'Anything that can be built can be taken down': The largest dam removal in US history is complete – what happens next?
The #KlamathRiver is free of four huge dams for the first time in generations. But for the #Yurok tribe, the river's restoration is only just beginning – starting with 18 billion seeds.
by Lucy Sheriff, September 3, 2024
"This is decades and decades in the making," says Thompson. 'We were told it was never going to happen. That it was foolish to even ask for one removal. We were asking for four.'
"The #KlamathBasin covers more than 12,000 square miles (31,000 sq km) in southern Oregon and northern California, and was home to the JC Boyle, Copco 1, Copco 2 and Iron Gate dams, all owned by #PacifiCorp, an electric utilities company. The Klamath was once the third-largest salmon producing river on the US's West Coast before the construction of the dams blocked fish from accessing almost 400 miles (640km) of critical river habitat for almost 100 years.
"Fall #ChinookSalmon numbers plummeted by more than 90% and spring chinook by 98%. #SteelheadTrout, #CohoSalmon and #PacificLamprey numbers also saw drastic declines, and the Klamath tribes in the upper basin have been without their salmon fishery for a century, since the completion of #Copco 1 in 1922. The situation became so bad that Yurok tribe – who are known as the salmon people – began importing Alaskan salmon for their annual salmon festival, traditionally held to celebrate the first return of fall chinook salmon to the Klamath River.
"The dams also had a severe impact on #WaterTemperature and quality – growth of #ToxicAlgae behind two of the dams resulted in health warnings against water contact.
"'It was painful,' says Willard Carlson, a Yurok elder who is known as a #RiverWarrior and was part of the inter-generational campaign. 'All those years seeing our river damaged like that. I remember as a kid we'd have other people from nearby tribes making fun of our river. 'Oh, you're Yurok, your river is dirty.' For us, the #dams were a monument to the [#coloniser] people who conquered us."
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"Restoring the land
But something that does need "a helping hand is the restoration of 2,200 acres (890ha) of land that is above ground for the first time in a century following the emptying of four reservoirs.
"'Removing the dams is one thing, restoring the land is quite another,' says Thompson, a civil engineer and part of the crew working on the restoration project – which is being managed by Resource Environmental Solutions, an ecological restoration company."
