Taking in the views of a free-flowing Klamath River, just weeks after dam removal was completed.

Thirteen years after the first salmon returned to a free-flowing Elwha River on Washington’s Olympic Coast, the first Chinook salmon swam upstream to reaches of the Klamath River that had been blocked for the last 112 years.

This October, after decades of battles, the demolition of four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River in northern California was completed. This river, which was once the third largest salmon-producing river on the West Coast, saw mass declines in populations—including a 90% decrease in fall Chinook and a 98% decrease in spring Chinook—during the century the dams were in place. Chinook, Coho, Steelhead, and Pacific Lamprey populations struggled to survive in the hot stagnant water. In 2002, an estimated 33,000 to 80,000 Chinook salmon were killed in a mass die-off after water was diverted for irrigation in Oregon’s Klamath Basin. Just days after the final dam was removed this October, Chinook salmon were spotted returning to stretches of the Klamath River they hadn’t accessed since 1916.

“If you get the chance, go be by the Klamath River and see what she has to say.” Within ten days of hearing Amy Bowers Cordallis, York Tribe member and executive director of Ridges to Riffles, say these words at an event in Seattle, I was setting foot in the Klamath River Basin.

A roadsign reflects the new reality of the Klamath watershed.

Watching a free-flowing section of the Klamath River reclaim her movement, her freedom, and her sounds was a culmination of so many of my life’s key experiences. Watching Chinook salmon spawn in a creek they haven’t had access to for decades reaffirmed everything we’re fighting for. Dam removal is powerful. It’s courageous, progressive, and it’s an act against systems of oppression and the status quo.

Dam removal is all about trust. It’s returning the land and water to a natural state. It’s letting go of our innate desire to control and harness all of our natural resources. It’s a recognition that we went too far. That our desire to conquer the West and the people who have stewarded this land since time immemorial is not serving us. It’s trust in a system where we don’t control every drop of water.

Letting go of power isn’t easy. Removing infrastructure that is often celebrated as a sign of societal and economic prosperity isn’t easy. They’ll tell us it isn’t possible to have clean energy, transportation, irrigation, and save salmon. Our job is to tell them we can. Our job is to keep coming to the table and to implement the solutions that keep stakeholders afloat while saving the keystone species on the brink of extinction. Our job is to envision the future we want every single day and not stop until we get it. I am so thankful for the generations of people who fought for this. I am so sorry to those of you who fought for this and didn’t get to see these rivers flow free.

A Chinook salmon returns to Jenny Creek, a tributary to the Klamath River that has been blocked for the last 60 years.

I don’t mean to diminish the challenges that local communities in these watersheds face when dam removal is discussed or becomes a reality. Seeing the docks that once floated in Copco Lake now resting in the dirt of the former reservoir was a small, yet personal reminder of the ways lives are affected by these actions. While those landowners didn’t choose to have the dams constructed in the first place, their backyard has changed whether they like it or not. I just hope they take this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the vegetation, the salmon, and the wildlife return.

There will always be setbacks and delays when it comes to large-scale river restoration projects. Both the Elwha and the Klamath faced years of delays. Removal of the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams was approved by Congress and signed by President George H.W. Bush in 1992. However, funding for the project was delayed and blocked for twenty years, with deconstruction finally starting in 2011, 101 years after the first dam construction began. In the Klamath Basin, an agreement was reached in 2010 that included the Secretary of the Interior, governors of Oregon and California, PacifiCorp, and 44 other parties to resolve long-standing issues in the basin. However, this agreement never passed through Congress and expired five years later in 2015, causing parties to go back to the drawing board. 

A free-flowing Klamath River finds her shape again in a previous reservoir.

Just like these battles, there will continue to be challenges and roadblocks as we fight for a free-flowing lower Snake River. While each of us alone can’t control who holds the power in Washington D.C., together we can continue to tell the stories that drive us and share the experiences that guide us as we fight for a better future. Recently, at an event hosted by Children of the Setting Sun Productions in Seattle, I witnessed representatives from the Lower Klallam Tribe hand off a canoe paddle that for 13 years represented the Elwha as the largest dam removal project in history, to its new home with the Yurok Tribe. Amy Bowers Cordallis, the recipient of the paddle, immediately looked to the crowd and shared that they’ll just be holding onto it until it’s passed to the Snake River. 

Snake River, your time is coming.