Rivers Reborn · Episode 1 of 12 · 35 min
A Cup of Water: A Boyhood River Lost to a Dam
The host recalls kneeling at a Klamath tributary so thick with spawning salmon that open water for a cup was hard to find, beside a farm abandoned because a new dam was about to flood the valley. Years later the creek lay under a reservoir. That memory opens a history of why the West dammed its salmon rivers, and of a river lost and, improbably, regained.
Where it happens
- Klamath River, Oregon and California+3 more episodesRiver of more than 250 miles, once a great salmon river
- Jenny Creek, Oregon and CaliforniaKlamath tributary drowned by Iron Gate Reservoir
- Iron Gate Dam, Klamath River, California+1 more episodeLowest Klamath dam; built in the early 1960s, removed in 2024
Timeline
- 1918Copco No. 1 dam completed, the first Klamath hydroelectric dam.
- 1925Copco No. 2 completed.
- 1958J.C. Boyle Dam completed.
- Early 1960sIron Gate Dam built, flooding the lower Jenny Creek drainage.
- 2023-2024Four lower Klamath dams removed in the largest dam-removal project in world history.
Still debated
The episode rests on a childhood memory that cannot be independently verified. Sources also give slightly different years for Iron Gate Dam, and the runs' decline had several causes beyond the dams.