By Kurtis Alexander, San Francisco Chronicle The Tribune Content Agency
The massive dam-removal project on the Klamath River began to live up to its lofty goal of improving fish passage this week when at least one salmon was observed swimming upriver past the four former dam sites that previously blocked fish.
Wildlife officials said Thursday that a chinook salmon was spotted a day earlier at Spencer Creek in Oregon, suggesting that salmon have begun their long-hoped for return to their historic waters above all of the demolished dams.
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Read more: See Klamath River in California flowing freely for first time in a century after historic dam removal
For more than a century, the iconic fish have been unable to complete their migration from the ocean into hundreds of miles of waterways along the California-Oregon border. Lack of access to the cold, abundant water limited their spawning and has contributed to the steep decline of salmon on what was once the third-largest salmon-producing river in the West.
The $500 million dam-removal project, which wrapped up in recent weeks, was initiated to restore the natural flow of the Klamath and revive the basin's wildlife. Salmon were not only meant to be a main beneficiary of the work, but they are seen as a litmus test for the project's success.
"The salmon remember," said Frankie Myers, vice chairman of the Yurok Tribe, in a statement to the Chronicle after this week's salmon observation in Oregon.
Since the four private hydroelectric dams came down, scientists have been monitoring the river, both with sonar and field crews, to watch for fish that swim past the former dam sites. The turbidity of the water, primarily from sediment from dam removal, had prompted many to think that salmon might wait until later in the year, at least, before returning to their old spawning grounds.
On Oct. 3, however, the first salmon was observed by sonar moving through the southernmost of the former dam sites, Iron Gate Dam in Siskiyou County. Since then, at least dozens, and perhaps hundreds, of chinook have pushed through that site, scientists say.
The fish seen Wednesday in Oregon by field crews is believed to have continued through the footprints of two other former dams in Siskiyou County, Copco #1 and Copco #2, as well as through the footprint of the former J.C. Boyle Dam, across the state line.
The chinook is part of the river's fall run of salmon, which, as their name suggests, migrate in the fall up the river where they were born after spending two or three years at sea. The fall run is the largest on the Klamath and partly fuels California's commercial fishing industry.
Although chinook salmon have started to occupy their native waters, most scientists believe it could take three to five generations of the fish, perhaps a decade or longer, for salmon to fully recover in the basin.
Dam removal along the 250-mile waterway had been urged for decades by local tribes, many of which consider salmon sacred. In recent years, the utility that owned and operated the dams, PacifiCorp, agreed to get rid of the facilities, citing their age and high maintenance costs. The states of California and Oregon, among others, sponsored the work.
The dams did not provide water storage or flood protection. Financing for the project came from the utility and California voter-approved water bonds.
Reach Kurtis Alexander: [email protected] X: @kurtisalexander