The value extracted from the dams was never more than a tiny fraction of just the commercial value of the fishery each eliminated, wholly leaving aside the matter of causing extinctions.
California's system with dams near peaks of the Sierra Nevada range, feeding penstocks to thousands of meters below, is both massively more efficient and causes nowhere near the ecological damage of the river valley dams being torn down.
Those were largely built in the 1920s with pulley-operated (pre-hydraulics) equipment trailered up on abysmally bad roads... that still exist, unimproved.
California's system with dams near peaks of the Sierra Nevada range, feeding penstocks to thousands of meters below, is both massively more efficient and causes nowhere near the ecological damage of the river valley dams being torn down.
Those were largely built in the 1920s with pulley-operated (pre-hydraulics) equipment trailered up on abysmally bad roads... that still exist, unimproved.