Tribes celebrate the end of the largest dam removal project in U.S. history
FILE - The Hillman family, from left, Leaf, Lisa, and Chaas, hug as construction crews removed the final cofferdam that was left of Iron Gate Dam allowing the Klamath River to run freely near Hornbrook, Calif., Aug. 28, 2024. (Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via AP, File)
The largest dam removal project in U.S. history was completed Wednesday, marking a major victory for tribes in the region who fought for decades to undam hundreds of miles of the Klamath River near the California-Oregon border.
Through protests, testimony and lawsuits, local tribes showcased the environmental impact caused by the four towering hydroelectric dams, especially to salmon, which are culturally and spiritually significant to tribes in the region.
“Without that visioning and that advocacy and activism and the airplane miles that they racked up … to point out the damage that these dams were doing, not only to the environment, but to the social and cultural fabric of these tribal nations, there would be no dam removal,” said Mark Bransom, chief executive of the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, the nonprofit entity created to oversee the project.
Power company PacifiCorp built the dams to generate electricity between 1918 and 1962. But the structures halted the natural flow of the waterway that was once known as the third-largest salmon-producing river on the West Coast, disrupting the lifecycle of the region’s salmon.
At the same time, the dams only produced a fraction of PacifiCorp’s energy at full capacity — enough to power about 70,000 homes. They also didn’t provide irrigation, drinking water or flood control, according to Klamath River Renewal Corporation.
Since breaching the dams, anadromous fish regained access to their habitat, water temperature decreased and its quality improved, explained Michael Belchik, senior water policy analyst for the Yurok Tribe.
But tribal advocates and activists see their work as far from finished, with some already refocusing their efforts on revegetation and other restoration work on the Klamath River and the surrounding land.
“I’m happy that the dams are gone and we have passage,” Former Klamath Tribes Chairman Jeff Mitchell said. “But now I’m thinking about what are those fish coming home to? And that’s really the focus now, is how do we get the parties to start taking restoration actions and making that the top priority in all of this?”