
As the greatest dam removal project in U.S. history approaches completion, salmon will soon have free passage over the Klamath River and its tributaries, a major watershed on the California–Oregon border, for the first time in more than a century.
This week, crews will use excavators to breach rock dams that have been directing water upstream of Iron Gate and Copco No. 1, two dams that have previously been dismantled nearly entirely. The restoration of the river’s traditional course will enable salmon to reach important habitat areas in time for the fall Chinook, or king salmon, spawning season.
The Karuk Tribe, which has fought for the removal of the Klamath dams for at least 25 years, ceremonial head Leaf Hillman stated, “It’s encouraging for the future to see the dam removed and the river returned to its natural course.” For the tribe and other people in the area, salmon hold great cultural and spiritual importance.
The demolition occurred around one month before the four massive dams on the Klamath River were scheduled to be removed as part of a nationwide push to restore fish and other animal habitats and allow rivers to flow naturally again.
According to the advocacy group American Rivers, as of February, more than 2,000 dams had been demolished in the United States, with the majority occurring in the last 25 years. Among these were the Condit Dam on the White Salmon River, a tributary of the Columbia, and the Elwha Dam in Washington state, which empties out of Olympic National Park into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
According to Joshua Chenoweth, senior riparian ecologist for the Yurok Tribe, which has fought for decades to get the dams removed and the river restored, “Now the healing can really begin as far as the river restoring itself.” “We’ve learned from Elwha, Condit, and other dams that, in reality, all it takes is to remove the dams so that rivers can effectively return to their natural state. Humans can certainly contribute to that process.”
There apparently was a time when the Klamath was the third-biggest salmon-producing river on the West Coast. However, after the power corporation PacifiCorp constructed the dams between 1918 and 1962 in order to create energy, the constructions stopped the river’s natural flow and interfered with the life cycle of the local salmon, which spend most of their lives in the Pacific Ocean before returning to their native rivers to spawn.
The number of fish dropped sharply. A bacterial epidemic in 2002 killed over 34,000 fish, predominantly Chinook salmon, as a result of warm temperatures and low water. That sparked decades of environmental and tribal struggle, which culminated in 2022 with the approval of a plan to demolish the dams by federal regulators.
Since then, Copco No. 2, the smallest of the four dams, has been removed. In March, workers began demolishing the remaining three dams after draining their reservoirs.
The dismantling of the dams won’t have a significant impact on the Klamath River’s power supply. They could have powered over 70,000 houses, but at maximum capacity, they provided less than 2% of PacifiCorp’s energy. Although dams are thought to be a clean, renewable source of energy, the damage they do to fish and river ecosystems has made many of the major dams in the American West a target for environmental organizations and Native American tribes.
It was anticipated that the project would cost roughly $500 million, which PacifiCorps ratepayers and taxpayers would cover.
However, it’s unknown how soon the river will recover and salmon will return to their ancestral habitats. Salmon have already been seen beginning their river voyage at the river’s mouth. The Yurok Tribe’s top water policy expert, Michael Belchik, expressed optimism that they will soon be able to bypass the Iron Gate dam.
“I believe there will be some early victories,” he declared. “I have a good feeling that some fish will pass over the dam. If not now, then definitely the following year.
Further upstream, there are two more smaller Klamath dams that permit salmon to travel through fish ladders, which are a series of pools that fish can jump over to get over the dam.
After the Elwha dams were removed, it took the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe around ten years to resume fishing, according to Mark Bransom, chief executive of the nonprofit organization established to handle the project.
He remarked, “I don’t know if anybody knows what it means for the return of fish with any certainty.” It will require some time. A river system cannot have the harm and effects of a century erased overnight.