YREKA, Calif. — A controversial dam removal project is expected to be completed sometime in August or September 2024, months ahead of schedule. The Klamath River Renewal Project (KRRC) is the largest dam removal effort in the world and it's taking place on the California-Oregon border.
When completed it will restore more than 400 miles of fish habitat, but the decades-old project has caused tension between Native American tribes and residents along the Klamath River.
Misinformation on social media has created lots of confusion around the project. Here are some facts about the project that you need to know:
- A total of four aging hydroelectric dams will be removed, some are over 100 years old.
- Those dams were privately owned by power company PacifiCorp. The dams don’t provide any irrigation or flood control, they just produce a small amount of electricity.
- PacifiCorp chose to remove the aging dams instead of bringing them up to modern standards.
- It took federal and environmental regulators more than two decades to study and approve the project.
- The Klamath River Renewal Corporation (KRRC) is the independent nonprofit created to manage the deconstruction of the dams and restoration of the river.
- The dam removals will cost $450 million and are funded by PacifiCorp customer surcharges and Proposition 1 water bond funds.
ABC10 has reported on the removals of the dams for the past year now. In part one of our investigation, we looked into the history of the project and what led up to their removal.
In part two of our investigation, we follow the process of removing the dams and how it affects those living on the Klamath River.
In January 2024, demolition crews blasted holes in the side of two of the four dams scheduled for removal. As the reservoirs drained, a rush of brown sediment was sent down the Klamath River.
On one side, the blasts were a monumental moment for environmentalists and indigenous tribes like the Yurok who have fought for over 20 years to bring down four dams on the Klamath and restore 400 miles of fish habitat.
“It happened because there was really strong leadership at the Yurok tribe that demanded a seat at the table for every aspect of this project,” said Amy Bowers-Cordales, legal counsel for the Yurok tribe.
Downriver of the blasts in Yreka, anger played out on social media. Then, it turned into a heated debate at City Hall. In a series of meetings, residents along the Klamath River pushed their local elected leaders to file a state of emergency with the governor.
This anger and tension expressed by residents along the Klamath River is nothing new. For two decades residents and farmers protested the removal of the dams, and when that didn’t work some Klamath River residents like Rex Cozzalio filed lawsuits against government regulators.
“We can’t get past the first tier of the legal process because they throw it out on technicalities that say this is the wrong court and we need to take this through the administrative process with FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) or the Department of Water Resources,” said Cozzalio.
Despite local disapproval, deconstruction of the dams moved forward.
“A lot of people didn’t think we would get dam removal over the finish line and now it’s happening and we are in a super visual stage of the process,” said Ren Brownell.
Brownell is a spokesperson with the KRRC. The independent nonprofit was put in charge by lawmakers to remove the dams and restore the land along the Klamath.
“We are seeing a lot of sediment travel downstream and while water quality is improving, back in January we did see some fish mortality. A small amount in the main stem, honestly a lot less than what was projected by agencies. Then what was also expected was all the non-native fish in the reservoir, they died,” said Brownell.
The KRRC is made up of about 15 board members and about six staff members. Along with managing the world's largest dam removal project, it is the KRRC’s job to respond to local residents' concerns.
“I think a challenge in a rural area is how to get communications out to folks so we do Facebook, because that’s the most popular in a rural area, and we send out a lot of letters,” said Brownell.
The KRRC has no local offices in Siskiyou County. Not getting a timely response from the KRRC is one of the biggest complaints by many in this rural community, including Jim and Lynda Leach, who own a home downriver of the dams.
“The KRRC won't respond to anything. They say to call or email them but they don’t get back to you,” said Jim Leach.
Putting communication issues aside, it’s taken government regulators and legislators more than 20 years to research and approve a plan to remove the four dams on the Klamath River. During those 20 years of planning, Brownell says many locals became skeptical of the project.
“Misinformation and conspiracy theories have always surrounded the dam removal project,” said Brownell.
At a print shop in Yreka, Jay Martin reviews the latest edition of the Siskiyou News. The former truck driver publishes, prints and hand delivers a four to five-page paper.
“Siskiyou News started out as an online platform, Facebook based for 13 years. It kept growing and then it got to the point where we need to go back to a physical print,” said Martin.
Siskiyou County is in what might be considered a news or information desert. Martin says the mainstream media rarely gives his community of about 40,000 a voice.
“Covering the dam removal has been hard. I am not on their team,” he said.
The team Martin is talking about is the KRRC. He and many of the paper's volunteer writers are against the dam removals.
If you read through the Siskiyou News, you rarely see interviews with the KRRC. That’s partly because the KRRC has accused the paper of printing misinformation. When asked, Brownell says they have not offered Siskiyou News a tour of the dam deconstruction sites like they have with other news outlets.
“I have not invited them out, not since they made it clear to me that they were going to publish misinformation no matter what. They also have not asked,” said Brownell.
Jay Martin stands by his paper's reporting. However, Martin admitted some of the paper's content was censored or flagged as misinformation on social media. ABC10 asked Martin why he thought the stories were getting flagged.
“It's content-related,” said Martin.
One of the paper's contributors who writes about the dam removals is William Simpson, a wild horse advocate who manages a herd of wild horses above Iron Gate Dam.
“That’s why I am concerned about the ecology of the river. If we have toxins in the river, I have to wonder what that's going to do to the horses. They are such a precious species,” said Simpson.
The toxins Simpson is worried about are heavy metals in the sediment that built up behind the dams. Heavy metals flow down the river naturally, but William says high concentrations of metals have piled up in the reservoirs for over 60 years.
“I am talking about lead, chromium, cadmium, aluminum,” said Simpson.
In April, restoration crews dumped excavator loads of sediment into the river, an action which Simpson does not support. In the Siskiyou News, he writes extensively about research on metals and sediment quality behind the dams.
In one article Simpson writes about “corrupt science” and ecoterrorism. He believes supporters of the dam are ignoring past research on sediment analysis.
“Even with low doses over time, it poses a real problem for all the people downriver including the indigenous people,” said Simpson.
In spring 2024, ABC10 was invited to witness some of the sediment removal and watched as crews purposely dumped it into a nearby stream feeding into the Klamath River.
“This is part of the plan and there is nothing to be concerned about,” said Dave Coffman.
Coffman is with Resource Environmental Solutions (RES). They are contractors hired to repair and replant the barren landscape where the reservoirs once were.
“We guarantee restoration success on this project and what that means is we will be here for a minimum of five years after the restoration activity is done, whether it's planning in an upland or doing stream restoration,” said Coffman.
It may look bad to some but Coffman says the sediment they are dumping in the water is part of a stream restoration project and putting it back in the river is beneficial.
“Decades of testing, hundreds of thousands of samples, multiple federal agencies, multiple presidential administrations and eventually the states of California and Oregon both said this sediment is great. Send it down the river,” said Coffman.
Fear of the reservoir's sediment started with images of dead fish and stranded wildlife. William Simpson shot drone video days after the drawdown at Iron Gate Dam and it went viral on the internet. The KRRC says a one-time fish die-off was expected because the reservoir fish were non-native and couldn’t survive in the Klamath River.
But as the dead fish images and skepticism about the sediment spread across social media, residents ultimately pushed Siskiyou County supervisors to pay for independent water testing of the river.
To be clear, the Klamath River is NOT a source of public drinking water, but when Siskiyou County released the results of its independent water test, it reported levels of heavy metals like aluminum, chromium and lead to be higher than normal or over drinking water standards.
The heavy metal scare caused many residents all along the Klamath River to also conduct their own water testing. Lynda Leach and her husband Jim have mason jars of Klamath River water dating back to January. Every day Lynda posts pictures of the water’s temperature and clarity on the Facebook group Klamath River & Dam Removals group, which attracts the attention of thousands of followers.
ABC10 asked the Leaches what they plan to do with the mason jars they've collected.
“I do not have a plan. I thought I should just save them. Eventually I guess I will quit,” said Lynda Leach.
Her husband Jim fears river water could somehow make it into nearby wells.
“All that sludge is sitting there and it is hydraulic-ing and it's pushing into our soil and eventually its going to be in our well," he said.
The KRRC doesn't deny trace amounts of metals were found in the county water tests, but says the trace amounts are only temporary.
”Even at its worst, the water in the river was safe to touch,” said KRRC spokesperson Ren Brownell. “We never questioned Siskiyou County’s results. They were done by qualified technicians and sent to a qualified lab. It was more so the interpretation of those results.”
Interpreting heavy metal water sample data is extremely complex. It's why we took the Siskiyou County’s water test results to water treatment specialist and Sacramento State assistant professor, Dr. Tongren Zhu.
“This is data from the raw water; this is not data from the water you drink,” said Zhu. “When you had the drawdown, it's very likely the fresh water came in and met the sediments, and some of the metals get released out and probably that is why you see the elevated levels of heavy metals.”
Zhu says the elevated levels of heavy metals is likely temporary and though it doesn’t meet water drinking standards, that doesn’t necessarily mean the Klamath River is unsafe to swim in. Zhu also says one or two water tests is not enough.
“Over time, we don’t really know how fast those sediments and heavy metals release. So, probably they should keep monitoring for months or maybe years to see how that number turns out eventually,” said Zhu.
Continual data collection is exactly what government regulators, the KRRC and Siskiyou County are doing. Current water quality data shows clarity and contaminants in the Klamath River have significantly improved, but long-term data is needed to truly interpret the health of the river.
A massive re-vegetation effort is underway to keep all the built-up sediment from constantly muddying the river water.
“Tribal members have been fighting for their rights and sovereignty to be on this river and to practice their cultural rights, so it's pretty special to be here right now,” said Richard Green.
He's one of the many indigenous tribal workers hired to make their way through the acres of mud and muck to plant native trees and shrubs. Involving local tribes was not only part of the dam removals agreement, but important to reshaping and restoring the barren banks Klamath River.
“These seeds were collected out of the Ashland area, and the white oaks were all collected in this area. We collected them,” said Green.
ABC10 watched Green and his team of planters in March 2024. Just a few months later, the seeds they planted started to grow. Resource Environmental Services or RES took before and after pictures documenting the re-growth.
Removing the dams on the Klamath River has been a decades-long battle fought largely by indigenous tribes like the Yurok, Karuk and Shasta Nation.
“Doing the restoration is important but who is doing the restoration is just as important,” said Amy Bowers-Cordalis.
She is legal counsel for the Yurok Tribe and a board member with KRRC. It’s been her mission to make sure indigenous people remain involved in the dam removal. She also wants to restore relationships with locals.
“We are not divided. We are bound by the river and I want to believe that when the river heals itself, we as humans will feel that healing,” said Cordalis.
With any big project there’s often conflict and confusion, but in the case of the world's largest dam removal project, we really don’t know how the river will respond until the dams are completely removed.
This fall, ABC10 will continue to follow the removal of the dams and will take a look at the restoration efforts once the dams are completely removed. We will also chronicle the fall salmon run as fish make their way up the newly freed Klamath River.
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