Undammed: The Klamath River Story
The history of water in the West has been shaped by conflict, greed, and scarcity, but in a remote pocket of Southern Oregon and Northern California, a different Western water story is taking shape. The largest dam removal in history is on the verge of completion on the Klamath River. This moment is the result of a historic decades-long Tribally-led campaign to free the Klamath River and restore salmon and steelhead populations, which are core to Native traditions and foodways. This is a huge triumph. Today the river is a living thread that connects communities who each have their own version of the Klamath, and all of these communities will have to work together to reimagine what this watershed could look like as the river they all rely on transforms. In this podcast, we’ll follow that connective thread between the people and creatures that know the Klamath best to understand how they encounter this transformative moment and envision what the future might hold.
New episodes drop weekly on Mondays.
This podcast is made possible by support from American Rivers and was produced by Blue Canoe Studios with invaluable guidance from Kerry Donahue.
Undammed: The Klamath River Story
How to Free a River
This is the story of a historic grassroots effort to free a river. The removal of four dams on the lower Klamath River is the largest dam removal project in history and has reopened 400 miles of salmon habitat. Indigenous leaders and activists campaigned for over two decades to reach this moment. The dam removals represent an unparalleled victory for native communities and an opportunity for them to reverse decades of environmental degradation and regain their ancestral connection to the river. In this podcast I speak with Molli Myers, Karuk Tribal member, as well as Karuk Natural Resources Policy Consultant Craig Tucker, both at the forefront of the dam removal campaign, about the winding and remarkable road to this point.
This podcast was made possible by support from American Rivers and was produced by Blue Canoe Studios with invaluable guidance from Kerry Donahue.
