Over the fall of 2023, the smallest dam – Copco 2 – was dismantled with little fanfare. In January 2024, the remaining three dams were carefully and systematically breached, one by one.
Copco 1 Dam was the third and final Klamath River dam breached, on January 23. Decades of planning, permitting, and on-the-ground work led up to the moment when the loudspeakers blared, “Fire in the hole!” – a planned safety warning before the last dam gave way with a “Boom!” to a free-flowing river.
RES was there when explosives were detonated, water and sediment gushed forth, and the Klamath River was reconnected for the first time in a century. As restoration contractor for the Klamath River Renewal Project, our role has placed us in a front-row seat at the largest dam removal and river restoration project in US history.
As the formerly inundated new ground stabilized enough to support them, RES and Yurok Tribe crews got to work immediately with assisted sediment evacuation and the revegetation program.
Yurok Fisheries Department Revegetation crew member Spe-gi Vigil scatters native plant seeds in the newly exposed earth to take advantage of the moist soil and prevent invasive weeds from taking root. Photo credit: Matt Mais
Dave Meurer, Klamath Community Relations Director for RES, offered five observations from that historic moment and the days that followed:
Restoration did not have to wait. Crews began reseeding the area the day after drawdown began. By January 25th, crews had already planted 23,000 acorns by hand, one at a time. Millions of seeds have already been sown. Hundreds of thousands of plants and plugs are ready to go in the ground.
Drawdown went according to plan, but as expected, the immediate aftermath isn’t pretty. Although the release of a century’s worth of accumulated sediment had been anticipated and analyzed by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and other federal and state agencies, turbidity in the short term is high. Dissolved oxygen levels fell to zero on the morning of January 28 in the upper 30 miles of river below Iron Gate Dam. Low dissolved oxygen was anticipated in this reach of river as a result of chemical and biological processes with the release of high organic content sediments from the reservoirs. However, the condition lasted less than 24 hours. As with other successful dam removals, there is short-term pain for very long-term gain.
Redundancy is our friend. RES has coordinated the collection and propagation of 17 billion native seeds over the last four years, which is twice the number we need to seed the 2,200 acres of reservoir footprints one time. It is a good thing we have extra seed because fluctuations in inflow and outflow in the project site means some of our work may be inundated, and we might need to re-plant in those sections. We do not control flow decisions or rainfall, so we are nimble and prepared, by design.
We have been planning for years to restore a project area we have never seen because it has been underwater. As we track the rapidly changing conditions within the former reservoir footprints, we are excited to see the distinct types of habitat that are emerging. Restoring flowing water and mobilizing reservoir sediments are all part of this phase of the project, and while we recognize restoration and recovery will take time, the emergence of springs and miles of river and stream habitat is a major step in the process. We are excited to get to work on high-priority tributaries so we can welcome the salmon home.
Emotions came out in song. It was deeply moving. On several occasions, tribal members who were watching the river come back to life broke into song either individually or as groups. We could not understand the language, but we felt the message. And many of us could not help but cry. People who normally shake hands became huggers. We are honored to play a role in the largest salmon restoration project in the world.
