December 8, 2022 3:45 p.m.
Gathering along the Klamath River in Siskiyou County on Thursday, Governor Kate Brown joined California Governor Gavin Newsom, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and leaders of the Klamath, Yurok, and Karuk tribes to celebrate final approval of a dam removal project that advocates say will revitalize nearly 400 miles of the Klamath River and its tributaries.
A release from Governor Brown said it will be the largest river restoration project in American history.
The release said the event marked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s final approval of a plan years in the making to remove four hydroelectric dams in Oregon and California, restoring access to hundreds of miles of habitat unreachable for salmon and steelhead for more than a century. Brown’s release said this will revitalize tribal communities and cultures for generations to come.
Brown said for many people the event was the culmination of a lifetime of work to restore healthy waters and fish stocks of the Klamath Basin. Brown said, “It has taken a broad coalition working together to finally realize the removal of these dams, and that over 400 miles of the Klamath River will flow freely again”. Brown called it, “…an incredibly important step forward on the path towards restorative justice for the peoples of the Klamath Basin, and towards restoring health to the river, as well as everyone and everything that depends on it”.
At Thursday’s event, Secretary Haaland announced that four tribal water projects in Oregon and California’s Klamath River Basin will receive $5.8 million through the Bureau of Reclamation to restore aquatic ecosystems, improve the resilience of habitats, and mitigate the effects of the ongoing drought crisis. Haaland said the funding is made available through Reclamation’s Native American Affairs Technical Assistance to Tribes Program.
Parties led by the Klamath River Renewal Corporation will take a number of pre-construction steps during 2023 to lay the groundwork to complete removal of the dams. The first dam is scheduled to be removed as soon as the summer of 2023.