Water for Schools
Menu

Reading passage Grade 9 English Language Arts

The Kembleton Dam Decision: Relicensing the Yarnton River

A grade 9 informational passage on a fictional hydropower dam's federal relicensing, weighing fish passage, sediment, and clean energy, with comprehension questions.

Objectives

  1. Students will identify the competing concerns raised during a dam's relicensing.
  2. Students will explain a tradeoff by combining details from more than one part of the passage.

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.

Also: relicensing, fish passage, sediment, tradeoff

Teacher overview

A hydropower dam can operate for many decades and must be reviewed more than once during that time. This original passage follows a fictional dam, Kembleton Dam on the Yarnton River, as it comes up for federal relicensing, the periodic review that decides whether and how a hydropower dam keeps operating. The passage presents the decision as a set of genuine tradeoffs rather than a simple choice, which makes it useful for teaching students to hold several competing ideas at once. A closing writing question asks students to explain, in their own informative paragraph, why the choice is hard.

The Kembleton Dam Decision: Relicensing the Yarnton River — Grade 9 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Passage

Kembleton Dam has stood across the Yarnton River for more than seventy years. For most of that time, few people in the town of Kembleton thought much about it. The dam made electricity, held back a wide reservoir where families fished and paddled, and blended into the landscape the way a bridge or a highway does. Then the dam's federal license came up for renewal, and suddenly the town had to decide what it wanted the river to be.

Large hydropower dams that are not run by the federal government must renew their license every thirty to fifty years. Renewal is not automatic. The review asks a simple-sounding question that turns out to be very hard: should the dam keep running as it is, run under new rules, or come down entirely? Answering it means weighing benefits and costs that do not sit on the same scale.

The clearest benefit is the electricity. Kembleton Dam runs a small powerhouse, rated at about eighteen megawatts, enough to supply a few thousand homes without burning any fuel. That is tiny next to a giant like Hoover Dam, whose power plant is rated at roughly 2,080 megawatts, but the comparison is useful. It shows that Kembleton is a modest dam whose power still matters locally, especially as towns look for electricity that does not add carbon to the air.

The reservoir is a benefit too. It gives the town a steady water supply, a place for recreation, and some protection when heavy rains would otherwise flood downstream. Many residents grew up on that water and do not want to lose it.

The costs are harder to see but just as real. The first is fish. The Yarnton River once carried migratory fish that swam upstream each year to lay their eggs. A dam is a wall across their path. Kembleton has no working fish passage, the ladder-like structure that lets fish move around a dam, so the fish that used to reach the upper river no longer can. Renewing the license could require building fish passage, which is expensive, or it could leave the barrier in place for decades more.

The second hidden cost is sediment. Rivers carry sand and silt, called sediment, down toward the sea. A dam slows the water, and the sediment settles behind it instead of moving on. After seventy years, a thick layer has built up in Kembleton's reservoir, slowly shrinking the space the water can fill and starving the downstream riverbed of the material it needs. Removing that sediment is costly, and so is living with it.

None of these facts points to one obvious answer, which is exactly why the relicensing is contested. Keeping the dam preserves clean power, a water supply, and a place people love. Adding fish passage helps the river's living systems but raises the cost of the power. Removing the dam would free the river and its fish but end the electricity and drain the reservoir the town has counted on for generations. Each choice trades one real good for another.

The people of Kembleton are not arguing because one side is right and the other is foolish. They are arguing because a river is asked to do many jobs at once, and a single decision cannot fully satisfy all of them. Understanding that is the beginning of a fair conversation about what the town values most.

Questions

  1. What is relicensing, and about how often must a large non-federal hydropower dam renew its license, according to the passage?
  2. Name the two hidden costs of the dam that the passage describes.
  3. Why does a dam affect migratory fish even when it was built to make electricity? Use the passage to explain.
  4. The passage calls the decision a set of tradeoffs. Explain one tradeoff, using a detail from the benefits and a detail from the costs.
  5. Using the passage, explain what sediment is and why it builds up behind a dam.
  6. Why does the passage compare Kembleton Dam to Hoover Dam? What does the comparison help the reader understand?
  7. In a short informative paragraph, explain to a Kembleton resident why the relicensing decision is genuinely difficult. Use at least two specific details from the passage.

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: Relicensing is the federal review that decides whether and how a hydropower dam keeps operating; the passage says large non-federal dams must renew every thirty to fifty years. Supported by the second paragraph.
  2. Answer: Blocked migratory fish and the lack of fish passage, and the buildup of sediment behind the dam. The passage names both as costs that are harder to see.
  3. Answer: Because the dam is a wall across the river, and migratory fish need to swim upstream to lay eggs; without working fish passage they cannot get around it, as the passage explains.
  4. Answer: Accept any real tradeoff, such as: keeping the dam preserves clean electricity (a benefit) but leaves fish blocked and sediment building (a cost). Two parts of the passage must be used.
  5. Answer: Sediment is the sand and silt a river carries; it builds up because the dam slows the water so the sediment settles behind it instead of moving downstream, per the sediment paragraph.
  6. Answer: The comparison shows Kembleton is a small dam (about eighteen megawatts versus Hoover's roughly 2,080), helping the reader see that its power matters locally even though the dam is modest.
  7. Answer: Answers will vary but should be an informative paragraph naming at least two specific details (for example, the clean electricity and water supply on one side, and blocked fish or built-up sediment on the other) and explaining that each choice gives up one real good for another.

Differentiation

Support

Provide a two-column chart labeled Benefits and Costs for students to fill in from the passage before answering, and allow questions 1, 2, and 5 to be answered by pointing to the sentence that supports them.

Extension

Ask students to identify, working from the passage, which single piece of information they would most want before deciding Kembleton's future, and to explain in a paragraph why that fact would matter more than the others.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "relicensing," "hydropower," "migratory," and "sediment" with simple definitions and a labeled diagram of a dam with and without a fish ladder. Allow literal questions to be answered in short phrases, and provide the passage with topic sentences highlighted.