A Story About Salmon That Almost Had a Happy Ending

Completion of the world’s largest dam removal project — which demolished four Klamath River hydroelectric dams on both sides of the California-Oregon border — has been celebrated as a monumental achievement, signaling the emerging political power of Native American tribes and the river-protection movement.

True enough. It is fortunate that the project was approved in 2022 and completed last October, before the environmentally hostile Trump administration could interfere, and it is a reminder that committed, persistent campaigning for worthy environmental goals can sometimes overcome even the most formidable obstacles.

How tribal leaders, commercial fisherman and a few modestly sized environmental groups won an uphill campaign to dismantle the dams is a serpentine, setback-studded saga worthy of inclusion in a collection of inspirational tales. The number of dams, their collective height (400 feet⁠⁠) and the extent of potential river habitat that has been reopened to salmon (420 miles⁠⁠) are all unprecedented.⁠

The event is a crucial turning point, marking an end to efforts to harness the Klamath’s overexploited waterways to generate still more economic productivity, and at last addressing the basin’s many environmental problems by subtracting technology instead of adding it, by respecting nature instead of trying to overcome it. It’s an acknowledgment that dams have lifetimes, like everything else, and that their value in hydropower and irrigated water often ends up being dwarfed by their enormous environmental and social costs.