Saving Seafood

World’s largest dam removal project gets approval

August 4, 2023 — In a historic move, U.S. regulators have given the green light to a groundbreaking plan to demolish four dams on the lower Klamath River in California, paving the way for the largest dam removal and river restoration project in the world.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s unanimous vote on the proposal represents a major milestone for the $500 million demolition plan, which has been ardently supported by Native American tribes and environmentalists for years. The ambitious initiative aims to restore the lower half of California’s second-largest river to its natural free-flowing state, effectively opening up hundreds of miles of critical salmon habitat.

For Native tribes that have relied on the Klamath River and its salmon for their way of life, the dam removal represents a long-awaited victory. Situated in a wild and remote area straddling the California and Oregon border, the dams’ presence has hindered the migratory routes of salmon for over a century. With the removal of these barriers, the salmon’s path to their spawning grounds will be restored, reviving not only the ecological health of the river but also preserving the cultural heritage of the tribes.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Klamath Dam Removal Could Offer Promise for Oregon Commercial Salmon Fishery

May 19, 2022 — The final hurdle is in sight and expected to be overcome, in the decades-long fight to remove four dams from the Klamath River and hopefully allow restoration of the river’s Chinook salmon population which was once the third-largest in the country, but in recent years has plummeted by as much as ninety-eight percent. The four dams were built between 1903 and 1967 as part of PacifiCorp’s Klamath Hydroelectric Project and are now obsolete. Removing them will provide native migratory fish, like Chinook salmon, access to larger spawning grounds. It will also help restore the natural flow of the river, providing innumerable benefits to the entire ecosystem.

The repercussions that an exhausted river system with a dramatically declining salmon population can deliver are far-reaching and staggering. The slow-moving, warm water gives rise to parasites, like Ceratonova Shasta, which reaches unhealthy levels in this environment and begins to infect and kill the salmon. In addition to parasites, the higher water temperatures are also a deadly threat to the salmon that are necessary for the overall health of the river. After salmon return to the river to spawn and die their bodies provide key nutrients to other organisms in the river. This includes the trees that grow along the riverbanks whose roots help to prevent erosion and to maintain the structural integrity of the riverbank. The Native American Tribes in the Klamath Basin are also heavily dependent on the Chinook salmon, both culturally and for sustenance. Subsistence salmon fishing is a way of life for tribes like the Yurok and the Karuk. Along with the salmon and the river, their way of life is dying.

Read the full story at National Fisherman