With so many demands, the Klamath River has come to symbolize a larger struggle over the American West's increasingly precious water resources, and who has claim to them.
Map shows Klamath River dams in California and Oregon.;KLAMATH, Calif. -- California's second-largest river has sustained Native American tribes with plentiful salmon for millennia, provided upstream farmers with irrigation water for generations and served as a haven for retirees who built dream homes along its banks.
“We are saving salmon country, and we’re doing it through reclaiming the West," said Amy Cordalis, a Yurok tribal attorney fighting for dam removal. Backers of the Klamath Dam removal say the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission could vote this spring on whether to transfer the dams' hydroelectric licenses from the current operator, PacifiCorp, to a nonprofit formed to oversee the demolition. Drawdown of the reservoirs behind the dams could begin as early as 2022, according the nonprofit, the Klamath River Renewal Corp.
The structures at the center of the debate are the four southernmost dams in a string of six constructed in southern Oregon and far northern California beginning in 1918. They were built for power generation, and none has"fish ladders," concrete chutes fish can pass through. Under under the demolition plan, $200 million will come from California and Oregon ratepayers, and $250 million will come from a voter-approved California water bond, with no liability for PacifiCorp.“I actually credit a lot of our men and women's depression to the fact that they fish for days and days and days and days and don't catch anything,” said Georgiana Gensaw, who is Yurok and lives on the reservation. “We want to bring salmon home.
Yet even demolition advocates say dam removal won't be enough on its own. Salmon face deteriorating ocean conditions due to climate change, and the many tributaries that feed into the Klamath River are degraded.
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