In October 2024, the final concrete barrier fell away from the Klamath River, marking the end of a century-long chapter of ecological disruption and the beginning of an extraordinary environmental comeback story.
The removal of four massive hydroelectric dams has unleashed one of nature’s most remarkable recovery stories, bringing salmon home to waters they hadn’t seen since the early 1900s.
A Century of Separation Ends
The four dams that once choked the Klamath River – Iron Gate, J.C. Boyle, Copco 1, and Copco 2 – were built between 1918 and 1962.
For more than 100 years, these concrete and earthen barriers blocked salmon and steelhead from reaching over 400 miles of their ancestral spawning grounds.
But here’s the deal – the dams weren’t just blocking fish. They were creating massive toxic algae blooms in stagnant reservoirs, heating up the water to deadly temperatures, and slowly poisoning an entire ecosystem.
The shallow reservoirs trapped nutrient-rich waters, creating perfect conditions for blue-green algae that threatened both wildlife and human health.
The breaking point came in 2002 when an estimated 30,000 to 70,000 salmon died in a catastrophic fish kill.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation had diverted water to farms instead of letting it flow downstream, and the results were devastating. This tragedy became the catalyst for a tribal-led movement that would span more than two decades.
The Largest Dam Removal in History
The $500 million project required years of careful planning and precise engineering. As one expert put it, “Removing a dam is like performing open-heart surgery on the landscape. You have to be incredibly careful and precise, or you risk causing more harm than good.”
The removal process began in earnest in mid-2023 and concluded in October 2024. Engineers started with the smallest dam, Copco 2, and worked their way up to the larger structures. The process involved slowly draining reservoirs, demolishing concrete structures, and managing the release of decades of accumulated sediment.
The results were almost immediate. Within 10 days of completing the final in-water work at Iron Gate Dam, more than 6,000 Chinook salmon were observed migrating upstream into newly accessible habitat. The river had remembered its ancient path, flowing back into channels that had been buried under reservoir sediment for decades.
Salmon Come Home
The fish didn’t wait for an invitation. Fall-run Chinook salmon were the first to make the journey upstream, with over 100 observed spawning above the former dam sites by November 2024.
But the real celebration came when threatened coho salmon returned to the upper Klamath River Basin for the first time in more than 60 years.
In November 2024, seven coho salmon entered the new Fall Creek Fish Hatchery in Siskiyou County, located about 7.5 miles upstream of where Iron Gate Dam once stood. Four were male, three were female, and five showed no signs of being hatchery-raised – they were wild fish finding their way home after six decades of separation.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has set an ambitious goal of raising 75,000 coho salmon annually to help restore populations in the upper basin. They’ve already released approximately 270,000 yearling Chinook salmon into Fall Creek, marking the first hatchery release following dam removal.
More Than Fish: A Cultural Revival
For the Indigenous tribes of the Klamath Basin – including the Yurok, Karuk, Hoopa Valley, Klamath, and Shasta – this restoration represents far more than environmental recovery. It’s about healing their connection to ancestral lands and reviving cultural traditions that have been passed down for thousands of years.
Each summer, the Karuk people celebrate the arrival of salmon through the World Renewal Ceremony, thanking their Creator for the fish that have sustained them for generations. The return of healthy salmon runs means the return of these sacred practices.
“The Klamath River is our highway. It is also our food source. And it takes care of us. And so it’s our job, our inherent right, to take care of the Klamath Basin and its river,” explains Joseph James, Chairman of the Yurok Tribal Council.
The restoration has enabled tribes to reclaim their role as stewards of the land, a responsibility that colonization had disrupted but never destroyed. Traditional ecological knowledge is now being combined with modern scientific practices to ensure the river’s future health.
Land Returns to Tribal Stewardship
The dam removal is just one part of a larger story of restoration and justice. In what’s being called the largest “land back” deal in California history, the Yurok Tribe has regained control of 47,097 acres along the Klamath River – an area of 73 square miles.
This massive land transfer, completed over 23 years and finalized in May 2025, includes much of the Blue Creek watershed. Blue Creek’s cold, clear waters provide crucial refuge for salmon and hold deep cultural and spiritual significance for the Yurok people.
The returned lands will be managed as two protected areas: the Blue Creek Salmon Sanctuary and the Yurok Tribal Community Forest. Tribal leaders plan to use controlled burns to thin vegetation, restore meadows and prairies, and create healthier stream habitats for fish.
Challenges Remain Upstream
While four dams are gone, the work isn’t finished. Two dams still remain on the Klamath River in Southern Oregon – the Keno and Link River dams. These structures continue to block fish passage, and tribal leaders are already looking toward the next phase of restoration.
The Link River Dam is particularly challenging because it’s crucial to the Klamath Project irrigation system that delivers water to farms in the upper basin. That’s why the focus now is on collaboration rather than conflict, with farmers and tribes working together in ways that seemed impossible just a few years ago.
Above the former dam sites, the landscape has been transformed by more than a century of agriculture. Water pollution and impaired wetlands present ongoing challenges, and federal funding for many planned habitat restoration projects remains frozen.
A Model for the Future
The Klamath River restoration is generating momentum for similar projects across the country, particularly on the Snake River in the Pacific Northwest. The project demonstrates that large-scale ecological restoration is not only possible but can deliver benefits far beyond what anyone imagined.
The environmental benefits are already measurable: improved water quality, restored natural flow patterns, and the elimination of toxic algae blooms that once plagued the river. The removal of stagnant reservoirs has allowed the river to regulate its own temperature and oxygen levels naturally.
But the social and cultural impacts may be even more significant. The project has strengthened tribal sovereignty, revived cultural practices, and created a model for how Indigenous knowledge and modern science can work together to heal damaged ecosystems.
Looking Forward
The Klamath River will never return to exactly what it was before the dams were built – too much has changed in the surrounding landscape. But tribal leaders and scientists believe they can create something better: a river system that supports both healthy salmon populations and sustainable human communities.
The success of the project so far – with salmon returning within days of the final dam removal – suggests that nature is remarkably resilient when given the chance to recover. Water quality monitoring continues throughout the basin, and fish populations are being carefully tracked as they reestablish themselves in their ancestral waters.
For the children of tribal communities along the Klamath, this restoration means they’ll grow up with opportunities their parents and grandparents never had – the chance to participate in traditional salmon ceremonies, to learn ancient fishing methods, and to carry forward cultural knowledge that connects them to thousands of years of history.
The Klamath River now flows free from its headwaters in Oregon to the Pacific Ocean in California, carrying with it the hopes of entire communities and the promise of a more sustainable future. It’s a reminder that sometimes the best way forward is to remove the barriers that divide us from our natural heritage and trust in the healing power of a river running free.