BY ADAM BEAM | Associated Press
The removal of four hydroelectric dams along the Klamath River is seen as both the greatest triumph and the greatest challenge for this movement. Once the demolition is completed by the end of next year, over 400 miles of river will be open for threatened species of fish and other wildlife. For comparison, the removal of 65 dams in the US last year reconnected 430 miles of river. The project will involve the emptying of three reservoirs, exposing soil to sunlight in certain areas for the first time in over a century. Over the past five years, Native American tribes have manually collected seeds, which have been sent to nurseries with the aim of planting them along the newly revived riverbanks. Helicopters will also deliver hundreds of thousands of trees and shrubs to establish vegetation along the banks, including tree roots to create fish habitats. Typically, this growth would take decades to occur naturally, but officials are expediting the process to combat the invasion of foreign plants that have dominated the landscape to the detriment of native species.
A power company, currently known as PacifiCorp, constructed the dams from 1918 onwards for electricity generation purposes. These dams disrupted the natural river flow and interfered with the life cycle of salmon, a culturally and spiritually important fish for several Native American tribes. The fish primarily reside in the Pacific Ocean but return to the cold mountain streams to lay eggs. In 2002, a combination of low water levels and warm temperatures triggered a bacterial outbreak that killed over 34,000 fish, mostly Chinook salmon. This incident prompted decades of advocacy from Native American tribes and environmental groups, culminating in federal regulators approving a plan to remove the dams last year. The dam removal project is estimated to cost $500 million, funded by taxpayers and PacifiCorps ratepayers. Currently, the smallest of the four dams, Copco No. 2, has been mostly dismantled. The other three dams are expected to be removed next year once the reservoirs are drained. However, this will leave some homeowners without the picturesque lake that they had lived near for years. The Siskiyou County Water Users Association, formed a decade ago to halt the dam removal project, has filed a federal lawsuit, but their attempts to stop the project have been unsuccessful thus far.
Next year, the water levels in the lakes will daily decrease by 3 to 5 feet during the initial months as crews follow the receding waterline to plant seeds from over 98 native plant species, including wooly sunflower, Idaho fescue, and Blue bunch wheatgrass. The involvement of tribes has been significant throughout the process, with members gathering seeds from native plants by hand and even the hiring of a restoration botanist by the Yurok Tribe. Each plant species plays a crucial role, with some facilitating the growth of other plants through quick growth, while others—like oak trees—provide shade, but require several years to reach maturity. Mark Bransom, CEO of the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, the non-profit overseeing the project, describes the collaboration between tribal traditional ecological knowledge and western science as a “wonderful marriage.”
Previously, the largest dam removal project in US history took place on Washington state’s Elwha River, which flows into the Strait of Juan de Fuca via Olympic National Park. In 1992, Congress approved a plan to demolish two dams on the river, which were constructed in the early 1900s. Workers completed the removal in 2014 after two decades of planning, unlocking 70 miles of habitat for salmon and steelhead. Biologists anticipate that it will take at least a generation for the river to fully recover, but within months of the dams being removed, salmon were already recolonizing sections of the river that had been inaccessible for over a century. The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, extensively involved in the restoration work, will be opening a limited subsistence fishery this fall for coho salmon, marking their first such opportunity since the dams were removed. Kenneth Brink, vice chairman of the Karuk Tribe, hopes for a similar positive outcome on the Klamath River. He recalls years with no fish during ceremonial salmon fishing, and anticipates that the people will finally have the ability to “worship freely again” once the river is allowed to flow freely.