Klamath River Run was Great TV, but the Lasting Effect is Hope

If the national TV and newspaper crews were any indication, the “first run” of the Klamath River by a group of young indigenous paddlers this past month was a very big deal. Supporters and news crews galore descended on the mouth of the Klamath this month, as the group of paddlers, who’d spent years training for the event, became the first people in modern history to paddle the Klamath from its source all the way to the sea. That was following the removal of four dams on the Klamath, which concluded in 2024.

The paddlers started at a headwaters location that is sacred to the Klamath people, but when they got close to Klamath Falls, the group still had to portage around two smaller dams that continue to impound, and reportedly pollute, Upper Klamath Lake — a testament that even while the world watched this historic run of the Klamath, more work is ahead. Even as they showed up to celebrate the first run of the Klamath, tribal leaders from the Klamath tribes were advocating for the discussion now to shift to true restoration of the Klamath watershed — including the removal of those two remaining dams.

That forward-thinking advocacy extended beyond the Klamath, too.

At the arrival ceremony at the mouth of the Klamath, advocates from rivers as far away as New Zealand and Chile spoke of their own efforts to see dams removed, rivers restored and fish returning to their rivers. Representatives of the Shoshone-Bannock tribes spoke of their desire to remove the dams on the Snake River, which serves as the border between Oregon and Idaho.

In some cases, it’s a decidedly uphill battle; in the case of the Biobío River in Chile, more dams are still under construction in an area that is home to indigenous populations. Many there have grown tired of the fight and are now resigned to living with the hydroelectric projects, the environmental journalism nonprofit, Dialogue Earth, reports.

Advocates for dam removal on the Snake River made significant progress in February 2024 when the federal government, along with the states of Washington and Oregon and various tribes signed an agreement intended to be a roadmap for removal of four dams on the Snake. It might come as a surprise to no one that a month ago, the Trump administration signed a memo that revoked a Biden memo advocating for the removal. One step forward, one step back.

But even with this back and forth, conversations move forward. It feels like there’s momentum to both support salmon populations AND provide clean power that neither destroys fish species nor pollutes our air. Progress on producing even cleaner forms of energy is taking major steps back under this administration, with its cuts to research on renewable energy, but someday we can hope those retaliatory efforts will be seen for the petulant refusal of progress that they are.

Political whims swing back and forth, and we are currently living in a national political climate that definitely favors short-term energy gains, in the way of hydroelectric and coal power, for example, over long-term environmental goals, such as cooling our rivers and returning salmon populations.

But the story of the Klamath is nothing if not a testament to what can be done with persistence. Tribal leaders and environmental activists persisted for decades — traversing the ups and downs of numerous presidential administrations — to finally reach the settlement that saw Pacific Power ceding its interests in the river.

A flourish of interest in the Klamath River bubbled up this month in response to those indigenous paddlers’ first descent of the river. Recreationalists are now eyeing the area for new opportunities for kayaking and rafting. Environmentalists are seeing it as a continuation of the progress that began with the historic removal of the dam on Washington’s Elwha River.

In this and other ways, this past month’s historic run of the Klamath was not just an inspiring story for the TV crews, but hopefully, a catalyst for people to continue to advocate for their own rivers.

This article appears in Source Weekly July 24, 2025.