YREKA, Calif. — One of the first banners used by a coalition of tribes, environmentalists and other allies in a 20-year struggle to remove four dams from the Klamath River along the California-Oregon state line was lovingly hung by some longtime fish protectors.
The vinyl decals, featuring salmon crying to get beyond the first of the dams, were wrinkled, the banner itself battle-scarred in places. But the message was still clear: “Un-dam the Klamath now!”
That message became fact at the end of September, when the final hunks of concrete were trucked away from the last of the four dams that had impeded fish migration for nearly a century . The world’s largest dam removal project to date was complete, and about 500 people came to a meadow about 10 miles south of the Klamath on Oct. 5 to celebrate and to look forward to the next phase of restoring an entire basin the size of West Virginia.
Leaf and Lisa Hillman, longtime fish protectors from the Karuk Tribe, called the end of the dams a healing of communities from top to bottom.