Last fall, following a 20-year campaign led by tribal organizers, the federal government ordered the removal of four dams on the Klamath River, which flows from Oregon to California. For almost a century, these dams have prevented the river's salmon from swimming upstream to spawn.
The dams will be gone by next year, but now the salmon, including endangered coho, are facing a renewed threat from farther upstream. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which controls another set of dams on the Klamath, announced last week that it will cut flows on the river to historic lows, drying out the river and likely killing salmon farther downstream.
