Commentary: American dams are being demolished. And nature is pushing that along

This summer, the first of four dams on the West’s Klamath River was destroyed, unleashing a torrent of cold water that had been held back for a century. By the end of 2024, three more dams near the California-Oregon border will come down, restoring the massive runs of salmon and steelhead along some 400 miles that once defined the river basin.

For more than a hundred years, dams in the American West have created vast reservoirs, sources of hydroelectric power and irrigation for declining in their and providing unpredictable sources of water — not to mention their massive environmental damage to fish, Native American cultures and the land itself — they are coming down from Connecticut to California.