Klamath River

Researchers are using advanced technology and creative methods to study how migrating salmon and steelhead are returning to the river after the removal of four dams.

Chinook salmon are spawning in streams above four former dam sites on the Klamath River in numbers that are astounding biologists. Now, a network of tribes, agencies, university researchers, and conservation groups is working together to track the fish as they explore the newly opened habitat.

OPB video captures four Klamath River dam sites and Copco Lake reservoir before and after a $500 million removal operation.

A new landscape and river are emerging in the Klamath Basin.

Concerns about the presence of heavy metals like lead and arsenic in the river after several dams were breached were first voiced by residents and Siskiyou County officials in March.

Deconstruction of Iron Gate dam, the lowest of the four dams along the Oregon-California border, has begun.

The Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors proclaimed a local emergency and requested that the governor proclaim a state of emergency based on water quality concerns in the Klamath River as four dams are being removed.

We hear the perspective of tribes living along the Klamath River: what the country’s largest dam removal project means to them and their hopes for the future.

Approximately 830,000 fall-run Chinook salmon fry are believed to have died while passing through the lowest dam on the Klamath River over the past week.

With the drawdown of three reservoirs complete, the Klamath River is flowing more or less within its historic channel.