Scientists are primed to plant thousands of trees and shrubs after dams come down along the Klamath River
Standing on an outcrop of volcanic rock, Joshua Chenoweth looks across the languid waters of California’s Iron Gate Reservoir and imagines the transformation in store for the landscape. In early 2024, operators will open the floodgates on the 49-meter-high dam that blocks the Klamath River, allowing the more than 50 million tons of water it impounds to begin to drain. Once it’s gone, heavy equipment will dismantle the structure.
“It’s one of the largest restoration efforts ever,” says Chhaya Werner, a Southern Oregon University plant ecologist who plans to study how the vegetation grows back. And with thousands of dams targeted for removal worldwide, more and larger efforts are likely to follow. The Klamath project is an important test of methods that could soon be in wide demand.
Then, in 1918, an energy company erected a 36-meter-tall concrete dam in a narrow canyon 325 kilometers upriver. With no provision for fish to get past, it effectively walled off some 560 kilometers of habitat for migratory fish on the main river and its tributaries. It was the first of the six dams that now choke the Klamath River.
For insights about how to do that, the tribe turned to Chenoweth and the lessons he learned on the Elwha, another river 700 kilometers to the north.Four large dams along the Klamath River in California and Oregon are scheduled to be torn down by the end of 2024. Although two dams will remain farther upstream, the project is poised to become the world’s largest dam removal effort to date and open up more than 600 kilometers of habitat to migratory salmon.
Chenoweth and his colleagues weren’t sure what kinds of plants could survive in the new soil or what role the surrounding forest could play in seeding it. And the early signs were discouraging. At one point, they scooped silt from the lakebed of the Glines Canyon Reservoir and placed it into planting boxes, where they attempted to grow red alder. Every sapling but one died.
Also notable is what is not growing. The invasive species that dominate many disturbed landscapes in western Washington— scotch broom, Himalayan blackberry, Canada thistle—haven’t taken over. “The assumption … is that invasive species will become the dominant plant in these dam removal projects,” Chenoweth says. But on the Elwha, that hasn’t turned out to be the case.
Algae blooms in Klamath River reservoirs, such as one at Iron Gate Reservoir , have contributed to poor water quality. Thick layers of sediment coating the valley floor were revealed after dams came down along the Elwha River .Nearby, another group is working to remove unwanted plants and create weed-free strips at critical places along the edge of the reservoir, such as where creeks will eventually feed into the free-flowing river.
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