Klamath Dam Removal and the Tribes Who Fought for Salmon

For more than a century, salmon returning up the Klamath River hit a concrete wall, and the tribes who had fished that river since long before any state existed watched their food, ceremonies and economy shrink with every run. The Klamath dam removal, finished in 2024, is often described as an engineering story. It is better understood as the result of more than twenty years of Indigenous organizing that many people said would never work.

This article explains what was removed, why the tribes pushed for it, what has happened to the river since, and why the work is far from finished.

What the Klamath dam removal actually involved

The Klamath River runs about 250 miles from southern Oregon through northern California to the Pacific. Four hydroelectric dams on its middle stretch were taken out:

• Copco No. 1, completed in the early 1920s, the first dam to block salmon from the upper basin
• Copco No. 2, a smaller dam just downstream
• J.C. Boyle, in Oregon, built in the late 1950s
• Iron Gate, completed in 1964, the lowest of the four

Copco No. 2 came out in 2023. The reservoirs behind the other three were drawn down in early 2024, and the remaining structures were removed over the summer, with the main work done by October. The project cost roughly $450 million, paid through a mix of utility customer surcharges and a California water bond. It is the largest dam removal in United States history, reopening around 400 miles of river and tributary habitat to salmon and steelhead.

Why the tribes fought for it

For the Karuk, Yurok, Hoopa Valley and Klamath Tribes, and for the Shasta people whose villages and burial sites lay under the reservoirs, salmon are not a resource line in a budget. They are relatives, a source of food that sustained families through every season, and the center of ceremonies like the Karuk World Renewal. When runs collapsed, diets changed, and diabetes and heart disease rose in communities that had once eaten fish daily.

The 2002 fish kill

The turning point came in September 2002. Low water flows, released after federal decisions favored upstream irrigation, left the lower river warm and crowded. Tens of thousands of adult salmon died before they could spawn. Estimates range from about 34,000 to more than 60,000 fish. Tribal members walked the banks counting bodies.

That image hardened a movement. Over the following years, tribal members traveled to utility shareholder meetings, including one in Scotland when the dams belonged to a Scottish owner, to speak directly to the people who profited from the river. When the utility's federal operating license expired in 2006, the dams faced a new review, and tribes used that opening. They filed comments in federal relicensing, published water quality data, and built coalitions with commercial fishermen and some farmers who had once been opponents.

The water quality case

The reservoirs also bred toxic blue green algae in summer, at times reaching levels far above health advisory limits. Warm, still water behind the dams helped diseases spread among juvenile salmon downstream. Tribal water departments documented this year after year, and that data ended up central to the regulatory decision. Our article on water rights and Indigenous communities explains how this kind of evidence fits into wider legal fights over rivers.

What has changed since the dams came down

Results came quickly. Within weeks of the final removal in fall 2024, Chinook salmon were seen swimming past the former Iron Gate site and into tributaries like Spencer Creek in Oregon for the first time in generations. Fish counts in 2025 continued to show adults using newly reachable streams.

Restoration crews, many of them tribal staff, planted billions of native seeds across the exposed reservoir beds to hold soil and shade new channels. Willows and native grasses replaced bare mud in many areas within a single growing season. Tribal fisheries programs are now monitoring water temperature, sediment and fish passage across the whole reach. Some sacred and cultural sites that had been underwater for decades are visible again, and Shasta families have been able to visit places their grandparents described.

This approach reflects what we described in our piece on traditional ecological knowledge and why it matters: long observation of a place, combined with modern measurement, guiding decisions about what to plant and where.

Why "the river will heal itself" is the wrong lesson

A common message in coverage of the project is that once the dams were gone, nature took over and the job was done. I think that framing is misleading, and it risks letting governments step back too early.

The river is healthier, but the upper basin still faces serious problems. Irrigation demands on Upper Klamath Lake continue to shape how much water reaches the river in dry years. Two endangered suckerfish, known to the Klamath Tribes as c'waam and koptu, have seen almost no young fish survive to adulthood for decades. Climate driven drought makes summer temperatures harder to manage. Salmon can now reach more river, but if that river runs low and warm, the runs will not rebuild.

Dam removal was a necessary step, not the finish line. The tribes have been clear that water allocation, habitat repair and fishing rights all need continued attention. Treating the Klamath as a closed case would repeat the very pattern that harmed it.

What other rivers can learn

The Klamath shows that tribal persistence can change national energy and water policy. Three lessons stand out for advocates working on other rivers:

1. Collect your own data. Tribal monitoring gave regulators evidence they could not dismiss.
2. Build unlikely coalitions. Fishing families, conservation groups and some farm interests eventually backed a shared plan.
3. Stay for the long haul. The first formal agreement was signed in 2010, and removal finished 14 years later.

The project also connects to wider calls for returning land and management authority to Native nations, which we explore in our article on what the Land Back movement actually asks for.

Frequently asked questions

Why were the Klamath River dams removed?

They blocked salmon from hundreds of miles of habitat, created reservoirs with toxic algae, and produced relatively little electricity. Relicensing them would have required costly fish passage upgrades. Tribal advocacy, water quality evidence and a negotiated agreement made removal the cheaper and more lasting option.

Which tribes led the Klamath dam removal effort?

The Karuk, Yurok, Hoopa Valley and Klamath Tribes were central, with the Shasta Indian Nation also deeply involved because ancestral villages lay beneath the reservoirs. Tribal members organized protests, gathered scientific data and negotiated directly with utility and government officials.

Have salmon returned to the upper Klamath River?

Yes. Chinook salmon were seen above the former Iron Gate dam site within weeks of removal in 2024 and have kept using newly opened tributaries. Full recovery of the runs will take many years and depends on water flows and habitat work upstream.