91Porn

Transcribed by AI. May contain errors. 

Kat Kerlin 

Hey Amy.

Amy Quinton 

Hey Kat. Welcome back to Unfold. 

Kat Kerlin 

Thanks, Amy. 

Amy Quinton 

This is a special bonus episode of Unfold. We'll have a new episode out next month. But we're here to discuss a very important environmental story that Kat has been working on. As I understand it, we might soon witness environmental healing on a major scale. 

Kat Kerlin 

Yeah, well, let's hope so. We're talking about the world's largest dam removal project in history. It's along the Klamath River. After more than a century, four of the rivers six dams will be down by the end of this year. 

Amy Quinton 

And for those unfamiliar with its geography, the Klamath River runs more than 250 miles from Southern Oregon all the way to the Pacific Ocean in Northern 91Porn. And these dams were originally built, as I understand it for hydropower. 

Kat Kerlin 

That's right. Historically, the Klamath was the third largest salmon producing river on the West Coast. Salmon, as you may know, are born in rivers head out to sea, and then returned two rivers at the end of their lives to spawn the dams on the Klamath, which are like 33 to 172 feet high blocked fish from accessing more than 400 miles of spawning habitat. I mean, think about that for a second. Amy, imagine you leave home, and then you come back to a concrete wall, locking you out from everything that made you you.

Amy Quinton 

That's quite an eviction, I mean, 400 miles of spawning habitat. That is incredible.

Kat Kerlin 

Yeah. Especially when you realize that it's that habitat that helps all of your ancestors persist and stay resilient to all sorts of changes for millions of years.

Amy Quinton 

And salmon need cold water to survive and spawn. Water released from dams is often too warm for them to survive. Salmon populations plummeted as a result of these dams and so did water quality. So what happens when all four dams come down? Will salmon populations return?

Kat Kerlin 

That is the big dam question that UC Davis scientists and a team of others are hoping to answer.

Amy Quinton 

Kat, I know you've written about this and a new multimedia feature story called, "The Salmon Diaries: Life Before and After the Klamath Dam Removal." So tell me a little bit more about this.

Kat Kerlin 

Well, first, the dam removal isn't just about restoring salmon or a river. It's also about righting a historic wrong. These dams were built on the ancestral lands of the Yurok, Hoopa and Karuk tribes and downstream of the Klamath tribes of Oregon. I talked with Barry McCovey, who was director of the Yurok tribal fisheries program. When

Barry McCovey 

When the dams went in, the tribal people in the Klamath Basin weren't consulted. And I think that was offensive. And people were uncomfortable with that, and have been for over 100 years. And there was always an effort and always in the back of our minds. We knew that we needed to get the dams out, we knew that they were causing, you know, major issues and we knew that you can't just go and break an ecosystem in half.

Kat Kerlin 

The lack of consultation is common throughout the history of U.S. dam construction. UC Davis Native American studies professor Beth Rose Middleton Manning explains.

Beth Rose Middleton Manning 

Almost every river where there's a dam, there's a history of displacement, disruption, and putting in that infrastructure without the consent of the communities and nations whose homeland that is.

Kat Kerlin 

You can't understate the importance of salmon and this river to tribal cultural identity. I heard from several Native people along the Klamath that without salmon, there is no tribe. The conn