences that bring us to different conclusions.
I think the best we can all hope for is that the overall balance of the hugging and kicking results in a sustainable environment that provides a decent quality of life for humans without making humans feel like they’re aliens in their own habitat. (Of course many environmentalists already make this claim, but that’s another debate altogether.)
I don’t know what happened to my prior comment but I wasn’t finished before it was submitted, so I’ll try to finish it.
As I was saying the incident you refered to in the link was nothing to do with a dammed river. It was a collection pond that collapsed into a a coal mine, that flowed into a nearby river. This was a tragic “Accident”.
As you said in an earlier post,
“Before spreading erroneous information you might want to check your facts. Ignorance is not an excuse.”
As for dams, they have enough of an impact on the environment that the use of controlled floods is being tested in order to try and reestablish lost habitats: http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/grandcan/
Also, this was a pretty huge detriment to the local environment, as well as the Paiutes who lived there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetch_Hetchy_Valley
The whole thing was largely political as well, and was perhaps not even necessary. That said, I’m writing this on a laptop that gets some amount of its energy from that dam, so I’m not going to get high and mighty about it…
Anyway, we digress. =) I was just responding to the earlier comment about these things not being detrimental.