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Tearing Down Dams Could Save Western Rivers — and Also Make Climate Change Worse

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Sammy Roth

Deep in the bowels of Idaho’s Brownlee Dam, Neal Lincoln is ready to offer a demonstration.

Almost 40 feet below the surface of the Snake River — whose waters originate in Yellowstone National Park, then cascade down the Rocky Mountains and course across Idaho — Lincoln makes a call to the power plant control room. The narrow hallway where we stand waiting is chilly, the air dank and the floor covered with leakage from the river.

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The World’s Largest Dam Demolition Has Begun. Can the Dammed Klamath River Finally Find Salvation?

/in , , /by /Cal Mattersby Rachel Becker

Oshun O’Rourke waded into the dark green water, splashing toward a net that her colleagues gently closed around a cluster of finger-length fish.

The Klamath River is wide and still here, making its final turn north to the coast as it winds through the Yurok reservation in Humboldt County. About 150 baby chinook salmon, on their long journey to the Pacific, were resting in cool waters that poured down from the forest.

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Historic Deal Revives Plan for Largest US Dam Demolition

/in , , /by /AP Newsby Gillian Flaccus

An agreement announced Tuesday paves the way for the largest dam demolition in U.S. history, a project that promises to reopen hundreds of miles of waterway along the Oregon-California border to salmon that are critical to tribes but have dwindled to almost nothing in recent years.

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