Torn

VS

An interesting article was posted over at the Whitefish Can't Jump blog about fertilizing salmon and steelhead streams on Vancouver Island.

The link to the article is HERE

Why am I torn?  I like the idea of having a more productive river environment for juvenile salmon and steelhead.  The lack of salmon nutrients has a real negative effect on not only juvenile fish, but the entire northwest forest ecosystem.  I've always been a supporter of increasing the number of salmon carcasses in our rivers.

The below quote from the article kind of bothers me though.
"Crystal Green is a slow-release agricultural fertilizer comprised of nitrogen and phosphate recovered from municipal waste water using a technology invented by civil engineers at the University of British Columbia. The Vancouver-based manufacturer, Ostara, is harvesting a waste material called struvite for the fertilizer from the sewage stream in suburban Portland, Oregon."

I like the fact that this reduces and recycles waste.  But deep inside there's something nagging at me.  That maybe this is just another in a long line of technological "fixes" that never deal with the root issue of the problem.  We need to increase escapements of salmon to fertilize our rivers.  Does this just mean we are treating our rivers like a field of corn?

Good idea?  Bad idea?  I really don't know.