Federal regulators voted unanimously to approve the removal of four dams on California’s Klamath River — a decision that would open more than 300 miles of salmon habitat and set in motion the largest dam demolition and river restoration project ever attempted anywhere in the world. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s approval of the license surrender clears the last major regulatory hurdle for a $500 million effort that Native American tribes and river advocates have fought for decades to make happen.
At a glance
- Klamath River dams: Four dams built between 1918 C.E. and 1962 C.E. will be removed, returning the lower half of California’s second-largest river to a free-flowing state for the first time in more than a century.
- Salmon habitat restoration: More than 300 miles of river and tributaries will reopen to salmon migration, making this the most ambitious salmon restoration plan in history by both scale and scope.
- Tribal leadership: The Yurok, Karuk, and Hoopa Valley tribes were the primary driving force behind the demolition proposal, which strikes at the heart of a culture built around the river and its fish.
A victory more than a century in the making
The Klamath Basin once supported the third-largest salmon runs on the entire West Coast. Then, starting in 1918 C.E., a series of hydroelectric dams cut the river in half. Salmon were blocked from reaching upstream spawning grounds. Runs dwindled. The tribes whose cultures, food systems, and spiritual lives had been built around those fish watched the river they depended on grow quieter every decade.
For the Yurok, Karuk, and Hoopa Valley tribes, the dams were never just an environmental problem. They were a wound. “The Klamath salmon are coming home,” Yurok Chairman Joseph James said after the vote. “The people have earned this victory and with it, we carry on our sacred duty to the fish that have sustained our people since the beginning of time.”
FERC commissioners themselves described the vote as “momentous” and “historic,” and several noted the significance of taking the action during National Native American Heritage Month. Commissioner Willie Phillips acknowledged the tribal members watching the vote live from a remote sandbar on the Klamath via satellite uplink. “I raise a toast to you,” he said.
How a $500 million deal came together
The dams are owned by PacifiCorp, a utility that faced a difficult calculation: invest hundreds of millions of dollars in fish ladders, screens, and other environmental upgrades required under regulations that didn’t exist when the dams were first built — or agree to demolish them. Under the deal approved by FERC, PacifiCorp’s costs are capped at $200 million. The remaining $250 million comes from a California voter-approved water bond.
The dams produce less than 2% of PacifiCorp’s total power generation at full capacity — enough to power around 70,000 homes — but they often run well below that due to low water flows. For a utility already closing coal plants and building wind farms, the math ultimately favored removal.
The smallest dam, Copco 2, was projected to come down as early as the summer following approval. The remaining three dams — one in southern Oregon and two in northern California — were planned to be drained slowly beginning in early 2024 C.E., with the goal of returning the river to its natural state by the end of that year. FERC’s approval of the license surrender set that timeline in motion.
Why this matters beyond the Klamath
The Klamath decision fits into a broader national trend. American Rivers, which tracks dam removals across the country, reported that 1,951 dams had been demolished in the U.S. as of early 2022 C.E., including 57 in 2021 C.E. alone. Most have come down in the past 25 years as aging facilities reach license renewal and face the same environmental upgrade requirements that made removal the better option on the Klamath.
But the scale here is different. The Klamath project is measured not just in dollars or dam height, but in the sheer length of river habitat that will reopen — more than 300 miles — and the number of structures coming down at once. NOAA has described the project’s ecological significance in terms of salmon population recovery, watershed health, and the restoration of a complete river ecosystem.
Tom Kiernan, president of American Rivers, pointed to climate change as an additional reason the project matters right now. The Western United States has been hit hard by prolonged drought driven by rising global temperatures. Allowing the Klamath’s flood plains and wetlands to function naturally, he argued, would help buffer those impacts. The Klamath Basin watershed covers more than 14,500 square miles, and a healthy river system is a more resilient one.
What remains unresolved
Not everyone welcomed the decision. Homeowners on Copco Lake, a reservoir that will disappear with dam removal, vigorously opposed the plan. Ratepayers in rural counties near the dams raised concerns about who bears the cost if expenses run over budget or legal complications arise. The road from regulatory approval to a fully restored river is long, and the ecological recovery of salmon populations will take years — possibly decades — even after the dams are gone. The project is historic. Whether it becomes the model its advocates hope for depends on what happens next.
Read more
For more on this story, see: RSN — The largest dam demolition in history is approved for a California river
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Renewables now make up at least 49% of global power capacity
- U.K. cancer death rates down to their lowest level on record
- The Good News for Humankind archive on indigenous rights
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