This comment was published in Cal Matters on May 23, 2022.
The Klamath Basin is on the verge of the most ambitious attempt to remove dams ever. If everything goes according to plan, efforts will begin by next year to demolish four obsolete hydroelectric power plants that divide the basin in half. Are we ready for this?
The consequences of this effort to remove the dam are enormous, affecting not only the main part of the river, but ultimately all the tributaries where there is so much biodiversity. Removing dams will be an important first step — although there are many steps ahead — in improving salmon and steelhead supplies in the basin.
A strong science and monitoring program is essential to ensure the success of the project — and will help guide future similar dam removal projects around the world. Although more than $ 450 million has been set aside to remove the dam, to our knowledge, little has been set aside to fund the science needed to assess it. This is a mistake.
Science in the basin has come a long way in the last 20 years, thanks to the efforts of the federal government, Oregon, California, tribes, universities, consultants and various non-profit organizations. Efforts such as the Klamath Basin Monitoring Program and the Integrated Klamath Basin Rehabilitation and Fisheries Monitoring Plan show great potential. But both efforts are ongoing, and neither is focused on meeting science and the need to monitor dam removal.
If we want to have a scientific program ready to start extracting tanks, we have to start with it now. Compiling such a program usually takes a year or more.
We encourage all stakeholders in the basin to support the urgent development and funding of a science program dedicated to assessing the effects of dam removal and directing management responses. Based on our many years of experience with various scientific programs, we offer four criteria necessary for success. The program must be:
Driven by hypotheses: The basis of adaptive management is that all management actions are hypotheses that are tested by modeling and monitoring. The key to success is to avoid the temptation to measure everything, but to focus narrowly on a handful of hypotheses that justified the removal of the dam.
Inclusive: All parties need a place at the table, especially the tribes that have the largest share in the outcome and that have developed increasingly sophisticated own science and monitoring programs.
Well run: Strong leadership is necessary. Although the program is inclusive, it needs someone who has the decision-making authority and the resources to make the program agile.
Reliable funding: Too often, these programs are merged by reducing funding for existing programs. In the long run, this approach is ineffective and creates confusion and conflict.
Based on other programs, we estimate that about $ 5 million a year is needed over 10 years. The combination of state and federal funding is the most likely source of this funding, although private philanthropy can help.
There are many models for this type of program, both inside and outside government. The Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center is an example of a federal-level program that addresses management hypotheses.
Another would be the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project, a joint force with strong leadership and well-known for its inclusiveness and consensus-based program planning.
A third option would include developing a non-profit organization modeled on the Klamath River Reneval Corporation, an organization tasked with removing dams in Klamath.
All of these are viable options.
The whole world is watching the Klamath Dam removal project. This is an opportunity not only to properly remove dams, but also to guide the future management of the Klamath Basin and all other major dam removal projects across the West and, in this regard, the world.
All parties need to get involved in a focused science program, and they need to do that soon.