The massive dam removal on the Klamath may save salmon but can’t solve the West’s water crisis
MOUTH OF THE KLAMATH RIVER, California — Sheldon SmilingCoyote locked his eyes on the push and pull of the waves in front of him, suddenly slashing the tip of his handheld hook through the water, pulling out a slimy prehistoric fish.
Lassoing the lamprey over his head to keep it from squirming off the hook, he ran to a hole he’d dug in the sand and released the fish on a pile of its relatives. SmilingCoyote tallied two dozen in his catch on a late February day.
These nutrient-rich fish, a wintertime staple for the Yurok people, lost 400 miles of their historical spawning habitat to four dams that transformed the churning upper reaches of the Klamath River into slack water, threatening the lamprey and other native species. But that’s set to change.
This year, Yurok and Karuk tribal members began pressing the roots of native plants like Oregon ash and Klamath plum into the fluffy volcanic soil surrounding the Iron Gate Reservoir, some 200 miles east of the free-flowing water at the river’s mouth. It’s the first in a series of three pools that will be reverted to those lush flows when the dams are destroyed in what may be the nation’s largest planned dam removal project, already underway.
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In April, officials voted unanimously to shut down California’s commercial and recreational salmon season. The decision was largely informed by alarmingly low salmon runs as a result of heavily dammed, diked and channeled streams struggling to maintain healthy flows in the face of droughts and warming summers.
“Our water challenges and shortages in the West are not driven by the Endangered Species Act or radical environmentalists or the deep state,” said U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., at a subcommittee meeting on water resources earlier this year. “In fact, the principal driving force is climate change. That’s, of course, the case with a historic drought in the West and other threats to our water supply.”
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By: Isabella Breda
Source: The Seattle Times
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