Fourth And Final Klamath Dam Getting Removed

The Klamath River dam removal project – the good news and the bad that’s come with it – is nearing its completion, with removal of the fourth dam, beginning today.

Here’s Kurtis Alexander of the San Francisco Chronicle with more:

With deconstruction starting at J.C. Boyle, three dams are now in the process of coming out. They’re expected to be fully razed by fall, including Copco #1 Dam and Iron Gate Dam. The smallest of the dams, Copco #2, was removed last year.

“Things are moving really fast,” said Barry McCovey Jr., a member of the Yurok Tribe and a subsistence fisherman who grew up on the Klamath River and is now director of the Yurok Tribal Fisheries Department, which has advocated for dam removal. “Every week it’s something new happening.” 

The dam is being removed, like the others downstream in California, in a monumental effort to help rewild the 250-mile Klamath River, where fish, notably salmon, have been shut out of the river’s remote upper watershed since the early 1900s because of the power project. The $500 million demolition is the largest dam removal in U.S. history.