cover photo: Iron Gate & Shasta Valley credit: Jay Martin
Summary: The drawdown of three reservoirs along the Klamath River in Oregon and California has begun as part of the Lower Klamath Dam Removal Project. The project aims to naturally release accumulated sediments through drawdown, rain events, and erosion. However, concerns have been raised about heavy metals and other water quality constituents affecting public health. The Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors has directed the Environmental Health Division to collect water samples from the river for analysis.
Drawdown of the three reservoirs along the Klamath River in Oregon and California as part of the Lower Klamath Dam Removal Project (Project) began in January 2024. Following the approved project planning and environmental documents, water from JC Boyle, Copco 1, and Iron Gate dams were released through spillway gates and adit tunnels, allowing for the controlled draining of the reservoirs. As noted in the approved environmental documents, including the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS 2022), and Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR 2020), as well as outlined in the Reservoir Area Management Plan (RAMP) (December 2022), no large-scale assisted sediment removal from the reservoir footprints is proposed as part of the project activities. The estimated amount of sediment that has accumulated in the project reservoirs is approximately 15.5 million cubic yards (4.3 million tons), with more than half of this volume accumulated in the Copco 1 reservoir (FEIS 2022). According to the KRRC project plans, “For a median water year, hydraulic modeling predicted that approximately half of the stored sediment would naturally erode and vacate the Reservoir Area (USBR, 2011b)” (RAMP 2022). The small-scale assisted sediment evacuation proposed at Iron Gate and Copco 1 reservoirs is focused on “high priority tributaries,” with work only occurring between January 1 and March 15, 2024. The high priority tributaries identified by the Klamath River Renewal Corporation (KRRC) are Spencer Creek, Beaver Creek, Jenny Creek, Scotch Creek and Camp Creek.
With approvals from the regulatory agencies, the project plan for sediment transport is to allow the reservoirs to naturally release the accumulated sediments via drawdown, subsequent rain events, and erosion. As stated in the FEIS, 2022:
2 Comments
People need to get a realistic look at this whole project . It a lot of years to create the mess an it will take a few years to fix it . I’m sure mother nature will do what she will. Main thing is to prevent erosion which necessitates the mass planting of trees ,brush and native grasses. If that happens and they can keep all the idiots with Atv’s and 4x4xtrucks from tearing up the flats I think in 5 years we will not recognize the old resevoir sites.
This whole project is nothing more than a huge Gov’t. scam in the name of “climate change”, which has destroyed some wildlife, fish (a million+ salmon fry) in a weak attempt to show the public nothing is wrong with their destruction of this environment. In the name of green energy, they have removed the greenest source of energy known to the world, hydro-electric energy. Hopefully, this November, the people of this country can get rid of the clowns that perpetrated this SCAM. jv