In what is being touted as the world’s biggest dam-removal project, an agreement has been reached to remove four dams on the Klamath River and restore a 300-mile migratory route for California’s beleaguered salmon, the San Francisco Chronicle reports here.

The agreement took a decade of negotiations among tribes, farmers, fishermen and the hydroelectric company that operates the dams and distributes the water.

The dams would be dismantled beginning in 2020.

The dams have blocked salmon migration for a century along the California-Oregon border and have been blamed for much of the historic decline of chinook and coho salmon and steelhead trout in the Klamath, the Chronicle’s Pete Fimrite writes.

The push to take the dams down gained momentum in 2002 after a federally ordered change in water flow led to the death of 33,000 salmon in the river.

Chinook once swam all the way up to Upper Klamath Lake in Oregon, providing crucial sustenance to American Indians, including the Yurok, Karuk, Klamath and Hoopa Valley tribes.

“I cannot adequately say how impressed I am by everyone’s ability to put aside their differences,” says Craig Tucker, spokesman for the Karuk Tribe. “There is a long history of not getting along, of fighting over water rights. Now we are optimistic.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Dam removal, Hoopa Valley Tribe, Karuk Tribe, Klamath River, Klamath Tribe, Native American news, Yurok Tribe