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
But Why Should I Give a Dam?
In the last two episodes we heard about the incredible effort it took to remove four dams on the Klamath. But American Rivers hopes to support the removal of 30,000 dams by 2050. In this episode I chat with An Willis, California Regional Director at American Rivers about the wild history of dam building into the West, why we've entered into this new era of dam removal, how American Rivers thinks about which dams to remove, and why dam removal is only one piece of the work to revitalize rivers. Because dam removal is not just about removing infastructure, but working hand in hand with dam owners, regulators, and local communities to find economically viable alternatives while restoring a working landscape.
This podcast was made possible by support from American Rivers and was produced by Blue Canoe Studios with invaluable guidance from Kerry Donahue.
