COPCO, Calif. — Long before European explorers navigated its waters, the Klamath River was a highway for indigenous people. Below the surface, salmon, steelhead and cutthroat trout swim freely from the Cascades in Oregon to the Pacific Ocean in California.
Today, the water is slowed by dams electrifying communities who live and make a living along the reservoir. Change is the only constant along the Klamath River and change is happening again.
California and Oregon are currently undergoing the largest dam removal project in the world. For more than 100 years, a series of six hydroelectric dams have slowed the flow of the Klamath River to generate power for the Klamath basin and beyond.
By the end of 2024, four of those dams will be removed. When completed, more than 400 miles of native salmon habitat will be restored.
The dam removals project has taken decades to approve and created controversy between Native American tribes and property owners who live along the Klamath River.
“These dams were really important at the time they were constructed. They electrified this region for the first time,” said Mark Bransom.
Bransom is the Chief Executive Officer of the Klamath River Renewal Corporation or KRRC, which is the nonprofit entity in charge of the removal project.
“It wasn’t recognized at the time that the construction of these dams would bring negative environmental impacts,” said Bransom.
The six dam Klamath Hydro Electric Project as it’s known, was built between 1918 and 1964. Those very old dams were operated by power company PacifiCorp up until 2022.
“They generate a really small amount of power. In fact, they really only represent 2% of PacifiCorp’s power generation portfolio,” said Bransom.
When PacifiCorp’s licensing agreement ran out in 2006, they had the option of either repairing and updating the dam to modern standards or removing the dams, which is what the power company chose.
“They estimated that it was going to cost upwards of half a billion dollars to install fish passages and do a variety of water quality processes, and it simply didn’t make economic sense,” said Bransom.
The four slated for removal are the J.C. Boyle Dam, which is in Oregon; and in California the Copco1, Copco2 and Iron Gate dam. The two dams not being torn down are the Keno and Link River dams, which regulate flood water on the Oregon side.
Native American tribes have fought to remove the dams for generations. The Yurok people primarily live near the mouth of the Klamath, where fresh water meets the ocean. In recent years they’ve worked to educate the public about water quality downriver of the dams.
“This is the only time in history where this river is going to heal itself. There’s a lot of people who’s not with us here today that strived to get the dams taken out,” said Julian Markussen. He is a redwood canoe guide with the Yurok Tribe.
The redwood canoes, or Ohl-we-yoch as they’re called, are sacred vessels. A few years ago, the tribe started offering the public two-hour tours down the Klamath to see the river through the tribe's eyes. As Markussen paddles along the bank, he explains the river is in a constant state of healing itself.
“The dams are the biggest culprit of making the river sick. It’s the blue green algae,” said Markussen.
The hydroelectric dams are above tribal lands and slow water in the Klamath. In years of drought, plumes of blue green algae grew in slow moving water and sucked the oxygen out of the river. In 2002, the algae caused a massive fish kill suffocating salmon and other aquatic life in the river.
“You would just see bodies on bodies of salmon rotting on the shoreline,” said Brook Thompson, who was seven when the fish kill happened. “These salmon that I saw rotting and dead are connections to my ancestors. We’ve been on this river and this space for over 15,000 years."
Thompson is Yurok and grew up fishing salmon with her father. The fish fed her family and the tribe.
“The river was like our supermarket. We even ate the seaweed at the mouth of the river. It was everything we needed to live a healthy life,” said Thompson.
The fish kill led Brook to a life of activism. She pushed for removal of the dams at a young age. In college she studied environmental science, civil engineering and political science.
“I’m also looking at ways to better integrate indigenous knowledge into California waterways. So, how can tribes communicate better with policy makers that make decisions on water,” said Thompson.
Negotiations on how to remove the dams started around 2006 and an agreement wouldn’t be finalized until 2016. It was activism by Brook, her tribe and many environmentalists to make sure policymakers didn’t lose focus and the project followed through.
“We were told that this wasn’t going to be a reality. The dam removal on the Klamath was not going to happen and we were fools for trying, and yet we have come to a day where it is a reality,” said Brook.
Drawdown of the dams on the Klamath started mid-January 2024 with a hole being blown in two of the dams. The water is expected to be drained by the spring, but as the dam’s reservoirs drop new concerns are on the rise.
Patty Vinikow lives on Copco Lake about a quarter mile from the Copco dams. Her lakeside property, like many other people’s properties, is about to turn into cliffside property.
“If our homes do tumble down [into the river] there is no guarantee that they will take care of us. We are literally, I call it 'collateral damage,'” said Vinkow.
Across from Vinikow is the Copco General Store, a business Francis Gill and Danny Fontaine started remodeling in 2022.
“We were going to open up this summer but when the dam removal was finalized we decided to hold off,” said Gill.
Copco Lake is largely a vacation community with several hundred lake homes and about 100 year-round residents. The town was built in the 1960s about the same time the Copco dams went in. The reservoir is the main reason families bought land and built memories here.
“It’s like this. If you can, imagine buying a house in front of a really nice park and then they put in a freeway,” said Fontaine. “That’s a different view.”
You can’t drive around Copco Lake without seeing a 'for sale' sign every few houses. After the reservoir is drawn down, access to the new stretch of river will be difficult and there is a concern nearby wells may run dry.
“We need electricity, we need water! What are they taking out! Four incredible, clean-producing electric-producing dams and the most beautiful waterway and paradise there is. Look how much water there is,” said Vinikow.
Concerns from Copco Lake residents, and most dam-related matters, are managed by the Klamath River Removal Corporation (KRRC).
“[The dams] don’t store any water for agriculture or municipal uses, and they are not operated for flood control. PacifiCorp. has replaced that generating power many, many times over including with renewable resources,” said KRRC CEO Mark Bransom.
He and his team have spent a lot of time addressing concerns and correcting misinformation about unstable soil, well issues and fire concerns. The KRRC can’t pay for lost property values but it can help in other areas.
“We have invited residents into the claims process and are providing them with some financial resources in the event that there are some impacts,” said Bransom.
The KRRC is a result of more than a decade of protests, disagreements and negotiations involving the dam’s former operator PacifiCorp., multiple governments, tribes and environmentalists.
“Nobody has ever simultaneously removed four dams and restored more than 2,500 acres of land,” said Bransom.
The dam removal project will cost $450 million, which will be paid for by PacifiCorp. rate hikes and money from state water bonds. To streamline the process and release PacifiCorp. from liability, all of the interested parties decided to form the KRRC as an independent entity that would deal with the bureaucratic nightmare of getting all the permits and approvals to remove the dam.
“We have two states involved in this project as well as the federal government and a couple of counties, so you can imagine the regulatory process was extremely complex,” said Bransom.
Physically removing the dams and restoring the land will take the least amount of time in this entire process, but getting to that point took a long time. Kenneth Brinks, or Binx as he’s known, is a Karuk Tribal Member. He and the tribe live downstream of the dams and have fought for their removal since the 2002 fish kill.
“I definitely walk around pretty proud thinking I got to be part of this team, and you know it wasn’t just the tribes. It was everybody, a lot of stakeholders that spent many decades bringing these dams down,” said Brinks.
It’s taken years to get to this point but many tribes along the Klamath believe the world is watching what’s happening in California and Oregon.
“This is like bringing a whole culture and religion back with these salmon and the dams. A lot of people don’t realize that these dams took away our culture and religion. That water is our life,” said Brinks.
If the world is watching, opponents of the dam removal hope they are watching both sides.
“All along, I think this community definitely felt unlistened to. If this is a successful dam removal experiment for lack of a better word,” said Francis Gill. “They will want to open up a lot more passageways.”
By the end of 2024, all four dams will be removed and salmon will once again be able to swim up the Klamath. The next step will be to grow native plants and restore the land damaged by the reservoirs, but that is for the next chapter in the story of Klamath Dam Removals.
WATCH MORE ON ABC10: What I learned while riding in a sacred canoe
