One year after dams were torn down, an Indigenous writer sees a healing Klamath River

Over the last two years, I have traveled repeatedly to the Klamath River near the California-Oregon border to report on the dismantling of four dams. I saw crews in excavators as they clawed at the remnants of the Copco No. 1 and Iron Gate dams. And as the giant reservoirs were drained, I saw newly planted seeds taking root in soil that had been underwater for generations.

When the last of the dams was breached in August 2024, the river began flowing freely along about 40 miles for the first time in more than a century.

While working on a series of stories about the undamming of the Klamath, I spoke with Indigenous leaders and activists who had spent two decades campaigning for the removal of dams, including by filing lawsuits, holding protests and speaking out at meetings of utili