YREKA, Calif. – One of the first banners used by a coalition of tribes, environmentalists and other allies in a 20-year struggle to remove four dams from the Klamath River along the California-Oregon state line was lovingly hung by some longtime fish protectors.

The vinyl decals, featuring salmon crying to get beyond the first of the dams, were wrinkled, the banner itself battle-scarred in places. But the message was still clear: “Un-dam the Klamath now!”

That message became fact at the end of September when the final hunks of concrete were trucked away from the last of the four dams that had impeded fish migration for nearly a century. The world’s largest dam removal project to date was complete, and about 500 people came to a meadow about 10 miles south of the Klamath last month to celebrate and to look forward to the next phase of restoring an entire basin the size of West Virginia.

“It’s the removal of these artificial barriers that have divided our people, divided our communities, divided our natural communities,” Leaf Hillman said.

A look back:How removing 4 dams will return salmon to the Klamath River and the river to the people

A river under restoration

The Klamath River Basin suffered a near-death experience after being subjected to more than 100 years of mismanagement and injustices against tribal communities. Governments and private industry built dams on ancestral Shasta Nation lands, replumbed the Upper Klamath Basin for agriculture and channelized a key tributary, resulting in massive amounts of phosphorus flowing into the Upper Klamath Lake and eventually, the lower river.

Klamath Chairman William Ray said his tribe had fished the last salmon out of the river in the early 20th century after the first of the dams, Copco I, stopped fish from coming upstream to spawn.

Immediately, he said, the tribe lost 25% of its food supply. In 1984, the tribe was forced to stop fishing altogether when their other two major fish species, the c’waam and koptu, plummeted in numbers, victim to toxic waters in Upper Klamath Lake and the depleted water supplies as farmers asked for more water to be diverted for crops where the Lower Klamath Lake once stood.

The two sucker fish, a cultural touchstone for the Klamaths, were listed as endangered in 1988 and have yet to recover.

Former Klamath Tribes Chairman Jeff Mitchell, a longtime advocate for dam removal, said his tribe had suffered from the dams impeding salmon migration years before the downriver tribes.

“They could still fish for a while,” until the historic fish kill in 2002. That spurred the downriver tribes to action, and the Yurok, Karuk, Hupa and Klamath Tribes banded together to fight for the dams to come down.

Finally, after 20 years of struggle, protests, court battles and even picketing the home of Warren Buffett, whose company had assumed ownership of the dams, an agreement was reached to demolish the dams. The process started in early 2023.

A moment in history:Klamath River flows free after the last dams come down, leaving land to tribes and salmon

Celebration marks achievement and salmon’s return

Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley called the river’s restoration “the biggest environmental moment of my life.”

An older agreement, the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, showed that people in the basin agreed to the dam removals, he said. But when that agreement fell through, victim to congressional politics, it took “protesters and provocateurs to make things happen.”

Now, he said, salmon are coming back to the Klamath River, a moment celebrated by the people who live there.

“It is strengthening our communities, our cultures, some of which have been devastated by these dams to almost to the point of extinction, just like the fish in the basin,” Hillman said.

“People were talking at the time like, ‘You’re crazy, this is crazy, this is just ridiculous,'” Lisa Hillman said. The struggle created strife, pitting people against each other, she said.

Karuk Chairman Russell “Buster” Attebery recalled that as a child, the family ate fish at least four times a week.

But in the 1990s, Attebery said, the salmon runs were depleted, victim to habitat loss.

“There were three of us fishing all day and not one one of us caught anything.”

Finally, with the help of other tribes and allies, Attebery said, “I’m glad to know that I won’t have to go to the river and fish all day and not catch anything.”

Yurok Vice Chairman Frankie Myers said no one individual undammed the Klamath. “No person, tribe, state or fed could have done this by themselves,” he said. “We were told to stop fighting, that it would never happen – but here we are.”

As to naysayers that the project would never happen, Myers said that “just because you’re swimming upstream doesn’t mean you’re going the wrong way.”

What was theirs:Shasta tribe will reclaim land long buried by a reservoir on the Klamath River

Shasta Indian Nation will restore its ancestral lands

The Shasta Indian Nation, which was promised the return of 2,800 acres of land once underneath the Copco I reservoir, will assume rehabilitation of more than 1,000 acres of those lands after signing a lease agreement with the Klamath River Renewal Corp. for the lands, and a restoration agreement with Resource Environmental Solutions, the company in charge of restoring the lands that emerged from draining the reservoirs.

Shasta people will incorporate their cultural values into the landscape, cultivating traditional foods for a food sovereignty program and other culturally important plants.

The lands, known as “Parcel B” lands, were handed over to California and Oregon as part of the dam removal agreement. California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that the 300-member tribe would become the owners of the lands on the California side once the transfers are finalized.

But the land was seized under eminent domain when the first of the dams began construction in the early 20th century.

The Shasta Indian Nation will work in tandem with the Yurok Tribe, which has been working on the restoration project and will continue to do so.

The tribe also toured the old power generating station handed to them by PacificCorp, the last owner of the dams. The structure will eventually be converted into a tribal cultural and education center.

Shasta Cultural Preservation Officer Sami Jo Difuntorum and other tribal leaders and elders were moved to tears as the river flowed in its original channel for the first time in more than 100 years. The river had been diverted to run the giant turbines to provide electricity to Siskiyou County and parts of southern Oregon for the first time in the early 20th century.

More work lies ahead to bring more salmon home

The celebration and the lease agreement marked the end of a critical phase of river restoration and the beginning of a new one: ensuring the salmon can make their way to their ancestral spawning grounds upstream from Upper Klamath Lake.

In August, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration allocated $3 million for salmon restoration, Merkley said, with another $11.5 million going to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to improve fish ladder passages on the two dams remaining on the river.

The Upper Klamath Basin also needs attention. Draining wetlands and channelizing the Sprague River to enable cattle ranching and agriculture has taken its toll on the region. The Sprague’s wetlands once filtered out phosphorus that acts as a free buffet for blue-green algae to proliferate in Upper Klamath Lake.

But at least one tribe holds out hope for the future of fish in the Klamath. Difuntorum, of the Shasta, offered the opening prayer at the dam celebration, and later looked ahead: “We will hold the welcome home salmon ceremony for the first time in decades this spring 2025.”

Debra Krol reports on Indigenous communities at the confluence of climate, culture and commerce in Arizona and the Intermountain West. Reach Krol at debra.krol@azcentral.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter @debkrol. 

Coverage of Indigenous issues at the intersection of climate, culture and commerce is supported by the Catena Foundation.