Photo of rancid water coming out of Iron Gate Dam. (Photo: Siskiyou Co. Sup. Ray Haupt)
Is California’s Klamath River Dam Removal a Ghoulish Experiment?
‘Everything, every living mollusk, crawdad, turtle, fish, insect in and along the river is DEAD!’
By Katy Grimes, February 29, 2024 10:00 am
This is the third article in a series about the Klamath Dam Removal project in Siskiyou County: This is the First; This is the second.
In 2018, plans were released to destroy the Klamath River dam system by American Rivers, an environmental non-profit which claims “up to 85% of the dams in this country are unnecessary, harmful and even dangerous.” The removal of dams along the Klamath River in Siskiyou County, Northern California was sold as necessary to save salmon – specifically, “to restore habitat for endangered fish.”
The dams are part of the Klamath project, a series of seven dams built 1910 to 1920 in the Klamath Basin to bring electricity and agricultural water mitigation for Southern Oregon and Northern California, the Globe reported in 2020.
Emotions run high on both sides of the dam destruction issue. The Globe wants to know why the Klamath Dams are being removed, and who is behind it?
As Fox reported, “Newsom supports a 2016 agreement under which PacifiCorp would transfer its federal hydroelectric licenses for the dams to a nonprofit coalition, the Klamath River Renewal Corp., that was formed to oversee the demolition.
“PacifiCorp ratepayers in Oregon and California are contributing $200 million for the project but the plan allows the utility to avoid liability for additional costs. Another $250 million would come from a 2014 voter-approved California water bond.”
However, the 2014 voter-approved water bond was passed by voters to build more water storage in the state. The initiative was aimed at increasing the supply of clean, safe, and reliable water and “restoring habitat” – not the destruction of it.
According to the California Legislative Analyst’s Office:
The proposition provides a total of $7.5 billion in general obligation bonds for various water–related programs. Some of the larger allocations include $2.7 billion for water storage projects and $1.5 billion for watershed protection and restoration projects.
The original 2008 agreement for dam removal was between four parties—PacifiCorp, the federal government, California, and Oregon—to remove the four dams announced on November 13, 2008, according to “Historic’ dam removal decision,” reporting in the Mount Shasta Herald. “PacifiCorp ratepayers would fund part of the plan and the State of California would fund much of the remaining projected cost. Total cost would be around $800 million.”
It appears what Gov. Newsom did on his own was to commit California taxpayers to paying for the removal of the dams, while facilitating Warren Buffett’s PacifiCorps energy provider out of legal liability.
The Globe reported in 2020:
Governor Newsom’s appeal implored Buffett to back the demolition project to save the salmon populations that many Native American tribes in the area rely on. “The river is sick, and the Klamath Basin tribes are suffering,” said Newsom in his letter. “The Klamath dam removals are a shining example of what we can accomplish when we act according to our values.”
Feigning concern for the salmon and tribes, Newsom facilitated the destruction of one of California’s largest rivers and the draining of giant reservoirs. In his letter to Buffett, Newsom said dam destruction could also revive salmon populations for regional Native American tribes that rely on salmon fishing.
But did he have to kill thousands of fish to “save” the salmon?
‘Unplugging’ the dams
“The Klamath River dams have been unplugged. And with the water that was drained from Copco and Iron Gate Lakes came millions of tons of polluted sediments,” William Simpson wrote in Siskiyou News Feb. 19th, the day the Globe spoke with him. “Now the remaining polluted clay-mud sediments that have been deposited on the lake bottoms are in plain view.”
Simpson, a resident of Siskiyou County, said massive samples of sediment in the Klamath Basin contain high levels of heavy metals – chromium, aluminum, arsenic and lead. And this sediment was supposed to have been removed ahead of the Klamath Dams “unplugging.”
Someone, somewhere in the dam deal decided $450 million was too much money to spend on sediment removal, even though everyone knew it was polluted, Simpson said.
He explained his concerns to the Globe, and in his 2/19 article:
Heavy metals documented by USGS and other agencies, that have been concentrated from the Klamath River waters into the sediments deposited on the bottoms of the lakes. Even when there are minimal or non-hazardous amounts of heavy metals contained in the sediments being transported by the river and settled in a lake, as is the case in Copco and Iron Gate Lakes, over time these heavy metals can become highly concentrated in the sediments that have settled to the bottom of a lake. Science and logic suggest that Copco Lake has been concentrating heavy metal sediments for 106-years, and Iron Gate Lake has been concentrating heavy metal sediments for about 60-years. And both of these lakes have been storing phosphorus and nitrates through the biological actions of the algae in the lakes, which was safely sequestered in the clay sediments on the lakes bottoms.
When sediments are disturbed, these many concentrated pollutants become a serious consideration and form a deadly cocktail for the Klamath River and its life forms. (emphasis Simpson)
Theodora Johnson shared similar concerns in her article for Cattle Mag and the Globe:
“Dam removal proponents claimed the project would help salmon, but now the Klamath River is being polluted with millions of cubic yards of decomposed algae, organic deposition, chemicals, and fine silt that has built up behind the dams. Dead steelhead trout and other species are floating to the banks. Any salmon spawning beds in the Klamath River were undoubtedly destroyed. At press time, conditions in the Klamath River were not likely survivable for the salmon juveniles that were beginning to emerge from the tributary rivers and creeks on their way to the ocean.”
“If 10 million cubic yards of sediment were to settle in the river, we’d see the equivalent of six lanes of freeway piled eight feet deep for nearly 100 miles. There are 192 river miles below the lowest dam, Iron Gate. In total, the river is approximately 250 miles long.”
William Simpson said there is an upside to the situation as it stands right now:
“Because these polluted lake-bottom sediments are no longer underwater, the expense of removing them is a lot less vs removing them by dredging methods when the lakes were in place. These hazardous sediments can now be removed using traditional excavation methods, which will be more cost-effective in mitigating these ongoing sources of River pollution.”
But who will pay for the sediment removal? Taxpayers?
Simpson also recently sent an Open Letter to the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors, regarding the Klamath Dam Removal Disaster, imploring them to declare a state of emergency. Simpson noted that the County declared a State of Emergency after the McKinney Fire mudslide.
“By comparison, what has been unleashed by the actions and unplanned and unintended results of Klamath River Renewal Corporation’s (KRRC) off-plan rapid dewatering of Copco and Iron Gate Lakes, and the release of a torrent of water containing 5-7 million metric yards of deadly sediments and known toxins over the period of just a few days, instead of the months per their well socialize plan, has resulted in a environmental and ecological disaster of epic proportions in our County, adversely impacting citizens,” Simpson said.
In a discussion with the Globe Wednesday, Simpson said about 850,000 salmon fry were released into Fall Creek this week by California Fish And Wildlife. Fall Creek empties into the Klamath River.
Simpson said this is nuts. He said he is concerned that the volatile conditions in the Klamath River will likely hurt/kill the tiny fish as they enter the sediment-laden Klamath River, which he describes as mucky clay.
He said the “water flows are likely to be low in the coming months compounding adverse conditions for any aquatic life, let alone tiny salmonids that are quite vulnerable to turbidity and pollutants from clay lake bottom sediments.”
Simpson said he lives on the river and has been watching the “silty, sludgy, highly contaminated yuk we are calling a river” flowing by my house now for about 6 weeks. “Everything, every living mollusk, crawdad, turtle, fish, insect in and along the river is DEAD!”
Simpson reports:
The recently unveiled USGS sampling report further confirms the results (presence of chromium, arsenic and lead) from a private water test taken at the Klamathon Bridge below Iron Gate Dam by a local resident near that bridge.
And:
On Tuesday January 23, 2024, millions of tons of sediments were released from Copco 1 Dam and Iron Gate Dams into the Klamath River.
According to Klamath River Renewal Corporation (‘KRRC’) CEO Mark Bransom, approximately 5-7 millions yards of sediments were released into the main-stem of the Klamath River below Iron Gate Dam.
“Everyone, including the fisheries scientists are guessing as to what might happen next in this grand environmentally and financially costly dam removal experiment,” Simpson added.
Is this gross incompetence – “guessing” outcomes – or gross deception by government officials?
Simpson said if the county would declare a State of Emergency, they could receive state assistance, including aid funding to test residents’ water wells – a cost of about $1,000 each.
The Globe suggested Simpson not hold his breath on state assistance or funding, with Gov. Newsom pushing so hard for this dam removal project. And Notably, the governor, and state officials are ignoring the damage and destruction to Siskiyou County, claiming victory.
Next: Environmental lobby behind dam removal projects
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February 19, 2024
A dead river will not support salmon or anything else. It takes clean water and a fully functional eco system to raise fish fry.
The typical liberal environmentalist playbook is to do it fast before anyone can react. In this case they got their way, and the usual result is realized. Disaster, from the party of chaos complete ecological disaster.
Even I can see from Australia many thousands of miles away the leftest agenda is to destroy your nation, politically, environmentally, socially and any way it can
The only conclusion thete is to be made is this is no accident or incompetence it is on purpose pure and simple
THANK YOU to Katy Grimes for this excellent blockbuster investigative report. Even though it is supremely sickening, maddening, and blood-pressure-raising, still in the end I am grateful for this necessary further exposure of the malevolent Gov Gavin Newsom (& Friends). For starters, and this is not even the worst of it, that CA taxpayers, in passing a 2014 WATER STORAGE bond measure, unknowingly helped pay for and thus aid (with the help of that snake Newsom’s signature dishonesty, skullduggery, and pretend “virtue”) the appalling environmental disaster that has resulted from the Klamath Dams removal. The deadly and dangerous fallout, though already shockingly apparent now, will not be entirely known for who-knows-how-long.
“A ghoulish experiment” —- on every level — for sure.
There must have been a CEQA impact analysis required for this/these actions. What were the results of these analyses?? I cannot think that any true environmental scientist, any fisheries biologist would have found this/these actions to be remotely acceptable. They went from ongoing impacts of concern with dams in places to EXTREME adverse environmental impacts from dam removal which may result in long-term to permanent effects from which the entire environment of this river system may never recover. ABOSLUTE FOOLS who approved this fiasco!
There don’t seem to be any such serious people involved in these matters anymore, whether real scientists or engineers or similar. An old friend in the know pointed out many years ago that water boards, for instance, used to have engineers once upon a time, but those serious people have since been replaced by know-nothing leftists without expertise who use the water boards as springboards for further political office, up the chain. Speculating that here, too, knowledgeable people in the environmental analysis realm have been replaced by scoundrels who follow extreme ideology, pick and choose their “facts,” and use protective shields such as environmental improvement, climate change, or the needs of “indigenous peoples” to achieve their ends, which ends appear to be entirely destructive. Oh and it looks like the money is good too.
Thank you for bringing this to light. We need more people in your position to spread the word. Most of the information is staying in Siskiyou, Co, Ca.
So basically, even if the Salmon survive, who would want to eat them? Considering the toxic stew they went through, more then likely the fish would not be safe to eat.
This catastrophe certainly could have been averted, but money ruled the day.
I wonder what the long term consequences of this will be on both the river aquatic life and those that consume them.
Will we see a spike in cancer, autism, and other toxin related diseases among those that live along and consume products from the river.
once adult salmon enter the river to spawn, they rapidly begin to degrade because of the fact every ounce of energy they possess is used for getting them up the river to spawn. The salmon that people consume are caught in the ocean or low in the system and have spent little if any time in the river. There are folks that sport-fish further up the river, but I’m guessing they will not be fishing until managers get some ideas of the number of fish returning to spawn, and how far those fish are going upstream.
Rivers have been flushing sediment for millions of years, and the Klamath will flush this sediment rapidly. I would be surprised if there were any cancer causing fish as a result of the draw downs. But who knows? It seems like most fish these days caught from reservoirs have lead and mercury contamination, and come with a warning about how much we should consume.
As a professional limnologist you’re a uneducated moron. You need to go up and run test once week for the next 10 years. Graph those out and tell me how you do. Or for that matter after it rains. Then I want you to drink all these water samples.
let’s see how you do! I wish they would leave this up to the real professionals. Limnologist, Biologist, environmental engineers, and other qualified people
Gavin Newsom has talent to wreck everything he touches! He is almost as good as Biden!
Exactly
The scientists do not need to “guess” as to the likely effects. Interviewing professionals with experience in the field is the appropriate journalistic tact. The Elwah is an excellent example of how this has been successful. Someone needs to present a situation where this approach was a failure.
I am one of so many voters who feel tricked by the 2014 measure and want to retroactively change our vote. No to all tax increases. The money is misused.
AMEN. Voting for a WATER STORAGE bond bill in 2014 and having THIS be the result is completely outrageous and unacceptable.
The same goes for the High Speed Rail – FAIL.
I can say that after reading some of the fine print I voted no on SB1 because I had a feeling that it would go nowhere. And so far I’ve been proven right, no new water storage but now it looks like it will be used for dam destruction!
The damage and destruction to the Klamath River and Siskiyou County by Hairgel Hitler Newsom and the criminal Democrat mafia is similar to what they’re doing to the entire state.
Per Newsom : “The Klamath dam removals are a shining example of what we can accomplish when we act according to our values.”
TRUER words were never spoken, although not in the context that Governor PeriodFullStop intended when he uttered them…
Essentially, the Democrat/Globalist playbook is to RUIN everything so that they can “build back better” in their central-planning/Communist model, since they think that they’re smarter than everyone else and think themselves even smarter than God, who most in charge don’t believe in….(Harari)
YES
I just spent a few minutes following the Klamath to the Pacific. It’s almost all rural, with a few small communities. This will probably poison the wells of every land owner within ten miles of the river – allowing speculators to swoop in and pick up that land for pennies on the dollar. As to who said speculators go golfing with every weekend, I will leave to your imagination. Welcome to The Great Reset. “You will own nothing…”
Because Communist/Democrats will try to crush the economic value of all traditional assets so they can hoover them up either for their own use, or to sell out to the CCP….
Indians Exploited by the United Nations Indigenous Peoples Framework
https://ahiddenhistory.substack.com/p/indian-activism-and-agenda-21
Thank you Katy for once again exposing the shitbnag Communist asshole abusing salmon and Indian Tribes, to virtue signal his “feelings” to his corrupt, rich Democrap Communist friends! God I’d like to see these filthy scum be hanged publicly as the traitors they are!
The tribes have made the Klamath a person. See their pronouncements. That means they will have standing in a court of law. Look it up. Class action Lawsuit anybody? 432 species in the drainage. What about the Trinity, Scott and Shasta River runs. To the Tribes, is this what the Great Spirit meant by safeguarding your gift to your children, grandchildren. I think not.
I say we sue American Rivers Environmental for this criminally stupid act of negligence and utter fraud!
The dams have been called “unnecessary, harmful and even dangerous.”
What will they call the flooding that could have been prevented by the dams?
These idiots will be responsible for the damage and death from the flooding they caused.
Grewsom has to go.
This because they actually want the salmon to die off so they can point the climate change as an excuse for the die off.
this is just another example of how the green New Deal cult is actually a death cult
And not a word from the Media.
The Communists (Democrats) are only good at destruction of what Conservatives have built.
I have suspected there was something in California’s water for a very long time. Now we know what it is.
Anyone who has driven across the CA and OR border has seen exactly what these articles have stated. I’m appalled by the waste and destruction……on our environment and for the use of taxpayer monies to fulfill the libtard/environmental radical agendas…
Although this appears to be an unmitigated disaster, I am aligned with the thoughts of Richard McCann. I would like to see reporting on the Elwah (river?) case he mentioned. And if the (successful dam removal?) there had the same sequence of events then fine. If however, the decision to NOT remove sediments before unplugging the Klamath dams, as promised, was unique to the Klamath, then every engineering firm, environmental group or governmental official involved should be prosecuted to the maximum extent of California law.
The Elwa dam removal is also a disaster. Even with the water there is very pristine compared to the Klamath , because the Elwa watershed is the Olympic Peninsula, very clear and cold.
just read re. Elwa Rvr, WA. flows through a Natl park.
Dam removal started in 2011, completed 2014.
Two dams 3 years apart.
It seems to me there is absolute evidence the controlling offices and individual decision makers acted with negligence.
The clear example of the controlled dam removal on the Elwa Rvr is proof positive that the abhorrent mismanagement on the Klamath Rvr and the predictable effects are criminal.
Perhaps a class action lawsuit by damaged parties is an avenue to pursue.
Here in Tennessee we will bludgeon our federal officials to Not allow one dime be thrown away to California for reclamation schemes. ie., high speed rail corrupt payola.
The issue, in this case. ecology or removing dam, is never the issue. As one famous Marxist once said: “The issue is the revolution.”. How can we tell that the issue wasn’t ecology or the dam? By the results, and THEIR REACTION to the results. Are they mortified? Do they want to reverse course? Even admit that they’re wrong?
Nope. The issue was about accumlating power and wealth, via other people’s money. That’s the Communist M.O., every single time.
The issue, in this case. ecology or removing dam, is never the issue. As one famous Marxist once said: “The issue is the revolution.”. How can we tell that the issue wasn’t ecology or the dam? By the results, and THEIR REACTION to the results. Are they mortified? Do they want to reverse course? Even admit that they’re wrong?
Nope. The issue was about accumlating power and wealth, via other people’s money. That’s the Communist M.O., every single time!!
As an outsider, I have but on simple question…
Why do Californians continuously re-elect failures such as Newsom to lead them???
Election cheating by the Dems is rampant here
When will democrat voters ever wake up to the fact that the people they vote for destroy literally every single thing they touch. No one can possibly be this consistently incompetent. Not even by accident. The destruction the wreak is deliberate.
how many other damns have been removed before?
seems like we should have moved beyond experiments by now.