The Elwha and White Salmon rivers in Washington, and the Klamath River in northern California and southern Oregon, are free-flowing again.
The Condit Dam on the White Salmon River was breached in 2011 (details here, video here). Removal of two obsolete dams on the Elwha was completed in 2014 (details here). The last of four dams blocking fish migration in the Klamath River was blown up in October 2024 (see story here).
All of these dams were built in the early 20th century, when developers were focused on power production and flood control, and few people except Native Americans gave a thought to the environment. But that has changed.
Salmon are fabulous colonizers, and once dams are removed, they return. Only ten years later, the Elwha has fish runs again (see series of articles here). The Klamath, once one of America’s great salmon rivers, is still flushing out a century’s worth of sediment, but fish are returning there, too.
Dams, once thought of as a source of cheap and clean energy, have downsides. They destroy fisheries and ecosystems, accumulate sediment, and become uneconomic.
Now, the dam building era is over, and the dam removal era has begun.
Removing dams isn’t only about fish; restoring free-flowing rivers benefits a wide range of wildlife. And the return of fish also enables Native American tribes to reclaim cultural traditions.