The largest dam removal project in U.S. history was completed Oct. 2 on the Klamath River in Southern Oregon and Northern California.
Four dams were taken out, allowing adult salmon to swim all the way up the Klamath River from the Pacific Ocean and into more than 400 miles of newly reopened habitat.
OPB cinematographer Brandon Swanson collected video footage of the dam sites before and after the removal operation. The video above includes before and after shots of all four dams:
- Iron Gate Dam, the last of the four dams to be built and the farthest downstream in Northern California near the town of Hornbrook
- Copco 1 Dam, the tallest of the four dams at 132 feet high, built in 1922 near the Oregon state line
- Copco 2 Dam, a smaller, 25-foot dam built in 1925 next to Copco 1
- J.C. Boyle Dam in Southern Oregon, named after engineer John C. Boyle, who designed the Klamath River dams for the California Oregon Power Co.
The video also includes before-and-after shots of a site along Iron Gate reservoir, where an algae bloom had turned the stagnant lake green in 2022, and a site along Northern California’s Copco Lake reservoir, where a community of about 100 people lives. After the dam was removed, the lake disappeared, and the Klamath River reemerged.
Last week, adult fall Chinook salmon made it all the way to Oregon’s stretch of the Klamath Basin for the first time in more than a century — swimming more than 200 miles from the ocean. Salmon were also seen spawning in a tributary above the former Iron Gate Dam site for the first time in more than 60 years.
In 2022, Federal regulators approved the $500 million dam removal operation. The smallest dam, Copco 2, was removed last year. In January of this year, Copco 1, J.C. Boyle and Iron Gate dams were breached and the reservoirs behind them were drained.
Work will continue for several years to replant and restore 2,200 acres of land that were previously underwater in the dam reservoirs.