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Reading passage Grade 8 English Language Arts

Goldvein Dam: Keep the Hydropower or Free the River?

A grade 8 informational passage on a fictional aging dam weighing hydropower against fish passage, with literal and inferential comprehension questions.

Objectives

  1. Students will identify the purposes a dam serves and the problems it can create for a river.
  2. Students will cite evidence from both sides of the dam decision to support an inference.

Vocabulary

Hydropower
Electricity made from moving water, usually water falling through a dam. It is a renewable power source that can start up quickly when the electric grid needs it.
Reservoir
A human-made lake, usually created by a dam, that stores water for later. Reservoirs supply cities and farms and help control floods.
Fish ladder
A series of water steps built beside a dam so migrating fish, like salmon, can swim past it. Fish leap or swim from pool to pool to reach the river above.
Dissolved oxygen
Dissolved oxygen is the oxygen gas mixed into water that fish and other underwater animals breathe. Cold, moving water holds more oxygen than warm, still water.

Also: migration

Teacher overview

This passage describes Goldvein Dam, a fictional aging dam on the Verwood River, as its community decides whether to repair it or remove it. It lays out both sides fairly: the dam makes clean electricity and stores water, yet it blocks fish and warms the river. Teachers can use it to show that real decisions involve tradeoffs, and the questions ask students to cite evidence from each side rather than pick a winner.

Goldvein Dam: Keep the Hydropower or Free the River? — Grade 8 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Passage

Goldvein Dam has stood on the Verwood River, just above the town of Bellhaven Flats, for almost eighty years. It was built for two reasons. First, it makes hydropower, which is electricity produced by falling water spinning a turbine. Second, the dam holds back a reservoir, a large lake of stored water that the town uses in dry months and where families fish and boat in the summer.

The dam is small compared with the giants. Hoover Dam, on the Colorado River, has a power plant rated to produce about 2,080 megawatts, although years of drought and low water in Lake Mead have cut the power it actually makes by about 30 percent. Goldvein produces only a tiny fraction of that, enough for a few thousand homes. Still, its power is clean, and it never sends smoke into the air.

The trouble is the river itself. The Verwood was once full of shad, a fish that swims upstream every spring to lay eggs. This yearly trip is called migration. Goldvein Dam blocks the path. Long ago, engineers added a fish ladder, a set of stepped pools fish can climb to get around the dam. But the ladder at Goldvein is old and poorly placed, and few fish find it. Each spring, thousands of shad crowd below the dam and cannot reach the calm water upstream where they once spawned.

There is a second problem. Water behind a dam slows down and spreads out under the sun. Slow, warm water holds less oxygen than fast, cool water. Most river fish need dissolved oxygen above 5 mg/L to stay healthy, and by late summer the water near the bottom of the reservoir sometimes drops below that. That deep water does not mix with the air above it, and dead leaves and plants rotting on the bottom use up its oxygen. When the dam releases that low-oxygen water downstream, fish there struggle too.

Now the dam needs expensive repairs, and its license to keep operating is up for review. The town faces a hard choice. Some residents want to relicense the dam and rebuild the fish ladder. They point to the clean power, the stored water, and the summer recreation the reservoir provides. Others want to remove the dam. They argue that a free-flowing river would bring the shad back, cool the water, and cost less over time than decades of repairs. Both sides care about the river. They simply weigh its uses differently, and there is no answer that gives everyone everything they want.

Questions

  1. What two purposes was Goldvein Dam originally built for?
  2. What problem does the dam create for the shad each spring?
  3. Using the passage, explain what a "fish ladder" is.
  4. Why does the water behind the dam sometimes hold less oxygen? Use the passage.
  5. Give one reason a resident might want to keep the dam and one reason a resident might want to remove it.
  6. Why does the passage compare Goldvein Dam with Hoover Dam?
  7. The passage says the town faces a hard choice. Explain why there is no clearly correct answer, using details from both sides.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Answer: To make hydropower (electricity from falling water) and to hold back a reservoir that stores water and provides summer recreation.
  2. Answer: The dam blocks the shad's migration upstream, so thousands crowd below it each spring and cannot reach the calm water where they once spawned.
  3. Answer: A fish ladder is a set of stepped pools that fish can climb to get around a dam, as the passage explains when describing the old ladder at Goldvein.
  4. Answer: Behind the dam the water slows and warms in the sun, and slow, warm water holds less oxygen than fast, cool water, so oxygen drops. Also accept that the deep water does not mix with the air and that rotting leaves and plants use up its oxygen.
  5. Answer: Keep: the dam makes clean power, stores water for dry months, or supports summer recreation. Remove: a free-flowing river would bring back the shad, cool the water, or cost less over time.
  6. Answer: To give a sense of scale, showing that Goldvein is small next to a giant like Hoover Dam, which is rated at about 2,080 megawatts, while Goldvein powers only a few thousand homes.
  7. Answer: Answers vary. A strong answer notes that both sides value the river but weigh its uses differently, citing clean power and storage on one side and restored fish and lower long-term cost on the other, so no choice satisfies everyone.

Differentiation

Support

Provide a two-column chart labeled "reasons to keep" and "reasons to remove" for students to fill in as they read, and model item 1 aloud. Allow short-phrase answers for questions 1 through 3.

Extension

Ask students to write a short paragraph proposing a compromise for Goldvein Dam and to explain, using the passage, which problem their compromise solves and which it does not.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "hydropower," "reservoir," "migration," "fish ladder," and "dissolved oxygen" with simple pictures. Allow students to underline evidence in the passage before answering the inference questions.

Extensions

Have students identify, from teacher-provided facts, one river near them with a dam, then write two questions they would ask a local water agency about whether that dam blocks fish.