The largest dam removal project to date is underway on the Klamath River, where it crosses the Oregon-California state line. There is little controversy that these four hydroelectric dams, built between 1908 and 1962 along a 35-mile stretch, have outlived their utility. But the empty reservoirs highlight a movement that is accelerating around the world. Eighty dams were decommissioned on American rivers in 2023, along with 487 in 15 countries across Europe. Here in the Western U.S., dams have shaped cities, economies and lifestyles for well over a century. Is it wise to tear them down?
Let Nature Run Its Course
it’s time to rethink our relationship with rivers. Once we saw them as dangerous forces of nature to be conquered and controlled for maximum efficiency. But today, we understand the costs and impacts of those efforts, no matter how good the intention, from levees on the Mississippi to the Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado. Many dams are simply outdated, silted up or at risk for collapse. In general, wild rivers foster healthier ecosystems and support human communities more effectively than waterways controlled by humans.
Rivers anchor complex biomes built on natural cycles like drought and flooding, which keep habitats vital and healthy for all manner of organisms, from aquatic plants to birds of prey and even people. Dams disrupt those cycles, and our attempts to replicate their benefits tend to fall short. Dams also lead to warmer waters, harming native fish species and breeding toxic algae. And of course, they limit breeding areas and block upstream spawning routes. Even the workarounds, ranging from “fish ladders” to “fish cannons,” can be harmful. Hundreds of thousands of juvenile salmon recently died on the Klamath due to gas bubble disease, caused by pressure changes in the water as they passed through a tunnel in the Iron Gate Dam.
More broadly, salmon populations are in peril throughout the Northwest, which keenly affects certain Indigenous groups who have lived along the rivers for ages but were largely overlooked by society when the dams were built. Many rely on native fish as a foundation for traditional lifestyles and even spirituality. Some have been displaced by reservoirs and new flood patterns, or impacted by attendant real estate development. “They’ve taken our land, they’ve taken our rivers, they’ve taken our fish,” said Carrie Sampson, elder of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, on the lower Snake River. “I don’t know what more they want.”
Traditionalists may well venerate dams as exemplars of American ingenuity and sacrifice, but many dams just don’t offer enough benefits to justify the costs of upkeep. On the lower Klamath, the price of fish ladders required by law was enough to push former owner PacifiCorp to favor removal. “We’re not ideological about it,” said Bob Gravely, spokesman for the energy company.
If It Ain’t Broke
human beings have depended on dams for millennia. From the Middle East to China and the Rocky Mountains, we’ve used them to prevent flooding, irrigate arid land and store up water for the opposite of a rainy day. But they’ve shaped the American West to an extreme degree, allowing millions of people to inhabit homes in otherwise inhospitably arid desert environments. They should not be removed casually, ignoring the wisdom of our forefathers to appease special interests like the environmentalist lobby.
Grand structures like the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River — completed in 1935 and named one of the “Seven Modern Civil Engineering Wonders” — are monuments to human innovation that merit respect and preservation as part of American history. But they are also essential tools for ensuring that millions of people, from Phoenix to Los Angeles and Salt Lake City, have access to drinking water. Along with smaller dams throughout our river systems, they protect many towns from seasonal flooding and help us to grow crops or feed cattle. Ranches and farms often depend on reservoirs and canals to irrigate land and make rivers navigable, allowing them to efficiently and cost-effectively transport goods to coastal markets.
Hydroelectric power produced in dams also plays a vital role in providing energy across the West. For instance, five dams on the lower Snake River that are targeted for removal produce 12 percent of the electricity in the Federal Columbia River Power System in an average year, enough to power a city the size of Seattle. Existing plans to develop alternative sources would cost billions of dollars and likely raise annual rates by at least $100 per household.
Even if dams are not ideal, removing them risks unanticipated consequences. After the Klamath’s Copco Dam No. 1 was breached, fish and deer were found stranded and dying on the muddy riverbank, and nearby property owners worried about their wells, home foundations and flooding. On a larger scale, advocates for removal may be missing some of the implications of their desired policy. What happens when a dry year means there’s not enough water for the millions of people who live in Las Vegas? Around 21,000 men worked and sacrificed to build Hoover Dam. Maybe we should have a little more respect for what they accomplished.
This story appears in the June 2024 issue of Deseret Magazine. Learn more about how to subscribe.