The Klamath River’s dams are being removed and an effort to restore the river's watershed starts
Water has been drained from reservoirs on the Klamath River as part of the largest dam removal project in the nation's history. With the emptying of reservoirs, lands that had been underwater for generations have reemerged. As work on dismantling the dams continues, a parallel effort is underway to restore the river to a natural state. Once the dams are fully removed, salmon will be able to swim upstream to spawn in more than 400 miles of the river and its tributaries. Leaders of tribes are celebrating the restoration effort, which they say will help them revitalize their fishing traditions and their connection to the river.
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“Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.” - Chief Seattle
Euros have always been way too stupid to understand what the man said. I live near the Elwa, the original largest dam removal project. The two dams have been gone for a decade now. We did lose a campground and a few miles of road when the Elwa shifted channels. But other than that, it’s absolutely wonderful and well worth all the efforts.
I was up at Copco Lake a week ago. It is shocking to think someone installed a dam and thought it would be a good thing. I did not talk to anyone who lives there. But as I see it this will be a better place to live with a free flowing river rather than a lake. I have looked at the videos from some who live by the river and complain about what has happened since the dams were compromised. I understand their fear of the change. Every year will be an opportunity for the river to return to what it is supposed to be. Such a beautiful and amazing place. I am grateful to all who have worked to bring this change. I hope the tribes will flourish as a result of their hard work to bring this day. My son was in college in Klamath Falls when the government decided to kill all the fish in favor of the farmers. I saw what happened then. It broke my heart.
It's not shocking. They didn't know as much about the environment as we now know, and modernization required that power. We now know far more and have different power sources to replace it. We keep learning. At least, some of use do.
This is an excellent report. Unfortunately, many people living in Siskiyou county have succumbed to a false narrative. There are horrible, inaccurate rumors in that region, that the Klamath River is now poisoned and dead because of this restoration effort. Nothing could be further from the truth. The damn removal/Klamath restoration project is going as planned and will be extremely successful in restoring salmon runs and allowing native people to once again be connected to their river. This is the most exciting thing to happen in my lifetime. Thank you for your excellent report on the Klamath dam removal project. And thank you to the local tribes for working so hard to expose the truth, and heal the land and river.
They also forgot to mention that there's been years of discussions and negotiations, numerous published reports for public comments, and so on. Wonder how many siskiyou residents or local politicians showed up to thise meetings?
it's a bunch of angry colonizers spreading that ugliness.
Many siskiyou residents drink the wrong KoolAid and read nothing but FB for their news source unfortunately. They spew BS online with little to no information about longevity of the river. TBH Klamath falls next IMO, restore it all. ❤
There are reasons for declaring an Emergency on the Klamath River.. You would be well served to become informed before reciting the propaganda fed the tribes and the public by KRCC.
@@user-fh8jh2ur8o Yes, there are reasons. It's called a political stunt! The levels of lead, arsenic in chromium have always been marginally high in that region. The samples were collected during high turbidity flows associated with sediment mobilization. That sediment is working its way out of the system. The sky is not falling. This is a political stunt being performed by a few far-right politicians because of pressure by a handful of local former lakefront property owners that are upset about the potential of seeing their property values go down. This is nothing more than a political stunt. Those of us that live in the area are used to Siskiyou county officials doing silly stuff like this.
I sincerely hope these folks are correct. Lived there for many years, drifted the Klamath each fall for Salmon and Steelhead, it was beautiful. I hope it recovers as they planned
I HOPE so as well, but the salmon are now dying due to the organic load. They were warned to remove the organics, but they did not listen.
@@BeautifuLakesStreamsBiologists Please define "organic load" As a fish biologist myself, that is a pretty broad term. Please elaborate.....
Wrong! Read up on the project. They have Coho that were taken out of the river and put into holding pens along the river. The Lower river is just now in season for the Spring runs. All the Feeder creeks, streams and tributary's still have fish, and are sediment free.@@BeautifuLakesStreamsBiologists
What salmon are you talking about? Except for smolts the river currently has few Salmon in it. They netted the Coho and put them in pens. The fall fish are yet to enter the upper river.@@BeautifuLakesStreamsBiologists I think you know very little about this area or Biology.
@@BeautifuLakesStreamsBiologists ...in 10 years it'll be as if those stupid dams had never existed. Nature recovers VERY quickly when left alone.
So happy for all of you, getting the river back.
Interesting video. Hope this ecosystem recovers soon.
We’ve made so many mistakes in the name of “management”. I hope this the start of many more efforts to restore the mistakes we’ve made.
afforable housing you yuppies ruining every nice small town that still has trees
robbrewster4546 Me too. Managing the natural world never seems to work out. Best to work with the natural world.
They are removing small dams, Worldwide now. It is so exciting. Dams killed hundreds of thousands of good rivers around the World.
Thanks to the hundreds of people who worked tirelessly to make this happen. Finally the river flows again.
This is great news! ❤️ God speed!
Human habitation on the Klamath dates to at least 7,000 years ago. Many of the Native American groups along the river depended on the huge runs of Pacific salmon, the third largest on the Pacific coast of what is now the United States. These groups included the Shasta along the middle and upper parts of the river, the Yurok, Hupa, and Karuk along the canyons of the lower river, and the Modoc, Klamath and Yahooskin in the desert valleys of the upper basin. About 129 miles (208 km) of the Klamath River, or half the river's length, was on Shasta territory. The Yurok were the second most prominent group on the river, controlling about 30 miles (48 km) of the lower Klamath River and a large section of the Northern California coast. Along with the Hupa and Karuk, the lower to mid-upper Tribes caught salmon from the river with weirs, basket traps and harpoons. Ishi Pishi Falls, a set of rapids on the Klamath River near the confluence with the Salmon River, has been a traditional fishing ground for thousands of years. Tribes of the upper basin were primarily hunter-gatherers, and did not depend on salmon as much as downstream tribes. The Klamath River's name was recorded by Europeans in the 19th century derived from the word klamet or the Klamath Tribe. Prior to European contact, the river was called by many different names, including Ishkêesh and Koke. The Klamath Tribe's name came from the Upper Chinookan word /ɬámaɬ/, literally "they of the river". The tribes along the Klamath River, in their hunting, fishing, and landscape stewardship practices, employed traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). Traditional ecological knowledge describes the type of natural science information that indigenous people have gathered about the places they live in over the course of hundreds, if not thousands, of years. It encompasses knowledge, beliefs, and practices that native people have accumulated through their immersive stewardship of the natural world.[60] On the Klamath River, tribes have historically, and continue to, use traditional ecological knowledges and practices to care for and manage their landscape. In the late 1820s, fur trappers of the Hudson's Bay Company traveling south from Fort Vancouver reached the Klamath River basin. The first party to see the Klamath River was led by Alexander McLeod in the winter of 1826-27. In 1828, the Jedediah Smith fur trapping expedition was helped across the Trinity River by the Yurok and camped on the east side of the Trinity River. His clerk, Harrison G. Rogers, wrote, "Mr. Smith purchases all the beaver furs he can from them," suggesting that beaver were then plentiful on the Trinity. Joseph Grinnell, in Fur-bearing Mammals of California, noted that beaver had been present on other Klamath River tributaries such as the Scott River and Shasta River, and further cited a Fish and Game report of beaver from 1915-1917 on High Prairie Creek at the mouth of the Klamath River near Requa, California. Fur trappers eventually moved southwest into the Sacramento Valley and extended the Siskiyou Trail, an early path between the Oregon Territory and San Francisco Bay. Within a matter of years, the plentiful beavers in the Klamath Basin had been mostly wiped out. Beaver dams had previously been an important factor in stream habitat in the Klamath River watershed, helping to moderate the power of floods and creating extensive wetlands. The loss of the beaver dams resulted in detrimental consequences for watercourses in the basin, exacerbating the power of winter floods, and causing severe erosion. Despite the environmental implications, extensive and fertile meadows left behind by the draining of beaver ponds attracted many settlers to the region later on. Source Wikipedia
Beavers... I have posted about the beavers before, so I am very pleased to see that I am not the only person that recognizes the important role that beavers play in the river environment. Beavers create wetlands that provide shelter and protection for fish and countless other creatures, and the wetlands provide clean, cool water to the river during the hot dry months of summer. The beavers are a keystone species, and without them, the river and fish will never be completely restored. The beavers are vital to the river health. I hope the tribes will be able to protect and expand beaver habitat, and wish I was in a position to assist in that.
Just like sub Sahara Africa, when there is a plentiful food source there is no need to invent anything. No reason to get beyond hunter/gatherer. The whole reason why tribes/clans of North America lived as though it was 50,000 years ago.
Additionally the common muskrat ( Onduntra zybethicus) was and still a Native Species to the Klamath River, ironically in CA, it is still thought of as an introduced Species, maybe in some further south locations it was, but it was historically present in the Klamath River and along with Caster canadensis helps to retain water in its environs, utilize natural vegetation and form important insect niches, increase fertility with its actions, deepen the water channel closer to the banks of the river, make use of rank vegetation, and actually forms a mutualistic bond with beavers. Both together should be noted as keystone species for their functions interactive with Freshwater bodies such as ponds, rivers, lakes, and estuaries that create even better fish habitat.
Caster canadensis commonly place much food resources limbs, downed woody debris, and other food stores below the water's surface for winter's hardships and safer, effective feeding functions. This behavior greatly enhances fish and insect habitat, cover, egg laying substrate, food and leaf matter which again creates healthier, more productive habitat both below the surface and throughout their home range including on the riparian edges and the many insect species and forms( nymphs, etc.),within that food web. The muskrat uses different plant Species, but also, encourages more productive plant life by utilizing rank vegetation, keeping primary production vital and fresh as well as regenerating those for spring growth or regrowth. Often, beaver prefer younger saplings which, respond positively as the roots of an individual or colonial foundation of those plant Species resprout after one or more sprouts or saplings are taken.
Edit, Ondatra zibethicus spelling error. It is a very symbiotic relationship between them and beavers as both desire higher water levels for crucial escape habitat, with muskrats, often creating burrows along the banks which serve for housing, dens for young production, and escape cover by quickly going beneath the water surface as they reach the waters edge, which may extend up the entrance to this burrow.
Snake River damns next!
More likely the Eel river is next
Wonderful to see this happening, and to listen to the people envolved in finding that ecological trajectory. Thank you!
Good going 👏 great to see this 👍
Excellent spokesman. He puts things into perspective that is easy to understand.
It's wonderful to see white people repairing all the damage they did. Native folks of this region have been extremely patient with the European immigrants. I'm glad to see things are finally starting to work out and some of those white people have come to their senses! This is a monumental, epic project! Probably the best thing to ever happen in this region! Thanks to all the native folks that have worked so hard to make this happen. And thanks to all the whities for working so hard with the native people to restore life to this bioregion. Peace-out dudes!☮️❤️🌎🦫🏞️🐟🌳🌲
Salmon deserve free flowing rivers! Amazing progress already
Amazing work and video!
Let the river run free. Stop the clogging of rivers that are the blood flow of are country. Know before you go. We should have figured out how to live without dams long ago. This will be hard but removal of dams needs to happen so we as a country can figure out a new path. A path. People are always afraid of change. People are just human.
Nice! Keep doing updates.🌈🦄☮️🎉🌅🎇🎆😎
This is great news for Indigenous communities along the river.
True reconciliation. 👍😎🇨🇦✌
hopefully this is just the beginning of a great renewal story
Use drones to drop seeds? Also, more mature plants need to be physically brought in/planted and I'm not sure if they also contoured the land to match natural topography including swales and reconnecting the floor plain along the river. DON'T FORGET TO BRING BACK THE BEAVERS!!!!
Yea, that sounds good, but chances are they'll do it as cheaply as possible; that may be too cynical, we'll see.
I hope they re-introduce beavers to the area too
It will get there. 😊
Amazing!
So late - I remember hearing 30 years ago about the damage dams were doing to the environment. When will we learn to be proactive???
It's much better to have a dam than a fossil fuel power plant
I hope to one day see the Cowlitz river freed.
The yellow overlay over everything was really interesting - is it possible to release a video of this area in the future with the origional colors? ( to help us see what the location really looks like? It’s hard to see the sprouts with the burnt umber filter o7)
Still took way to long to remove the dam dam .
Yes! 🙂
Ohio glad 🙂
Hooray! Now do Glen Canyon and Hoover next.
Hoover is a huge dam. You're going to need a way to replace that power. It'll still be needed. Replacing it with coal or other fossil fuel power plants makes the whole project futile. It needs to be a similarly renewable power source.
Would have been nice to know where this is.
The title literally includes the name of the river...
A couple of winters will clear all that dirt and the damage done for a century will start recovering. Just stop messing with them.
those dead fish look positive.
They literally address that directly, pointing out that fish populations quickly recovered after the removal.
Brings tears to my eyes.
Of joy?
People forget all the harm caused by the glut of "public goods" foisted on the American people & landscape by Progressive Era projects, and its legacy of similar projects.
Can someone with knowledge on the subject help me out here? In the start of the report he says that "karuk was the last contacted tribe in north america" then goes on to talk about the flooding. Does he mean to say they had no prior contact with settlers/colonizers before the construction of the dam?! That must be like well into the 1900s in that case?!
No, the Karuk were first contacted in the mid 1800s. Late 1830s was probably first contact
@@frankmacleod2565 Thank you!
6:18 "If we can, as a society, get back to a place where we're living more in concert with the natural ebbs and flows of the natural environment . . . I think that's a good place to be." I had to laugh a bit at this. He speaks the same truth that the native americans have known for millennia.
let the fish swim and allow the buffalo to roam.
And you quit going to the grocery store and McD.
@@tombrenemanMt the purpose of taking down the dams is to bring back the salmon, so people don't have to eat at McDonald's. You can eat all the processed food you want
OPEN IT UP MAN LETS GO
Aldo Leopold is smiling now.
He is not. He would have warned them to remove the organic sludge that is now killing the salmon. Remove the damn, but do it the right way.
@@BeautifuLakesStreamsBiologists Wow. You really had to get technical without seeing the simplicity of the comment. Great job in missing the context.
Where is the Klamath River...
You do realize all you have to do is say 'Google where is the Klamath?"
Why do I feel like that free running water won't make it through California?
I'm not sure. it has so far.
Please save the salmon for the whales not people!!!!
the biggest issue with this is all the gas that will be burnt instead...
Ehhh unlikely. These represented a tiny portion of PAC’s power source here in Oregon.
@@JoshuaResPAC?
@@theformalmooshroom9147pacific power - the utility that owned them.
@@JoshuaRes Less than 1% like it has been for decades
I love how conservatives hate this, and they are completely clueless as to the science behind it.
Conservatives are clueless about a lot of things! Most of the conservatives I know reject science and believe in a mythical sky daddy. I mostly just ignore them now.
Natural Environment: The Venus Project > Future By Design!
Dang all the Natives in Cali are mixed race now. Love our country's Indigenous history, I hope they do big things
Had family attempt to kayak down the river in the last week and they encountered spots that use to be deep but are now inches deep thanks to clay jammed in the river bed, if they don't do something about this then it won't ever heal.
The river floods every winter, and will flush it out.
At some point in the near future I hope the Natives can once again have a nylon net commercial gill net season on the Klamath River.
So, are those tribes going to eat the fish, if they do come back? How many fish will be there be? What will they do for electricity? Or is it back to candles? How about water for irrigation?
Disconnect the power lines from the homes the dam was powering. Electricity is racist.
They’ll figure out what to do if they haven’t already. Why don’t you start with internet research and ask follow up questions of the tribe? You can start with the tribal office.
Bot
@@imonaroll9502racist bot
Yes, the Tribe will eat fish when they come back. How many fish depends on the run. Numbers change every year. Plenty of power generation in the Northwest. Candles are nice. There are few farms near any of the removed dams. No need for irrigation water.@duanelinstrom4292 @duanelinstrom4292
while at the same time evs are being mandated.
"Squirrel!" shouts an ignorant, Republican puppy. There are other energy alternatives. Worse, you whine about that while fighting the development and deployment of those alternatives.
No, they are not
What do you call a “phase out” of internal combustion engines?
@@kellyem33 Oh, you meant the proposed legislation to ban the sales of new internal combustion engines, eleven years from now. That's not til 2035.... and it will still be perfectly legal to operate and sell internal combustion engines after that time. You will not be mandated to buy an electrical vehicle. I also think they will push that date back when the time comes, seems unlikely to me that they will actually implement that one on time.
@@kellyem33 Here's a little tutorial for you on English and reading comprehension. We didn't mandate cars only, but horse drawn transportation was phased out. Heck, some folks, such as the Amish, still use them. However, the government building roads, including the Interstate Highway system, incentivized the use of ICE vehicles. Now there are incentives to move to the latest technology. Study. Harder.
Fish population up human population down. Devolution
Amen brother.
Cry some more about a healthy ecosystem
Klamath is free. Donny John is going to jail. 49ers went to the Super Bowl. 2024 started off with a bang.
Disaster! People had no idea this would be the outcome. Since removal of Dam suspended sediment in the water has brought the dissolved oxygen level down to zero twice since the dams were removed. Now, you see muck and mud, dead fish floating to the banks, crawdads, and we see animals trying to crawl out of the water to escape. Reply
Fear-mongering FUD! Cry some more about the latest hydropower and ranching lobby talking points.
So where are the salmon going to come from? We put them in the ocean and they wind up in Asian fish markets!
You have no idea how any of this works. Instead of posting. Do some reading.
@@johnkilty1419 John, this is the best response so far! Thank you!
They remove the dams, then disconnect the power lines from their village.
Dams are racist. Shut down casinos because they are the white mans game too. 😂😂😂
Bot
@@brockroberts4258 yes, we realize you are a mindless bot, You do not need to remind us.
These dams were minor power producers. They are negligible in Pacific Powers Oregon grid.
Those dams don't provide much power to anyone
This story is not finished. The geochemistry of this basin deposited much more organic sediment than other basins. The sediment is lethal for the salmon. These people were warned about this by competent ecologists and biologists. They ignored us and the salmon are now dying. If this continues for six years the salmon will be done. The sediment should have been removed! The cowboy in this video can be blamed with many others.
I'm not sure where you heard this, or what kind of biologist you claim to be, but the Klamath was once the third largest salmon producer on the West coast. The unique water chemistry of the Klamath basin is the reason the Klamath used to produce so many salmon. During the late 1800's and early 1900's European settlers started draining and changing the Klamath marsh and the land around it. By the mid 1900's livestock had grazed most of the stream-banks bare and their excrement along with chemical fertilizer, polluted what was left of Klamath lake to the point it became contaminated with thick mats of blue-green algae. The three large shallow reservoirs that were built between 1918-63 served as huge warming basins that basically turned the river into hot, low dissolved oxygen, toxic, green algae soup. Now that the dams are gone, the river will flow freely, stay much cooler, and carry way less toxic algae, and more dissolved oxygen. This will benefit the salmon, and every other life form in the river.
The river will take care of removing sediment, as it's done for a very long time
@@georgehaydukeiii6396hahaha this armchair expert is NOT a biologist
So far, it's an unmitigated disaster, the fish all died off from this, the mammals that use the river as a water source have been getting stuck in the sediment and have had ty be euthanized. It's very sad what's happened. Hopefully, it can recover, but it's been a complete disaster and has begun with a huge kill off of fish and animals.
The fish which died are all nonnative fish that depended on the warm lake water, which is toxic to native salmonids, and this was expected to happen. Then about $800k PLANTED salmon fry died, in a different location, and were not directly affected by the dam removal. It's not clear why CDFW released them at that location. The dam removal was planned for January in order to avoid the fall salmon run. Several deer which tried to get to water sadly died, and they'll learn to go to the river at safer locations to get water. Most of what has happened was expected - see their environmental documents.
So far you're whining and making crap up about predicted issues and warm-water fish that don't belong there.
Over time as the habitat regenerates these problems will disappear.
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@@eh3477you obviously have not seen the dead fish the river fish steelhead, trout and others died off yes they will come back some day but will the salmon ever be back in full force nope the gill net they use down stream will prevent that. During the salmon run any day of the week they be selling the salmon along the roads so as long as that is happening don’t expect too much.
Wonder if he's happy about the thousands of fish they committed genocide on when the dam was removed.
Wonder if you're happy whining about non-native warm water fish and hydropower FUD.
They have ABSOLUTELY killed the Klamath River Salmon forever!!!! Do your homework before you say anything about it that’s positive
Give it time. The salmon will return. They might need a kick start or they might not. Chances are that question already has been considered and solutions already exist. The idea that you should keep the dams and continue to strangle the river because you are anxious about the future is not a reason to continue doing nothing.
Bot
I did my homework, about 35 years worth. I started working for CDFW in 1990. I worked on a project called the KRP (Klamath River Project) I've spent more time on that river than you have probably been alive. Maybe it's you that should do your homework.
@tomg8673 I have been there. have you? The Klamath river has not been killed in any way. You are absolutely wrong! The dog must of eaten your homework.
No, there are still salmon in the river
Stop crying, no one cares
Yep exactly, when your trailer park gets destroyed again by yet another tornado, I always laugh
@@frankmacleod2565nice one. 😂😂😂
@@georgehaydukeiii6396 he lives in New York City, probably never caught a fish in his innocent little life
It’s odd how he says “tribal partners”. As if the tribes have any say in what the occupiers do.
I hope no Native American drives a Tesla because they’re going to miss that Dam. Hydroelectric power is the cheapest to generate.
Continuing the racist narrative?
Deflection
@@brucepoole8552 next should be the Casinos.
I hope no clueless hydropower puppets make dumb comments.
Yeah, and these dams generated a tiny amount of hydro power. The owners transitioned off these dams years ago, when they decided it was cheaper to remove them than to upgrade them to federal standards.
You people came here from Asia so how the hell is any of America your territory any more than any one else?
Sooo Governors K. Brown and C.Newsom signed off on the agreement for this all in the name of “saving” fish. Seems really fishy to me. Do they usually have our best interests at heart.
Yes, they always have our best interests at heart, because they're both Democrats!
The dams are being taken out because they're EOL and at risk of collapse. The fish and river restoration is a huge bonus.
@screetchycello So what you mean to say is that, much like the rest of the infrastructure in America, the dams would cost too much to repair and/or maintain, they've spun getting rid of them into a positive for the community. While they may not be wrong about the potential eventual ecological benefits. The real problem is the consistent lack of investment in public infrastructure, or as the many train disasters show, more importantly the maintenance of such infrastructure.
@@theformalmooshroom9147 The dams were literally killing the river. Literally! The problem is, the local people of Siskiyou county are opposed to anything that can be perceived as pro-environment, or restoration. Unfortunately, the backwards local residents see environmental restoration projects as "woke" or "of the Libs" or "pro-Dems"..... It's really sad how they have politicized literally everything and would rather shoot themselves in the foot, than be perceived as caring, or compassionate. So in order to get the dams out, officials had to make an arrangement with the power company to create a win-win situation. This way it wouldn't seem like caring scientists, environmentalists, or the government were being allowed to make important decisions in this region. The dams were based on technology from the 1800s. It would have cost billions to revamp them. Recovering that cost would have taken forever. But I agree, lack of investment in public infrastructure has become a real problem in America.