Workers breached the final dams on a critical section of the Klamath River on Wednesday, allowing salmon to swim freely through a major watershed near the California-Oregon border for the first time in over a century. This milestone marks the near completion of the largest dam removal project in U.S. history.
Crews employed excavators to dismantle rock dams that had been redirecting water upstream of two major dams, Iron Gate and Copco No. 1, which were already almost entirely removed. Each scoop of the excavator allowed more river water to flow through the historic channel, granting salmon access to crucial habitats just in time for the fall Chinook, or king salmon, spawning season.
Amy Bowers Cordalis, a Yurok tribal member and attorney, stood at Iron Gate on Wednesday morning, emotionally witnessing water spilling over the former dam and resuming its natural course. Bowers Cordalis has advocated for the removal of the Klamath dams since 2002, after witnessing a massive salmon die-off caused by low water levels and warm temperatures. Seeing the river return to its original path felt like witnessing its rebirth.
“It was surreal. It was so emotional. I felt so hopeful and so satisfied that we have restored this river,” she said. “And looking at it, you could almost hear the river crying, ‘I am free, I am free.’”
The dismantling of these dams comes about a month before the scheduled removal of four towering dams on the Klamath River, part of a broader national movement to restore river ecosystems and support wildlife. By February, over 2,000 dams had been removed in the U.S., most of them in the past 25 years, according to advocacy group American Rivers. This list includes dams on Washington state’s Elwha River and the Condit Dam on the White Salmon River, a Columbia River tributary.
“I am excited to move into the restoration phase of the Klamath River,” said Russell ‘Buster’ Attebery, chairman of the Karuk Tribe. “Restoring hundreds of miles of spawning grounds and improving water quality will help support the return of our salmon, a healthy, sustainable food source for several Tribal Nations.”
Salmon hold cultural and spiritual significance for the tribe and others in the region. The Klamath was once the third-largest salmon-producing river on the West Coast. However, the construction of dams by power company PacifiCorp to generate electricity between 1918 and 1962 disrupted the river’s natural flow and the salmon lifecycle, severely depleting their population. This led to decades of advocacy culminated in 2022 when federal regulators approved the dam removal plan.
Since then, crews have removed the smallest of the four dams, drained the reservoirs, and began dismantling the remaining structures. Despite concerns about the impact on power supply, the dams produced less than 2% of PacifiCorp’s energy, enough to power about 70,000 homes. While hydroelectric dams are seen as a source of clean, renewable energy, larger dams have faced criticism for their environmental impact.
The project, expected to cost around $500 million, is funded by taxpayers and PacifiCorp’s ratepayers. Oregon state Sen. Dennis Linthicum has criticized the project, arguing it removes critical sites for water storage, flood control, and fire prevention.
“We have fisheries, hatcheries that have been in place and salmon have been going to for years, and somehow that’s ‘not good enough,’” he said. “The salmon have to continue up past the dam, past J.C. Boyle, to make history,” he added, referring to another dam upstream.
It remains uncertain how quickly salmon will return to their natural habitats and the river will heal. There have already been reports of salmon at the river’s mouth, beginning their journey upstream. Michael Belchik, senior water policy analyst for the Yurok Tribe, expressed optimism that they would soon pass the Iron Gate dam.
“I think we’re going to have some early successes,” he said. “I’m pretty confident we’ll see some fish going above the dam. If not this year, then for sure next year.”
Two other Klamath dams upstream feature fish ladders, which allow salmon to leap through a series of pools to bypass the barriers. Mark Bransom, chief executive of the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, noted the decade it took for the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe to resume fishing after the removal of the Elwha dams.
“I don’t know if anybody knows with any certainty what it means for the return of fish,” he said. “It’ll take some time. You can’t undo 100 years’ worth of damage and impacts to a river system overnight.”
