The Klamath River flows 253 miles
from Southern Oregon to the California coast, draining a basin of
more than 15,000 square miles. The watershed and its fisheries
have been the subject of negotiation since the 1860s negotiations
that have intensified and continue to this day.
The river has provided irrigation to ag lands since the late 19th
century. Agricultural development drained vast areas of
wetlands on the periphery of Upper Klamath Lake and in
upstream watersheds. Some of this drained acreage has been
restored and is now managed primarily for wetland benefits.
The watershed is divided geographically into two basins, upper
and lower, divided by Iron Gate Dam, the lower most dam on the
river. The Upper Basin is dry, with annual precipitation of about
13 inches at the river’s origin near Klamath Falls, Ore.
Downstream, the climate grows wetter.
Native Americans have a significant presence in the Klamath
Basin. Four major tribes have been influential in water
negotiations: the Klamath Tribes, the Karuk Tribe, the Hoopa
Valley Tribe and the Yurok Tribe.
With the removal of four dams on the Klamath River,
Californians now have a new place to kayak, raft, fish and
explore. In the footprints of century-old reservoirs in a
remote area near the Oregon border is a fresh 45-mile stretch
of restored river that flows freely through a varied landscape
of striking basalt canyons, evergreen forests and grassy
valleys. There’s palpable excitement in witnessing the river
corridor come back to life, and opportunities abound for
world-class whitewater paddling and steelhead fishing.
… Friday marks the opening of five newly installed
recreation sites along the Upper Klamath – three in California
and two in Oregon. There’s been limited access since May but
the sites are fully open as of Aug. 1.
In a thick forest along the remote northern California coast
earlier this month, a group of mostly young Indigenous kayakers
pushed off into the clear-emerald waters of the recently
undammed Klamath River. The 13- to 20-year-olds from more
than six tribes in the Klamath Basin, along with several
instructors, had been paddling for a month, covering over 300
miles. In just a few hours, they would reach the Pacific
Ocean, making the group among the first in over a century to
descend the river from its headwaters in southern Oregon to its
mouth in northern California. The expedition began in early
June after the largest dam-removal project in history was
completed last fall to restore salmon populations, improve
water quality and support tribe-managed lands.
On July 11, several dozen indigenous youth from the Klamath
Basin and beyond completed a historic 310-mile, month-long
source-to-sea “first descent” of the recently undammed
Klamath River. They began their journey in Oregon and ended at
the mouth of the river on the Yurok Reservation. Rios to
Rivers, a nonprofit conservation group, observed that “as the
youths approached the sand spit adjacent to the Klamath’s mouth
in their bright-colored kayaks, tribal elders, family members,
friends and supporters waved and cheered them on.” … The
young paddlers trained up to three years to run whitewater with
kayak instructors from the Paddle Tribal Waters program, which
is operated by Rios to Rivers. The program includes teens from
the Klamath, Yurok, Karuk, Quartz Valley, Hoopa Valley, Warm
Springs and Tohono O’odham tribes. Four hydroelectric dams
owned by PacifiCorp had blocked the river for over a century,
preventing once-abundant salmon and steelhead runs from
ascending into their native habitat.
… Damming a river is always a partisan act. Even when
explicit infrastructure goals—irrigation, flood control,
electrification—were met, other consequences were significant
and often deleterious. … Still, something profound is
unfolding along the Klamath River, a waterway that flows out of
Oregon into northern California before emptying into the
Pacific. There, the largest such project in U.S. history has
successfully de-constructed four large dams, restoring the
river’s unimpeded flow, and begun the slow, careful work of
restoring the habitat. The removals are the result of decades
of advocacy by Native Americans, including members of the
Yurok, Karuk, Hoopa, and Klamath tribes. Their ancestral
homelands were once host to some of the most plentiful salmon
runs in the world, but by the end of the twentieth century,
fish populations dropped precipitously—in some cases, nearing
extinction.
… Now that four dams have been completely removed from the
main stem of the Klamath, Tribes and fish advocates are hopeful
that water quality and fish runs can recover. But they know the
work is just beginning — not just on the Klamath, but its
tributaries. … The Trinity River is arguably the Klamath
watershed’s most important artery. Historically, it teemed with
salmon and steelhead and poured clean, cold water into the main
stem Klamath. But for over seven decades, dams have blocked 100
miles of habitat on the tributary, and enormous volumes of
water are diverted to an entirely different watershed. An
ambitious restoration program is improving habitat and how the
river flows, but climate change, over-allocation, and the
unpredictability of the Trump administration threaten the
river’s recovery.
The journey is over. The 310-mile First Descent paddle from the
headwaters of the Wood River to Requa, where the Klamath Rivers
pours into the Pacific Ocean, ended Friday when a group of
teenaged kayakers from tribes living along the the river and
its tributaries arrived at a spit at the river’s end. A
gathering of relatives, friends and other watched as the
kayakers broke through the fog and into
view. … Along with congratulating the young
paddlers and giving them words of encouragement, a recurring
theme was celebrating the removal of four Klamath River dams
and the return of salmon. Fittingly, the ceremonies, which
moved from the spit to the road in Requa, were adjacent to what
was intended to be a fish processing plant but is not operating
because of the lack of salmon. Speakers also noted that weeks
after the removal of the dams, salmon were seen beyond the John
C. Boyle Dam near Keno.
The Klamath River Dam Removal First Descent youth kayaking trip
will come to an end on Friday in Klamath for the First Descent
Reception. The group will participate in some reflection on
their adventure as well as speak about the importance of global
river justice and its effect. Friday will be the 30th day of
the group’s source-to-sea journey, becoming the first group to
navigate through the recently undammed Klamath River. Friday’s
event is also the beginning of the Free Rivers Symposium, a
four-day event in Klamath with tribal leaders, scientists and
environmental organizations highlighting the ecological and
cultural significance of the restored Klamath River. In the
Free Rivers Symposium, experts will highlight the impacts of
wildlife and river ecosystems, the impact on the water and
habitat restoration. The group of more than 30 youths traveled
over 300 miles exploring the Klamath River after four of the
river’s six dams were removed in the largest dam removal
project in U.S. history.
Ruby Williams’ birthday was not your average 18th. She
celebrated it on the Klamath River, with a group of young
people making a historic journey paddling from the river’s
headwaters in southern Oregon to its mouth in the Pacific
Ocean, just south of Crescent City, California. It marked the
first time in a century that the descent has been possible,
after the recent removal of four dams allowed the river to flow
freely. Williams, together with fellow paddler Keeya Wiki, 17,
spoke to CNN on day 15 of their month-long journey, which they
are due to complete on Friday. At this point, they had just 141
miles (227 kilometers) of the 310-mile (499 kilometer) journey
left to go and had already passed through some of the most
challenging rapids. … [Wiki said] “I think we’re all just so
grateful, knowing that the salmon can finally go from the mouth
to the headwaters, and that we can go from the headwaters to
the mouth too.”
Swimming past the California-Oregon border, a lost fish — one
of thousands — finds its way home after an exile of over 100
years. As swarms of salmon migrate north to Oregon along
the Klamath River, youth from across the region’s indigenous
tribes kayak south through northern California to the Pacific
Ocean — a 300-mile celebratory journey that would not have been
possible just a year ago. What’s changed? Beneath the fish
and kayaks lie the watery graves of four dams, built in the
early 20th century and dismantled over the past two years at a
cost of $500 million, the largest and most ambitious dam
removal in history. The return of salmon to the upper
Klamath River represents a victory for nature, an exhibition of
the century-long transition in how Americans view the
environment, and a signal achievement of the 1973 Endangered
Species Act.
Other dam removal and anadromous fish restoration news:
… Long before the dams came down, tribal nations in the
Klamath Basin had already developed
sophisticated scientific programmes. … The Yurok Tribal
Fisheries Department tracks water quality and habitat projects,
while the Karuk Department of Natural Resources blends
traditional ecological knowledge with advanced scientific
tools, even modelling cultural fire regimes in partnership with
universities. By 2006, both tribes were already deeply
involved in project planning and managing long-term water
quality data for the Klamath. Today, the Klamath Basin
Monitoring Program continues this model of collaboration, with
water quality data gathered by both USGS scientists and tribal
teams. The more recent Klamath River Monitoring Program,
launched in July 2024, formalises this approach further: tribal
representatives from the Karuk, Yurok and Klamath Tribes appear
alongside federal agencies and NGOs on its leadership
roster.
Global restoration and conservation of freshwater biodiversity
are represented in practice by works such as the Klamath River
Renewal Project (KRRP), the largest dam removal and river
restoration in the United States, which has reconnected 640
river kilometers. With dam removals, many biological outcomes
remain understudied due to a lack of pre-impact data and
complex ecosystem recovery timeframes. To avoid this, we
created the KRRP molecular library, an environmental specimen
bank, for long-term curation of environmental nucleic acids
collected from the restoration project. We used these initial
samples, environmental DNA metabarcoding, and generalized
linear mixed-effects models to evaluate patterns of pre-dam
removal fish richness and diversity. Demonstrating the
suitability to resolve biological differences, the baseline
shows that tributary and mainstem streams had greater native
fish diversity and 2.3–10.7 times greater native fish species
richness than reservoirs.
A group of young Indigenous kayakers is headed to the mouth of
the Klamath River in free-flowing water after portaging around
two dams and paddling through four former dam sites. They
launched into the Klamath River headwaters two weeks ago and
are now more than halfway through a momentous 30-day journey.
So far, they’ve paddled through waves on a treacherous lake,
portaged around the two remaining dams on the river, plunged
into canyons with class 3, 4 and 5 rapids, and paddled through
four former dam sites where removal operations wrapped up last
fall. The nonprofit Rios to Rivers organized the event, which
is the first source-to-sea descent of the Klamath since dam
removal. Their Paddle Tribal Waters team aims to reach the
mouth of the river by July 11 and celebrate the removal of J.C.
Boyle, Copco 1, Copco 2 and Iron Gate dams.
This special, first-ever Foundation water tour will not be offered every year! Join us as we examine water issues along the 263-mile Klamath River, from its spring-fed headwaters in south-central Oregon to its redwood-lined estuary on the Pacific Ocean in California.
Running Y Resort
5500 Running Y Rd
Klamath Falls, OR 97601
The dam removal projects- aimed at sustaining the salmon
population, are underway, with the latest drawdown being three
reservoirs on the Klamath River. The removal process has
already dramatically changed the landscape in Southern Oregon
and far Northern California, along the course of the river. The
lowest of the three remaining dams- Iron Gate, was initially
breached on January 9, followed by the J.C. Boyle reservoir on
January 16. A concrete plug in the tunnel at the base of Copco
1 was blasted away on January 23, with the reservoirs draining
quickly, leaving vast expanses of fissured mud that was the
consistency and color of chocolate cake batter. Shaping its new
course, the Klamath River is winding through the bare
landscape, but the transformation has had some unintended
consequences and saddened some residents.
…Tuesday, the State Water Resources Control Board took
action to protect the salmon,
unanimously extending the region’s
expired emergency drought measures. Ground and surface
water for farms will be restricted for another year if flows in
the Shasta and Scott rivers dip below minimum thresholds. State
officials say these measures are likely to kick in next
year. Water board chair Joaquin Esquivel said action
is needed because “a fish emergency” remains on the rivers.
“Time isn’t our friend,” he said at a previous meeting in
August. “There is an urgency.” The water board also
is investigating the possibility of permanent requirements to
keep more water in the rivers, after the Karuk Tribe and the
fishing industry petitioned the state for stronger protections.
That decision, however, could take years.
The Klamath River Basin was once one
of the world’s most ecologically magnificent regions, a watershed
teeming with salmon, migratory birds and wildlife that thrived
alongside Native American communities. The river flowed rapidly
from its headwaters in southern Oregon’s high deserts into Upper
Klamath Lake, collected snowmelt along a narrow gorge through the
Cascades, then raced downhill to the California coast in a misty,
redwood-lined finish.
California is chock full of rivers and creeks, yet the state’s network of stream gauges has significant gaps that limit real-time tracking of how much water is flowing downstream, information that is vital for flood protection, forecasting water supplies and knowing what the future might bring.
That network of stream gauges got a big boost Sept. 30 with the signing of SB 19. Authored by Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa), the law requires the state to develop a stream gauge deployment plan, focusing on reactivating existing gauges that have been offline for lack of funding and other reasons. Nearly half of California’s stream gauges are dormant.
In 1983, a landmark California Supreme Court ruling extended the public trust doctrine to tributary creeks that feed Mono Lake, which is a navigable water body even though the creeks themselves were not. The ruling marked a dramatic shift in water law and forced Los Angeles to cut back its take of water from those creeks in the Eastern Sierra to preserve the lake.
Now, a state appellate court has for the first time extended that same public trust doctrine to groundwater that feeds a navigable river, in this case the Scott River flowing through a picturesque valley of farms and alfalfa in Siskiyou County in the northern reaches of California.
Headwaters are the source of a
stream or river. They are located at the furthest point from
where the water body empties or merges with
another. Two-thirds of California’s surface water supply
originates in these mountainous and typically forested regions.
Mired in drought, expectations are high that new storage funded
by Prop. 1 will be constructed to help California weather the
adverse conditions and keep water flowing to homes and farms.
At the same time, there are some dams in the state eyed for
removal because they are obsolete – choked by accumulated
sediment, seismically vulnerable and out of compliance with
federal regulations that require environmental balance.
20-minute version of the 2012 documentary The Klamath Basin: A
Restoration for the Ages. This DVD is ideal for showing at
community forums and speaking engagements to help the public
understand the complex issues related to complex water management
disputes in the Klamath River Basin. Narrated by actress Frances
Fisher.
For over a century, the Klamath River Basin along the Oregon and
California border has faced complex water management disputes. As
relayed in this 2012, 60-minute public television documentary
narrated by actress Frances Fisher, the water interests range
from the Tribes near the river, to energy producer PacifiCorp,
farmers, municipalities, commercial fishermen, environmentalists
– all bearing legitimate arguments for how to manage the water.
After years of fighting, a groundbreaking compromise may soon
settle the battles with two epic agreements that hold the promise
of peace and fish for the watershed. View an excerpt from the
documentary here.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
This beautiful 24×36-inch poster, suitable for framing, displays
the rivers, lakes and reservoirs, irrigated farmland, urban areas
and Indian reservations within the Klamath River Watershed. The
map text explains the many issues facing this vast,
15,000-square-mile watershed, including fish restoration;
agricultural water use; and wetlands. Also included are
descriptions of the separate, but linked, Klamath Basin
Restoration Agreement and the Klamath Hydroelectric Agreement,
and the next steps associated with those agreements. Development
of the map was funded by a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.
The Water Education Foundation’s second edition of
the Layperson’s Guide to The Klamath River Basin is
hot off the press and available for purchase.
Updated and redesigned, the easy-to-read overview covers the
history of the region’s tribal, agricultural and environmental
relationships with one of the West’s largest rivers — and a
vast watershed that hosts one of the nation’s oldest and
largest reclamation projects.
A new look for our most popular product! And it’s the perfect
gift for the water wonk in your life.
Our 24×36-inch California Water Map is widely known for being the
definitive poster that shows the integral role water plays in the
state. On this updated version, it is easier to see California’s
natural waterways and man-made reservoirs and aqueducts
– including federally, state and locally funded
projects – the wild and scenic rivers system, and
natural lakes. The map features beautiful photos of
California’s natural environment, rivers, water projects,
wildlife, and urban and agricultural uses and the
text focuses on key issues: water supply, water use, water
projects, the Delta, wild and scenic rivers and the Colorado
River.
The Pacific Flyway is one of four
major North American migration routes for birds, especially
waterbirds, and stretches from Alaska in the north
to Patagonia in South America.
Each year, birds follow ancestral patterns as they travel the
flyway on their annual north-south migration. Along the way, they
need stopover sites such as wetlands with suitable habitat and
food supplies. In California, 95 percent of historic
wetlands have been lost, yet the Central Valley hosts some of the
world’s largest populations of wintering birds.
The Klamath River Basin is one of the West’s most important and
contentious watersheds.
The watershed is known for its unusual geography straddling
California and Oregon. Unlike many western rivers, the
Klamath does not originate in snowcapped mountains but rather on
a volcanic plateau.
A broad patchwork of spring-fed streams and rivers in
south-central Oregon drains into Upper Klamath Lake and down into
Lake Ewauna in the city of Klamath Falls. The outflow from Ewauna
marks the beginning of the 263-mile Klamath River.
The Klamath courses south through the steep Cascade Range and
west along the rugged Siskiyou Mountains to a redwood-lined
estuary on the Pacific Ocean just south of Crescent City,
draining a watershed of 10 million acres.
A bounty of resources – water, salmon, timber and minerals – and
a wide range of users turned the remote region into a hotspot for
economic development and multiparty water disputes (See
Klamath River
timeline).
Though the basin has only 115,000 residents, there is seldom
enough water to go around. Droughts are common. The water
scarcity inflames tensions between agricultural,
environmental and tribal interests, namely the basin’s four major
tribes: the Klamath Tribes, the Karuk, Hoopa Valley and Yurok.
Klamath water-use conflicts routinely spill into courtrooms,
state legislatures and Congress.
In 2023, a historic removal of four powers dams on the river
began, signaling hope for restoration of the river and its fish
and easing tensions between competing water interests. In
February 2024, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland
announced a “historic” agreement between tribes and farmers
in the basin over chronic water shortages. The deal
called for a wide range of river and creek restoration work and
modernization of agricultural water supply infrastructure.
Water Development
Farmers and ranchers have drawn irrigation water from basin
rivers and lakes since the late 1900s. Vast wetlands around
Upper Klamath Lake and upstream were drained to grow crops. Some
wetlands have been restored, primarily for migratory birds.
In 1905, the federal government authorized construction of the
Klamath Project, a network of irrigation canals, storage
reservoirs and hydroelectric dams to grow an agricultural
economy in the mostly dry Upper Basin. The Project managed by the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation irrigates about 240,000 acres and
supplies the Lower Klamath Lake and Tule Lake national wildlife
refuges managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Water Management
Since 1992, federal mandates to restore populations of fish
protected by the Endangered Species
Act have led in some dry years to drastic cuts in
water deliveries to Klamath Project irrigators.
Water in Upper Klamath Lake must be kept above certain
levels for the endangered shortnose and Lost River suckers. Lake
levels and Klamath River flows below Iron Gate Dam also must be
regulated for the benefit of threatened coho salmon (See
Klamath Basin
Chinook and Coho Salmon).
Conflict
In 2001, Reclamation all but cut off irrigation water to hundreds
of basin farmers and ranchers, citing a severe drought and legal
obligations to protect imperiled fish. In response, thousands of
farmers, ranchers and residents flocked to downtown Klamath Falls
to form a “bucket brigade” protest, emptying buckets of water
into the closed irrigation canal. The demonstrations stretched
into the summer, with protestors forcing open the irrigation
headgates on multiple occasions. Reclamation later released some
water to help farmers.
In September 2002, a catastrophic
disease outbreak in the lower Klamath River killed tens of
thousands of ocean-going salmon. The Pacific Coast Federation of
Fishermen’s Associations sued Reclamation, alleging the Klamath
Project’s irrigation deliveries had violated the Endangered
Species Act. The fishing industry eventually prevailed, and
a federal court ordered an increase to minimum flows in the lower
Klamath.
Compromise
The massive salmon kill and dramatic water shut-off set in motion
a sweeping compromise between the basin’s many competing water
interests: the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement and the
Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement. The 2010 agreements
included:
Removal of four hydroelectric dams
$92.5 million over 10 years to pay farmers to use less water,
increase reservoir storage and help pay for water conservation
and groundwater management projects.
$47 million over 10 years to buy or lease water rights to
increase flows for salmon recovery.
Dam Removals
Congress never funded the two agreements, allowing the key
provisions to expire. The restoration accord dissolved in 2016.
The hydroelectric pact, however, was revived in an amended
version that did not require federal legislation.
The new deal led to the nation’s largest dam removal project ever
undertaken.
California and Oregon formed a
nonprofit organization called the Klamath River Renewal
Corporation to take control of the four essentially obsolete
power dams – J.C. Boyle, Copco No. 1, Copco No. 2 and Iron Gate –
and oversee a $450 million dam demolition and river restoration
project.
Taking out the dams will open more than 420 miles of river and
spawning streams that had been blocked for more than a century,
including cold water pools salmon and trout need to survive the
warming climate.
Demolition crews took out the smallest dam in 2023 and all four
dams were taken down by the end of 2024.
The images of yellow heavy machinery tearing into the dam’s
spillway gates prompted a cathartic release for many who have
been fighting for decades to open this stretch of the Klamath.
“I’m still in a little bit of shock,” said Toz Soto,
the Karuk fisheries program manager. “This is actually
happening…It’s kind of like the dog that finally caught the car,
except we’re chasing dam removal.”
On the Klamath River, the Upper Klamath Basin’s aquatic
ecosystems are naturally very productive due to its
phosphorus-rich geology.
However, this high productivity makes the Basin’s lakes
vulnerable to water quality problems.
Nutrient loads in the Upper Klamath Basin are a primary driver of
water quality problems along the length of the Klamath River,
including algal blooms in the Klamath Hydroelectric Project
reservoirs. Municipal and industrial discharges of wastewater in
the Klamath Falls area add to the nutrient load.
The Klamath Basin’s Chinook salmon and coho salmon serve a vital
role in the watershed.
Together, they are key to the region’s water management, habitat
restoration and fishing.
However, years of declining population have led to federally
mandated salmon restoration plans—plans that complicate the
diversion of Klamath water for agriculture and other uses.
This issue of Western Water examines the challenges facing state,
federal and tribal officials and other stakeholders as they work
to manage terminal lakes. It includes background information on
the formation of these lakes, and overviews of the water quality,
habitat and political issues surrounding these distinctive bodies
of water. Much of the information in this article originated at
the September 2004 StateManagement Issues at Terminal Water
Bodies/Closed Basins conference.
The story of the Klamath River is the story of two basins.
In the upper basin, farming has long been the way of life. Even
before passage of the 1902 Reclamation Act, settlers had begun
the arduous process of reclaiming vast tracts of wetlands and
transforming them into rich farmland.
