"Fire in the hole, fire in the hole, fire in the hole, fire in the hole!” came the announcement. A series of explosions erupted at the base of the towering concrete dam, blasts echoing down the basin. A torrent of brown water gushed from the bottom, rushing down the river.
Restoration crews breached Copco 1 Dam, the last of four hydroelectric dams slated for removal along the Klamath River, on Jan. 23. It was an important milestone in what is now the largest river restoration project in the U.S. — a victory in a decades-long battle between tribes and environmentalists against the federal government and other entities that benefited from the dams’ choking of the river to produce power.
Construction crews began dam removal operations in fall 2023. Although crews aren’t expected to complete deconstruction until late 2024, the long-awaited freeing of the Klamath River is already positively impacting tribal communities.
Grant Johnson, water quality program manager for the Karuk Tribe, closely monitors water quality in the Klamath.
“Just seeing a free-flowing river below Keno (dam) is huge,” Johnson said.
For decades, tribes in what is now Northern California and Oregon fought to have the dams removed because they posed a critical threat to native fish populations, notably Coho salmon, Chinook salmon and steelhead.
The salmon are intrinsic to many regional tribes' way of life, and their cultural and spiritual importance is invaluable. Threats to salmon populations have been a focus for Klamath Basin tribes for decades.
The dam problem
The dams blocked fish from accessing nearly 400 miles of habitat upriver in the Klamath and its tributaries. The dams also decreased fish populations’ ability to migrate and access spawning sites.
When the U.S. government installed the dams in the 20th century, it straightened a mighty and meandering river and eliminated its floodplains. The dams reduced the river’s flow, creating pools of stagnant water that encouraged the proliferation of bacteria and parasites, like Ceratanova Shasta or C. shasta, which are harmful to salmon.
In November 2022, federal regulators approved the removal of the four lowermost dams on the Klamath River after a lengthy review process that included a conclusive environmental impact report favorable towards dam removal. The four dams were Copco Dam 1, Copco Dam 2 and Iron Gate Dam in Northern California and J.C. Boyle Dam in Southern Oregon. The two remaining, Keno Dam and Link River Dam, are non-hydroelectric dams equipped with fish ladders allowing for salmon passage.
The news brought celebrations to the banks of the Klamath River last winter as tribal and state leaders applauded the decision. Despite fierce opposition at times tinged with racism, advocates had ultimately succeeded.
Dam removal
The first dam removed was Copco 2 Dam, the smallest of the four, selected for its size, location and lack of reservoir. Once standing 35 feet tall, the federal government completed Copco 2 in 1925 and used it as a diversion dam to direct water flow to a nearby powerhouse downstream.
The removal of Copco 2 was particularly significant for the Shasta Indian Nation, much of whose ancestral homelands were flooded and destroyed during construction of the dams. Copco 2 blocked fish passages and dewatered and altered river flows in a culturally significant location for the Shasta, called Kikacéki, for over a century.
The impacts of dams on the river and surrounding lands have adversely affected generations of tribal citizens whose ancestral territories lie in the Klamath Basin, including the Shasta. Ancestors of all its current members lived at Kikacéki before the construction of the Copco dams in 1920 and their forced displacement by the U.S. government, partially through the process of eminent domain.
Mike Olson, councilman of the Shasta Indian Tribe, applauded the restoration project.
“My family is from Kikacéki. I feel at peace whenever I come up here,” Johnson said. “I know as a Shasta Indian that I’m home. I want others to understand and appreciate why this land and the river is so important for us.”
As the lower Klamath returns to a more natural state, portions of the Shasta Indian Nation’s ancestral homelands will be above water for the first time in decades. The tribe plans to work with the State of California to obtain sovereignty over these lands.
Dam deconstruction
Deconstruction of the other three larger dams is a more complex process expected to last into the summer. Each of the three created large adjacent reservoirs, and millions of cubic yards of sediment accumulated behind the dams in the century since construction.
The reservoirs must drain before the dams are fully removed, and drainage is a slow process. As the reservoirs draw down, the water carries sediment with it, which can harm aquatic life by decreasing oxygen concentration in the water.
The river will carry most of the sediment downstream in the six months immediately following the dam drawdown due to its fine particulate nature. The initial flush is expected to bury salmon spawning spots for a time but also cover habitat for harmful parasites, disrupting parasite life cycles and decreasing populations.
The dam removals will return the river to more natural flow and sediment accumulation.
The reservoir drainage is timed for winter because most endangered species are not in the mainstream of the Klamath during winter, according to the Klamath River Renewal Corporation (KRRC), the corporation formed to oversee the dam removals. The KRRC began the initial phase of reservoir drawdown in consultation with tribes and state and federal agencies.
Sediment flush
The KRRC says there are between 17 and 20 million cubic yards of sediment behind the dams. An estimated 5-7 million cubic yards will flush downstream during the initial drawdown phase, which will last through February. Research by KRRC and the Environmental Protection Agency shows the sediment itself is primarily nontoxic.
Water quality scientists are watching the river closely for any adverse effects of the sediment flush, which can harm fish in high concentrations.
KRRC estimates that while there will be some improvement in the water quality in the months immediately following the end of the reservoir drawdown, it will not return to a pristine state for approximately 24 months.
Johnson says there have been minimum turbidity inputs from dam drawdown so far.
“The Mckinney Fire burn scar and associated debris flows continue to be (the) primary source of sediments in the system,” Johnson said, highlighting the many threats endangered fish encounter in the Klamath Basin. Landslides from burn scars have choked river sections in the past.
Deconstruction work will likely begin in late spring or early summer and last through autumn.
Passage after segregation
Tribal officials, environmentalists and federal officials are optimistic about the removal project’s impacts on endangered fish populations.
A Nov. 2023 research paper published by a coalition of researchers from Oregon State University, tribal biologists, and state and federal wildlife agencies analyzed the likely effects of dam removal, finding the project will cause “profound physical changes to the river,” including to flow, temperature and channel geomorphology.
“Dam removals alone will restore a number of physical and ecological processes towards historical, pre-dam conditions,” the study found. “This will result in a more dynamic environment for salmon, trout and their pathogens, reducing the impacts of many of these current stressors.”
The study concludes that dam removal will improve conditions faced by endangered Coho and Chinook salmon in several areas, including habitat restoration, increased spawning grounds and lower risk of disease.
The study concluded that it is essential to continue, and even increase, monitoring of water quality and the impacts of pathogens.
“To meet the project’s overarching goal — the recovery of salmon populations for tribal cultural and subsistence needs — it is imperative that the pathogens that affect these fishes be understood in the context of a re-connected river, which is additionally undergoing significant climatological shifts,” the study concludes.
A river renewal project of this scale has never been attempted before, so its exact effects on fish remain to be seen. However, smaller river restoration projects have shown positive effects on returning populations.
“I personally think impacts to salmon, while not negligible in the short term, will be minimal,” Johnson said. “I think the five-year mark may be where we start realizing how good free-flowing rivers are at producing fish, how resilient natural systems are if given a chance, and really start to see and appreciate the remarkable river we lost with the construction of the hydro-project.”
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