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Editor’s note: This yearâs biannual Biodiversity COP was in Cali, Colombia, a country with the dubious distinction of topping the list of the number of environmental activists killed by a country in both 2022 (60) and 2023 (79) and will probably have that dubious honor this year with a continuingly rising number of (115) as of November 7th.
Nicknamed Lobo (meaning âwolfâ in Spanish), the esteemed Indigenous guardian and educational coordinator was killed Aug. 29, while his fellow guardians, the Kiwe Thegnas (or Indigenous Guard of Cauca) were protesting for better security in Cauca, Colombia. The region has increasingly become dangerous with incursions by illegal armed groups.
The BogotĂĄ protest gathered more than 4,000 people, in what is known as a minga in the Andean tradition, against escalating violence in the region. After eight days, on Aug. 28, the Indigenous communities succeeded in getting President Gustavo Petro to sign a new decree, the Economic and Environmental Territorial Authority, which grants Indigenous territories greater autonomy to take judicial action against violence within their lands.
But the sentiment is bittersweet for the Indigenous Nasa and Misak activists in Anaâs homeland of Cauca, particularly in Pueblo Nuevo, a nationally recognized Indigenous territory (resguardo). Theyâve lost a dear leader and role model, impassioned with protecting their ancestral territory, forests and youth from illegal armed groups.
Labeled the deadliest country for environmental defenders in 2023, Carlos, 30, was the 115th social leader killed in Colombia this year, according to the Development and Peace Institute, Indepaz.
Although the police investigation into his death is still underway, members of his community say they believe Carlos was the latest victim of armed groups and drug traffickers the Nasa people have struggled with for more than 40 years. Mongabay spoke with these members of the community, including Carlosâ family and friends, to gather more information on his life and killing that received little attention in the media.
One of Carlosâ close friends leans on the coffin. Image by Tony Kirby.Musicians play Carlosâ favorite music. Image by Tony Kirby.
Pueblo Nuevo is located in the central mountain range of the Andes in the Cauca department, which today has become a hub for drug trafficking and illicit plant cultivation. This is due to its proximity to drug trafficking routes to ship drugs to international markets, the absence of state presence and the remoteness of the mountains.
The loss of Carlos is both physical and spiritual, a close friend of Carlos, Naer Guegia Sekcue, told Monagaby. He left behind a void in the lives of his family which they are trying to fill with love, Naer said, and the community and guardians feel like they lost a part of their rebellion against armed groups.
The âWolfâ
Carlos was a member of the Indigenous Guard since his childhood. The childrenâs section of the Guard is called semillas, meaning âseeds,â for how theyâll fruit into the next generation of leaders protecting their territory.
He met his wife, Lina Daknis, through mutual friends at university. Lina, though not of Indigenous heritage, said she fell in love with his rebellious spirit, devotion and commitment to Indigenous rights. When Lina became pregnant, the couple decided to raise their daughter in the Indigenous reserve, Pueblo Nuevo.
For many in this Indigenous community, their lands and forests are far more than mere sustenance; they hold deep traditional and spiritual significance. Among the Nasa people, one significant ritual involves burying the umbilical cord under stones of a sacred fire (tulpa), symbolically tying them to their ancestral territories. According to the sources Mongabay spoke to, they consider that the lands and forests do not belong to them but are a loan from their children they are entrusted to protect.
Carlos was fully dedicated to this Indigenous Guard, Lina said.
Many days, he would get up in the middle of the night to patrol the territory. While facing well-equipped armed groups, the Indigenous Guard remained unarmed. They carry a ceremonial wooden baton, adorned with green and white strings as symbols of Indigenous identity. Carlos was particularly outspoken against illegal armed groups and coca cultivation. Faced with their invasions and deforestation on their territory, the Guard also took on the role of environmental defenders.
Coca cultivation, as done by armed groups to produce cocaine, not only impacts lives, but also the environment. The traditionally sacred crop is now tied to violence and degradation in the region.
According to Colombiaâs Ministry of Justice, 48% of cultivation is concentrated in special management areas, including national parks, collective territories and forest reserves. Between 2022 and 2023, coca cultivation caused the deforestation of 11,829 hectares (29,200 acres) of forested land, according to the latest report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. This deforestation increased by 10% in 2023 and threatens biodiversity, placing more than 50 species at risk of extinction, the Ministry of Justice stated at the COP16 U.N. biodiversity conference.
In one instance, Carlos and the Guard destroyed coca plants, took photos and uploaded videos to social media. Shortly after, his family began receiving threats from anonymous people on social media, warning Carlos to be careful. Lina now said she believes these threats came from dissident groups profiting from coca cultivation.
Pueblo Nuevo is located in the central mountain range of the Andes in the Cauca department, which today has become a hub for drug trafficking and illicit plant cultivation. Image by Tony Kirby.
In Cauca, several dissident groups are active, including Estado Central Mayor and the Dagoberto Ramos Front. These factions emerged following the 2016 peace agreement and consist of former FARC guerrillas who either rejected or abandoned the reintegration process. Law enforcement say their presence poses a persistent threat. Most recently, in May, a police station in Caldono was attacked, with local authorities suspecting the involvement of the Dagoberto Ramos Front.
Despite the danger, Carlos never stopped his work.
âI told him to leave the Guard, to go to another country, that they would kill him,â said his mother, Diana Tumbo. âBut he didnât leave us nor the Guard.â
Carlosâ mother calls for the unity of the people in the fight against violence. Image by Tony Kirby.
The seeds of tomorrow
The road to the Carlosâ home is surrounded by peaceful landscapes: small villages, chicken restaurants and hand-built huts. But the graffiti on walls â âFARC EPâ (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Peopleâs Army) and âELN Presenteâ (National Liberation Army, Present) â are stark reminders of the violence. Despite the peace agreement signed between the FARC and the Colombian government in 2016, violence has resurged in Cauca.
Carlos saw the armed groups as a destructive force to youth by recruiting minors.
According to the annual report of the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights, armed groups forcibly recruited at least 71 Indigenous children in 2023. Oveimar Tenorio, leader of the Indigenous Guard, said the armed groups no longer have the political ideology that once defined the FARC. Instead, their attacks on the Indigenous Guard are driven by profit and control of drug routes.
âWe are an obstacle for them,â he told Mongabay.
The graffiti reads âFARC â EP,â which stands for âRevolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia â Peopleâs Army.â An man sits on a bench in a square in JamundĂ, Colombia. For decades, violence has been a part of daily life for Colombians. Image by Tony Kirby.
Carlos became an educational coordinator, supporting teachers with Indigenous knowledge programs and organized workshops for the schools in the Sath Tama Kiwe Indigenous Territory. He believed in educating youth not just with academic knowledge, but with a sense of pride in their Indigenous heritage and the need to protect their land, Naer said.
Carlos encouraged the young people not to feel ashamed of being Indigenous, but instead to learn from their own culture. He always carried a book by Manuel QuintĂn Lame, a historical Indigenous Nasa leader from Cauca who defended Indigenous autonomy in the early 20th century.
But Carlosâ approach was one of tenderness; he was always listening to his students and fighting for a better future for the youth. âHe was convinced that real change started from the bottom up, through children and the youth,â Naer said.
People show support for Carlos, demanding justice for him. Image by Tony Kirby.
Murder of the âWolfâ
His friends and family said Carlosâ actions made him a target.
On Aug. 29, 2024, Carlos went down to the village of Pescador, Caldono, to pick up his daughter from swimming lessons. It was a peaceful moment: mother, father and daughter having a family meal at a small restaurant. Afterward, Carlos went to refuel his motorbike at the gas station.
Suddenly, a stranger approached his wife in the restaurant, she said, asking, âAre you the woman who is with the man with the long hair? Something has happened, but I canât say what.â
The Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca quickly blamed âcriminal structuresâ linked to dissident FARC groups, particularly the Jaime MartĂnez and Dagoberto Ramos factions. However, the police investigation is ongoing, and the FiscalĂa General de la NaciĂłn (Office of the Attorney General), which is overseeing the case, has not shared details with the public or Mongabay.
Mongabay approached FiscalĂa General de la NaciĂłn and local authorities for comment but did not receive one by the time of publication.
Sept. 1, in a small village perched on a hillside, marked the date of Carlosâ funeral. Fellow members of the Indigenous Guard, wearing blue vests and carrying their batons, lined the dusty roads. They formed a solemn procession from Carlosâ house down to the cemetery with about 1,000 people walking around them through Pueblo Nuevo.
âWe want to show our strength,â said Karen Julian, a university student in Cauca who didnât know Carlos personally but felt compelled to attend his funeral. Along with others, she boarded a brightly painted chiva bus to Carlosâ home village, where he was laid to rest.
Members of the Indigenous Guard, carrying batons, line the streets of Pueblo Nuevo, accompanying Carlos on his final journey to his grave. Image by Tony Kirby.
Children holding flowers led the way of the procession, followed by a cross and then the coffin. A woman rang the church bell and people chanted the slogan to resist armed groups: âUntil when? Until forever!â
At the covered sports field at the center of the village, the funeral transformed into a political rally. âI will not allow another young person to die!â Carlosâ mother shouted to the audience. âI demand justice.â She spoke of her worries for her granddaughter, Carlosâ daughter, who stills had many plans with her father. She called on the community to stand united against the violence that has taken so many lives.
As Carlosâ coffin was lowered into the ground, the crowd began to swell, pressing in tightly with his 6-year-old daughter at the front row of the mass. All were watching as the coffin reached its final destination.
âCarlosâ death was not in vain,â Naer said. âThe youth understand that they must follow his path. The younger generations will continue preserving the Indigenous traditions while defending our territories and rights.â
The last look: Carlosâ daughter watches her father before he is buried, while his parents cry beside the coffin. Image by Tony Kirby.
Banner image: Carlosâ fellow guardians carry his coffin; they fought shoulder to shoulder to protect the Indigenous territories against illegal armed groups. Image by Tony Kirby.
KLAMATH, CALIFORNIAâBrook M. Thompson was just 7 years old when she witnessed an apocalypse.
âA day after our world renewal ceremony, we saw all these fish lined up on the shores, just rotting in piles,â says Thompson, a Yurok tribal member who is also Karuk and living in present-day Northern California. âThis is something thatâs never happened in our oral history, since time immemorial.â
During the 2002 fish kill in the Klamath River, an estimated 30,000 to 70,000 salmon died when the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation diverted water to farms instead of letting it flow downstream. This catastrophic event catalyzed a movement to remove four dams that had choked the river for nearly a century.
Now, that decades-long tribal-led movement has finally come to fruition. As of Oct. 5, the four lower Klamath hydroelectric dams have been fully removed from the river, freeing 676 kilometers (420 miles) of the river and its tributaries. This is the largest dam-removal project in history.
âThis has been 20-plus years in the making, my entire life, and why I went to university, why Iâm doing the degrees Iâm doing now,â says Thompson, who is an artist, a restoration engineer for the Yurok Tribe and pursuing a Ph.D. in environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
âI feel amazing,â Thompson tells Mongabay at the annual Yurok Salmon Festival in Klamath, California, in late August, just weeks before the river was freed. âI feel like the weight of all that concrete is lifted off my shoulders.â
A river dammed
The Klamath River stretches 423 km (263 mi) from its headwaters in southern Oregon to the Pacific Ocean just south of Crescent City, California. It was once the third-largest salmon-producing river in the contiguous U.S., sustaining tribes for centuries and later also supporting a thriving recreational and commercial fishing industry.
Six Klamath River dams were built by the California Oregon Power Company (now Portland, Oregon-based electric company PacifiCorp) in the 20th century. The four lower dams, built to generate hydroelectric power, were Copco No. 1, completed in 1918, followed by Copco No. 2 in 1925, the J.C. Boyle Dam in 1958, and Iron Gate Dam in 1964.
At the time, they were seen as marvels of engineering and progress, promising cheap electricity to fuel the regionâs growth. Together, these four dams could generate 163 megawatts of electricity, enough to power roughly 70,000 homes and drive development in the remote territory.
However, the dams came at a tremendous cost to the riverâs ecosystem and the Karuk, Yurok, Shasta, Klamath and Modoc tribes who have depended on its salmon since time immemorial.
In the decades after dam construction, the riverâs once-thriving ecosystem began to collapse and salmon populations plummeted. In 1997, coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) in the Klamath were listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.
The life cycle of salmon is tied to the free flow of rivers. These fish are born in freshwater streams and migrate to the ocean, where they spend most of their adult lives, and then return to their natal streams to spawn and die. This journey, which can span thousands of miles, is crucial for the genetic diversity and resilience of salmon populations.
Dams disrupt this natural cycle by blocking access to spawning habitat, altering water temperatures, and degrading water quality. On the Klamath, salmon lost hundreds of miles of habitat. Worldwide, not just salmon, but many other migratory fish species such as trout, herring, eels and sea lamprey are blocked by dams.
Dead salmon floating in the Klamath River in 2002. An estimated 70,000 salmon died when PacifiCorp withheld water behind the Iron Gate Dam, sending it to farms instead of letting it flow downstream. Photo from Salmon kill photo archive.Ron Reed, a traditional Karuk fisherman and cultural fire practitioner uses a dip net to fish for salmon on the Klamath river in Karuk territory. Photo by Liz Kimbrough for Mongabay
âThe dams were like a blockage in the riverâs arteries. They stopped the flow of life, not just for the fish, but for our people too,â Ron Reed, a traditional Karuk fisherman and cultural fire practitioner, tells Mongabay. He recalls the stark decline in fish populations during his lifetime.
âAs I grew up, the fish catching down here became almost nonexistent. At some points I was catching maybe 100 fish in a year,â Reed says. âAt the time the Karuk Tribe had more than 3,000 members. Thatâs not enough for anything. Not even everybody gets a bite.â
Commercial and recreational fishing also took a hit over the years. âBack in the mid-1900s, the Klamath River was known as the single most revered fly-fishing river in California,â Mark Rockwell, vice president of conservation for the Montana-based NGO Fly Fishers International, which supported the dam removal efforts, said in a statement. âFly fishers came from all over the U.S. and other countries to experience the historic fishery. All that was lost because of the dams and the damage & disease they brought to the river.â
For the tribes, the impact of the dams went beyond fish. The dams created large reservoirs that flooded ancestral lands and cultural sites, particularly village sites and important ceremonial areas of the Shasta Indian Nation in the upper Klamath.
Reed also shared memories of the dangers posed by the dams farther downstream in Karuk territory. âWhen I was growing up, we were not allowed to go to the river. Before Iron Gate Dam was put up [to control flows from the Copco dams] you had that surge when they made electricity and that fluctuation was up to 3 feet,â he said. âWe were losing people along the river. There are stories of our people drowning.â
The movement to undam the Klamath
The fight to remove the four lower Klamath dams began in earnest in the early 2000s, led by the Yurok, Karuk and Klamath tribes. After the 2002 fish kill made national news, the campaign to remove the dams grew beyond a local issue into a national movement supported by environmental NGOs and pro-fishing groups in California and beyond, such as American Rivers, Ridges to Riffles Conservation Group, California Trout, Save California Salmon, and the Native Fish Society.
In 2004, Tribal members and their allies traveled to Scotland to protest Scottish Power, which owned the dams at the time. The Scottish people rallied in support of the protesters, and in 2005 Scottish Power transferred ownership back to PacifiCorp, a subsidiary of Warren Buffettâs Berkshire Hathaway Energy. Protesters then took their message to shareholder meetings in Omaha, Nebraska.
Those in favor of dam removal argued that dams had been catastrophic for the ecosystem. The lower dams provided no irrigation, drinking water or flood control. Electricity from the dams did not go directly to local residents but was channeled into the Pacific power grid, which powers homes as far north as Vancouver, British Colombia, and as far south as Baja California. And finally, it would cost more to bring the dams up to modern standards than to remove them.
On the other hand, residents of the Copco community stood to lose the Copco Reservoir, a lake used for recreation and a tourism draw for the area. Others feared loss of energy and water quality problems. The campaign to remove the Klamath dams faced numerous challenges, including entrenched economic interests, local opposition, and complex regulatory hurdles.
Dam removal advocates overcame these obstacles through persistent grassroots organizing, alliances between tribes and environmental groups, and media campaigns that brought national attention to the scientific evidence about the damsâ negative impacts on salmon populations and water quality.
But what really made a difference was proving that removing the dams would cost less than fixing them up.
PacifiCorp and its parent company, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, initially resisted removal, but gradually shifted their stance as the financial and regulatory landscape changed. The turning point came when advocates demonstrated that removal could cap PacifiCorpâs liability and potentially save ratepayers money in the long term.
In 2016, after much negotiation, PacifiCorp agreed to transfer the dams to the Klamath River Renewal Corporation (KRRC), a nonprofit organization created specifically to take ownership of the dams and oversee their removal. By agreeing to transfer the dams to KRRC, PacifiCorp found a way to get rid of money-losing properties while avoiding uncertain future costs and risks.
In 2022, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved the plan, paving the way for the largest-ever dam removal and river restoration project not just in the U.S., but in the world.
Ultimately, dam removal and river restoration came with a price tag of approximately $450 million, funded through a combination of surcharges on PacifiCorp customers and California state bond money. Although Pacificorp hasnât provided an official cost estimate, they have said it would have cost a great deal more to keep the dams operating safely.
Removing mountains of concrete and earth
Removing four massive dams is no small feat. The process involved years of planning, environmental impact studies, and complex engineering work.
âRemoving a dam is like performing open-heart surgery on the landscape,â says Dan Chase, a fisheries biologist with Resource Environmental Solutions (RES), the company contracted to handle the restoration work. âYou have to be incredibly careful and precise, or you risk causing more harm than good.â
The physical removal of the dams began in mid-2023 and concluded in October 2024. It was a carefully orchestrated process that involved slowly draining reservoirs, demolishing concrete structures, scooping away the earthen dams, and managing the release of decades of accumulated sediment.
The removal of the dams occurred in a staggered sequence, beginning with the smallest dam and progressing to the larger ones. Copco 2, the smallest, was the first to be fully removed, with the process completed in October 2023.
This was followed by the initiation of drawdown (the controlled release of water) for the large reservoirs behind the three remaining dams, Iron Gate, J.C. Boyle and Copco 1, in January 2024.
The first step was to breach the dam (either with explosives or using existing openings) and lower the water level in the reservoir behind it. This was done gradually to minimize erosion and downstream damage. Contractors used special water tunnels and diversions to control water release.
Dam removal underway on the Iron Gate dam on Aug 15, 2024. Contractors diverted water during the removal process. Drone image by Liz Kimbrough for Mongabay.
Ren Brownell, the public information officer for KRRC, describes the day she watched the waters of the Iron Gate reservoir, tinged electric green from toxic algal blooms, drain in just 17 hours.
âIt was like watching 10,000 years of geology in a matter of a week. [The sediment] washed away and eventually the Klamath River was revealed,â Brownell, who grew up in the area, tells Mongabay. âI end up looking back on that period as one of my favorite times on the project, because I got to watch a river come back to life and just reveal itself.â
Decades worth of sediment had accumulated behind the dams, most of which was washed downstream by the draining of the reservoirs. Although the river was extra muddy and turbid after each dam removal, experts view this as a positive sign of the ecosystem reclaiming its natural state.
The historic path of the Klamath river reemerges after the Iron Gate dam was removed and the reservoir drained. Native plants can be seen along the, planted by crews after the reservoir was drained. Photo by Liz Kimbrough for Mongabay.
With the water levels lowered, heavy machinery moved in to begin breaking apart the concrete structures. Kiewit, the contractor KRRC hired to complete the deconstruction elements of the project, used hydraulic hammers, explosives, and other specialized equipment to demolish the dams, piece by piece.
According to KRRC, the concrete was buried onsite and the earthen material was returned to nearby areas, ideally where it had been originally removed from to build the dams. Hazardous materials were hauled offsite to appropriate facilities and metals were recycled.Â
Restoring an ecosystem
RES, who is overseeing restoration, now faces the monumental task of restoring the river channel and the 890 hectares (2,200 acres) of land that were once submerged beneath reservoirs.
âItâs not enough to just take out the dams,â says Chase, the RES fish biologist. âWe need to help jump-start the ecosystemâs recovery.â
This effort began years before the dams were removed. In 2019, crews of primarily Yurok tribal members began a massive effort to gather seeds from native plants in the surrounding areas, including oak trees, poppies and various grasses.
âWe had crews out collecting native seeds, with close to 100 different species collected from the area that we then took to commercial nurseries to grow and harvest and grow out again to the point where weâre now in the neighborhood of 17 to 19 billion native seeds,â says David Meurer, director of community affairs for RES.
A combination of hand seeding and helicopter seeding occurred at all three major reservoir footprints: Copco 1, Iron Gate and J.C. Boyle. (The smaller Copco 2 dam had impounded just a narrow, rocky area that only needed to be reshaped, according to RES.) The first round of seeding served to stabilize the sediment and improve soil. RES says this was a success, though there have been some challenges and surprises, including some rogue horses.
âWe did not expect a huge and ever-increasing herd of horses who obviously are going to prefer our forage, which is green and lush, to what they saw in the surrounding hillside,â Meurer says. To address this unwanted grazing, RES is installing a rather long and costly fence around the planted areas.
As the dams came down, crews also began restoring the natural river channel. RES worked with a Yurok construction company to help direct the stream back toward its historic alignment. The team is still fine-tuning the riverâs path, using plane-mounted lidar laser imaging to map and guide their work.
Free-roaming horses graze on restoration plantings along the Klamath river. Before dam removal, this area was submerged by the Iron Gate reservoir. The piles of logs shown here will be placed along the river to guide the river path and create habitat. Photo by Liz Kimbrough for Mongabay
The return of the salmon
Down a gravel road in Northern California, through a thicket of willow trees, around big boulders, and over smooth cobbles, is the place the Karuk Tribe calls the center of the world. A massive wedge of stone, a mini-mountain, stands guard over a section of the Klamath River rife with riffles and rapids.
On the riverâs edge, Reed sits atop a massive boulder, praying. A white bird traces slow circles overhead. Itâs later summer, a season of ceremony for the tribes. The world renewal ceremony is tied to the upstream migration of salmon.
Reed, a tribal elder, hops spryly across boulders to the base of a small rapid. With practiced movements, he swoops the end of a traditional dip net, a 15-foot loop of willow tree branch with a net at the end, into the whitewater.
Karuk Tribal citizens Ron Reed and Sonny Mitchell catch the first fall chinook salmon of the on the Klamath river in late August. Photo by Liz Kimbrough for Mongabay.
Within seconds, a fat salmon thrashes in the net. Reed and Sonny Mitchell Jr., a Karuk fisheries technician, let out shouts of celebration. This was the first fall Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) of the season. They carry the fish back to a congratulatory crew and carefully clean it in a trickle of fresh water.
âWeâre eating well tonight,â Mitchell says.
Because of their cultural and economic status, restoration efforts cater largely to the needs of the fish. As the physical landscape transforms post-dam removal, eyes are on the riverâs iconic salmon.
âWeâre already seeing positive changes,â Toz Soto, fisheries program manager for the Karuk Tribe, said, just weeks before the dam removal was complete. âWater temperatures are more natural, sediment is moving downstream as it should, and we expect fish to start to explore areas they havenât been able to reach in generations.â
This expectation has already become a reality. According to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, âOn October 16, a fall-run Chinook salmon was identified by ODFWâs fish biologists in a tributary to the Klamath River above the former J.C. Boyle Dam, becoming the first anadromous fish to return to the Klamath Basin in Oregon since 1912 when the first of four hydroelectric dams was constructed, blocking migration.â
And a post by Swiftwater films, the official documentary crew for the project stated, âThe first chinook salmon in over 60 years are officially spawning above the former Iron Gate dam on the Klamath, just two weeks after construction wrapped on dam removalâŠThe fish are bright, strong and beautiful. What an incredible few days and a testament to the resilience of salmon.â
Sonny Mitchell Jr., a Karuk fisheries technician, holds the first fall chinook salmon of the year caught by the tribe. Photo by Liz Kimbrough for Mongabay.
To improve salmon habitat, the RES team is adding structures to the river and its tributaries, such as fallen trees, to create pools and riffles the salmon require for spawning. Theyâre also installing what they call âbeaver dam analogs,â structures of wood or rock pounded in along streams to slow the water down and catch sediment.
The removal of the Klamath dams will help many types of fish, says Shari Witmore, a fisheries biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), who is studying salmon and other fish in the river, told Mongabay. The coho salmon, which are threatened with extinction, will gain about 122 km (76 mi) of river to live in. The project might also bring back spring Chinook salmon, which used to be common in the upper river but have nearly disappeared.
âWhat weâve seen in other dam removals is that it takes about three to four [salmon] generations for salmon populations to become sustainable,â Witmore says. âAnd so for Chinook salmon, thatâs 15 to 20 years, and for coho salmon, thatâs six to 12 years.â
Pacific lamprey (Entosphenus tridentatus), another culturally important species for the tribes, and steelhead (O. mykiss irideus) will gain access to an additional 644 km (400 mi) of river. These fish can swim in faster-moving water than salmon. With more places to live and breed, all these fish species should have a better chance of survival.
And, of course, the whole ecosystem will benefit, says Chase of RES. âWe have northwestern pond turtle. We have freshwater mussels. Thereâs beaver out there. Weâve been seeing river otter foraging ⊠it goes on and on.â
Yurok tribal members and others fish at the mouth of the Klamath River. Commercial salmon fishing was suspended this year due to low numbers, but scientists predict salmon populations will rebound in about a decade. Photo by Liz Kimbrough for Mongabay.
Tribal knowledge and collaboration
The restoration of the Klamath River has been aided by tribal knowledge, sometimes referred to as traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) or, as Reed calls it, âplace-based Indigenous science.â
âCertainly, the place-based knowledge component has been vital to us,â Chase says. âThinking about the species of plants to use, where theyâre occurring on the landscape, what species are culturally significant and important that need to be included. Thatâs been an element of refining and improving our restoration work.â
On the fisheries side, Chase says, the tribes have shared an immense amount of information with the RES team on how fish move through the landscape, the habitats they use, and the ways the different life stages respond to various environmental factors.
One example is related to off-channel habitats, places off the main river stem where fish can go in the winters when stream flow is faster and in the warm summer when cover and food are critical. Tribal knowledge about how to create and enhance these features, and how fish interact with them, has helped RES to restore historic salmon habitats.
Healing rivers, healing people
âThe decline of salmon has been linked to higher rates of diabetes and heart disease in our communities,â says Thompson, the Karuk and Yurok restoration engineer and Ph.D. student. âTheir return is quite literally a matter of life and death for us.â
The removal of the Klamath dams is a step toward healing historical wounds inflicted on the Native American tribes of the region through decades of genocide and colonialism, according to Thompson and Reed.
However, the fight to remove the dams has taken a toll on those involved. Reed speaks candidly about the mental health challenges he and others have faced during the long struggle.
âI almost lost my family. Youâre gone trying to fix the world. Iâm going to Scotland. Iâm going to wherever, whenever, however. Itâs hustle, hustle, hustle. Meanwhile, my wifeâs home with six children.â Eventually, he says, âI broke down, suffered depression ⊠I just happened to have a good, strong family that allowed me to kind of come out of it.â
Reed and hundreds of others persevered. âWeâre not just fighting for ourselves,â Reed says. âWeâre fighting for our children, our grandchildren, and the salmon themselves.â
âThese salmon were taken care of by my ancestors, who I had never met and never had contact with myself,â Thompson says. âThe salmon are like love letters sent into the future where the love and effort put into the salmon were done so that I could have a good and healthy life.â
Challenges remain
For the Klamath region, the challenges are far from over. Climate change, wildfires, and the legacy of more than a century of colonialism and ecological disruption still pose significant threats.
âThereâs been so much degradation over the last 100-plus years from agriculture, forestry, water diversion and grazing,â says Mark Buettner, director of the Klamath Tribeâs Ambodat Department, which is responsible for aquatic resource management in the Upper Klamath Basin.
There are still two smaller dams in the upper Klamath River in Oregon: the Keno and Link River dams. These arenât hydropower dams, unlike the four that were removed; they provide flood control and water for agriculture, and thereâs currently no plan to remove them.
âI want to emphasize that weâre happy that salmon will be back, but weâre not really ready for them,â Buettner adds. âSure, the fish have free access to the upper basin, but the upper basin habitats arenât optimal. Young fish could be diverted into irrigation diversions. The Keno dam needs a new fish ladder.â
As I pass through Karuk territory in late August, traveling west toward the ocean, the air is heavy with smoke and fire crews pass regularly in their trucks, serving as a stark reminder of the work that still lies ahead. This includes addressing more than 150 years of colonial fire suppression practices, Reed says.
A sign warns of high fire risk near the Klamath river in late August 2024. More than a century of colonial fire suppression practices, along with climate change has made fires more frequent and severe in the U.S. West. Photo by Liz Kimbrough for Mongabay.As the Klamath River flows by, a wildfire burns in the distance, near Orleans, California on August 18, 2024. This is was just one of many fires burning in the region that day. Photo by Liz Kimbrough for Mongabay.
âWhen settlers first arrived in the Klamath region of what is now Northern California, they found forests with enormous trees, wooden homes and structures, acorn orchards, abundant plants, berries, fish, wildlife and clean water. All of it was made possible by Indigenous peoplesâ frequent use of fire on the landscape,â Russel Attebery, chair of the Karuk Tribe, writes in a opinion piece for news outlet CalMatters. âCalifornia is not just fire-adapted, it is fire dependent.â
However, these controlled or cultural burns were outlawed in 1850 and are still âunjustly criminalized,â Attebery writes. The lack of prescribed burns, coupled with warmer and drier conditions from climate change, has led to more severe and frequent wildfires.
Wildfires are taking a toll on the Klamath River. Debris flow from last yearâs McKinney Fire killed thousands of fish. Fires can heat up the river, making it too warm for cold-water fish like salmon. They also send silt and ash into the water, which can choke fish and smother their eggs. Sometimes, the erosion from fires even changes the riverâs path. The ecosystem evolved with fire, but not at the frequency and severity of modern fires.
Reed and other traditional fire practitioners are being asked by academics and fire-management agencies to advise on traditional burning practices, and restore balance.
The irony of Native peoples being asked to consult on how to restore the land that was stolen from them isnât lost on Reed. âI think weâre leading the nation with teaching cultural fire, through a faith-based process and hopefully this co-production of knowledge,â he says. But, he adds, âitâs kind of like, OK, they took our gold, they took our timber, they took everything, and theyâre still taking our knowledge.â
Karuk Tribal members Ron Reed and Sonny Mitchell in âthe center of the worldâ by the Klamath River. The air is smokey from nearby forest fires. As a cultural fire practitioner, Reed has been asked to teach and share traditional knowledge in academia and with government agencies but says Indigenous people are seldom justly compensated for their knowledge. Photo by Liz Kimbrough for Mongabay.
A cautionary tale
Many of the people I speak to cast the story of the Klamath dams as one of hope, but also as a cautionary tale for regions around the world considering large-scale dam projects.
While dams can provide benefits such as hydropower and water storage, they also levy significant environmental and social costs. Moreover, all dams have a finite lifespan, and their eventual removal is an expensive and complex process that planners often ignore.
âDams were never meant to be pyramids,â says Ann Willis, California director of the NGO American Rivers. âTheyâre just infrastructure, and eventually, infrastructure ages. You can either be proactive about repairing, retrofitting or removing it, or you can deal with the far greater costs of a catastrophic failure after it happens. But thereâs no question that one day it will fail.â
In many parts of the world, large dam projects are still being proposed and constructed. The lessons from the Klamath suggest these projects should be approached with caution, with full consideration given to long-term environmental and social impacts, as well as the inevitable costs of decommissioning at the end of the damâs lifespan.
Site of the J.C. Boyle dam in Oregon after dam removal. Drone photo by Mongabay.
âNo single agency is  responsible for removing a dam, and [thereâs] no requirement for dam owners to save funds for its removal,â Willis says. âThe process of removing obsolete, disintegrating dams can take decades while people navigate a web of bureaucracy and look for funding. As time goes on, the risk of failure increases, which is incredibly dangerous as most dams would cause significant loss of human life and economic damage if they failed.â
As of February 2024, more than 2,000 dams have been removed across the U.S., most of them in the past 25 years, according to American Rivers. But more than 92,000 remain standing. Willis says she hopes the success of the Klamath damsâ removal and restoration project can serve as a blueprint for similar efforts around the world.
âThe Klamath is significant not only because it is the biggest dam removal and river restoration effort in history, but because it shows that we can work towards righting historic wrongs and make big, bold dreams a reality for our rivers and communities,â Willis says. âDam removal is the best way to bring a river back to life.â
Ren Brownell, public information officer for Klamath River Renewal Corporation, stands over the Copco 1 dam removal site. KRRC was formed to oversee the dam removal process. Photo by Liz Kimbrough for Mongabay.
âAnything is possible nowâ
Amid the worldâs tallest trees, where the Klamath River meets the Pacific Ocean, the annual Yurok Salmon Festival is in full swing when I arrive. On the main street, outside the Yurok Tribal Headquarters in the town of Klamath, California, dozens of booths are selling arts and crafts. Thereâs music, dancing, games, and a palpable sense of joy in the air.
But somethingâs missing this year: The salmon. Due to low numbers, both tribal and commercial fishing have been suspended this year.
Despite this absence, attendees express hope and a sense that change is coming. âWe are delighted about the dam removal and hope for the return of the salmon,â says Yurok artist Paula Carrol. âWe are salmon people. Without salmon, who are we?â
âThis is still a celebration,â Thompson says, âand anything is possible now.â
A parade rolls through the town of Klamath, California during the annual Yurok Salmon Festival. This year, there was no salmon. Still, many attendees were hopeful for the salmonsâ renewal post dam removal. Photo by Liz Kimbrough for Mongabay.
Liz Kimbrough is a staff writer for Mongabay and holds a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from Tulane University, where she studied the microbiomes of trees. View more of her reporting here.
Editor’s note: Our current society is based on standards that lobbyists, financial markets, and industries target. That way the powerful can lead secret wars against human and non-human animals without the majority questioning their strategy. Any political or economic decision is based on these standards, not on the values of functioning ecosystems or healthy families. If our society wants to maintain and build a brighter future for young people, it needs to put the wild world as its basis to flourish. It also needs to prevent domestic violence from happening in the first place and make sure that babies have the birthright to a thriving ecocentric society in which informed people have the actual freedom to consent. Power to the people not to a few mighty people at the top requires civil disobedience, something that only empowered people can implement. But without civil disobedience, we won’t end the secret wars against our living planet.
Inequitable family planning and illogical pro-growth policies are taking away every childâs right to a fair start in life.
By Carter Dillard
There is a conflict between ecocentric people struggling for freedom, and anthropocentric people threatening that freedom. This conflict, which happens beneath the surface of most media, constitutes a âsecret warâ for what the future of Earth will be.
Is it hyperbole to say war? The almost five children a week murdered by their own parents in the U.S. alone, some slowly tortured to death through beatings, starvation, burnings, etc. because of our pro-growth approach to family policy with no parental readiness standards are victims of that war. So are the children who lose the birth lottery bad enough to be born into horrific poverty, at best statistically destined to work for the children of millionaires and billionaires who will control their lives based on a system of random birth inequity that is backed by violence. Thatâs the servitude of a war.
It would feel like a war to be part of the non-human animal families and communities, parents and their children, exterminated by the trillions as the wave of human growth rolls over them. And who has the ability to change any of this? Not the average citizen. Itâs irrational to even vote in things like national elections where, thanks to family policies, there are so many voters that each vote is pretty much irrelevant. In such cases, moneyâmade on the same unsustainable growthâis what speaks.
Constitutive Policies Counter the Childrenâs Rights Convention
These family policies (which might be called constitutive or de-constitutive) do nothing to ensure that all children are born into conditions that comply with the United Nations Childrenâs Rights Conventionâthe minimum children need to comprise democraciesâbut instead push children into horrible conditions with no minimum levels of welfare, something done to ensure economic growth and to avoid âbaby bustsâ or declining fertility rates. This puts wealth in the hands of a few, argues Nobel Laureate Steven Chu.
These policies operate under the lie that the act of creating other persons is a matter of the personal freedom or privacy of the creators; i.e., parents. In fact, creating new human beings is not personal; rather, it is interpersonal in nature. Bringing new people into the world shapes the future we all share. The notion that this is a private matter was created by the wealthy and powerful elites who do not want to pay their fair share to ensure childrenâs equality of opportunity.
Unsustainable Growth
These policies, designed around a system premised on unsustainable growth, aim to prepare children, already suffering from vast inequality, to become consumers and workers for shopping malls rather than preparing them equitably to grow up to become effective citizens in democratic town halls. These inequitable policies have created a fantasy world of self-determinationâfreedom to take part in marketsâwhile stealing the power each voice should have in true democracies.
Groups like Fair Start Movement (where I serve as policy adviser), Stable Planet Alliance, Rejoice Africa Foundation, and others are blowing the whistle on these policies and their devastating impacts, and treating the right to an ecosocial fair start in life for all children now and in the futureâas an overriding basis to take back the wealthâby all means effectiveâin order to fund better family policies as the most effective way in the long run to protect children, non-human animals, democracy, and the environment.
Why âby all means effective?â Before some of the recent literature delving into the history of population policy, most academics and policymakers assumed political obligationâthe need for citizens to follow the lawâcame from top-down systems like constitutions or the United Nations. But if systems of governance should actually derive from the people, that would make no sense. Instead, the systems that account for how we are born and raised would primarily or even exclusively accountâbottom upâfor our power relations, power rising up from the people themselves. And itâs very clear the top-down systems in place now have failed to protect us from things like the climate crisis and vast inequality. Why did they fail?
They assumed the borders of human power were defined by lines on a map, rather than the norms that account for our creation and rearing. The latter is what constitutes us. They never accounted for actual power relations because they never accounted for their creation, through functional family policies (based on a simple baseline test) meant to actually empower people while disempowering no one.
For example, these top-down systems never dealt with childrenâs need for nonhuman habitats protected by climate restoration, nor the vastly disparate impact on impoverished children of color from refusal to meet those needs. People like Peter Singer have relied on these top-down systems that begin with the appropriation of the nonhuman world and future generations, even when they undo the sort of outcomesâlike animal liberationâSinger promotes.
Itâs Not About Population, but Choice
What is the hallmark of these systems? Some are empowered by disempowering others, robbing the latter of the capacity to consent to the influence others (greenhouse gas emitters, bad parents, the uber-wealthy, etc.) would have upon them.
For free and equal people to constitute a nation they must be acting, before setting down the basic rules, in one very particular way. They must be seeing growth in numbers as directly inverse to the absolute self-determination of each individual. That proves that people are actually being empowered as they join, and thus politically obligated, and sets a baseline for equitable child development and optimal population ranges.
This is not about population, itâs about choice, power, and the inseparable and antecedent nature of choices to be part of unjust and nonconsensual systems of political obligation that originate with our creation. We cannot think of or say anything that does not start with and orient from some form of political obligation, from a choice to be part of some form of power relations. And we cannot further anything we purport to value without possibly undoing the value based on our choice of fundamental political relations.
Each of us is inevitably choosing to be or not be part of such systems, given that we pay taxes, participate in a variety of official processes, benefit from these systems, etc. That is what it means for the government to derive from the people, and not from groups but rather from individuals, whose consent legitimates governance.
What Would Truly Free People Do?
Human rights compliance justifies governance, but if the first human rightâthe right to have children and the family policies that precede governmentâis not developed fairly so as to make a functional social contract, that justification never occurs. It has to come from the people, who must come from the conditions in which they were created and reared. The creation norm, and our decision to make it just or unjust, comes first and accounts for who we are and everything we do. We cannot claim to be just without making it just. A key aspect of the secret wars involves those responsible for hiding this simple fact, its role in limiting the property rights of concentrations of wealth and power, and those concentrations impeding all childrenâs right to an equitable beginning in life.
If you want to know whether you are free, assess what it would mean to break your nation into a constitutional convention in order to make new basic rules. How functionalâor self-determining for its participantsâwould that process be, honestly? And while the capacity to engage in functional town halls is vital, it is the day-to-day experience of having such relations that we should truly value, versus the chaotic commercial relationsâbased on exploiting and imitating one anotherâwe experience today.
Truly free people will exist in systems where such conventions are easily viable. To ensure that the state of affairs will override dysfunctional systems of rules to actually limit and decentralize the power others have over them, and to build just and consensual communities organically, through things like deeply scaled baby bond payments that move resources from rich to poor kids and that help restore equality and nature, so that obligation flows bottom-upâfrom the people.
Truly free people will condition their obligation to follow the law (including recognizing property rights) on actually being empowered, and there is no other way to do that but through changing how we have and raise children to actuallyâin a measurable way using a simple baseline testâempower them. They will focus on empowerment in the creation of people and their actual relations, the people from whose consent things like constitutions derive their authority. That conditionâof needing to empowerâenables significant civil disobedience to achieve, something preferable to the violence disempowerment causes, the violence usually impacting the least culpable rather than the most.
Fair Start Planning
We can also effectively move towards fair start planning and optimal population and power relation ranges as envisioned by Partha Dasgupta and others, through things like constitutional litigation meant to ensure climate restoration through birth equity âloss and damageâ redistributions, steeply progressive baby bonds, corporate reforms that level the playing field for employeeâs kids, requiring family policy and related conflict of interest disclosures (including having to change positioning) as part of ESG frameworks, furthering labor reforms to eliminate child inequity, a discourse and role modeling that centers family planning on birth and developmental equity, and by urging leaders to adopt a fair start as the first and overriding human right.
One clear step towards compliance with the best interpretation of these norms would be to urge that programming around the education of young womenâaround the worldâbegin with ensuring they understand that all childrenâs right to an ecosocial fair start in life (defined by concrete climate restoration and birth equity measures), overrides all competing rights and interests as the first and peremptory human right, including any conflicting property rights. This truth, which reverses the lie about family policy at the base of the misunderstandings of freedom that plague our world, shows a true unity of value to students.
That right must become the standard or baseline for cost/benefit analysis (using concrete metrics), and the guide for priority use of evolving loss and damage payments for climate crisis impactsâwith a key use being socially equitable and ecologically restorative family planning entitlements that capture the true cost of all wealth. The standard for knowing whether something is good or bad is being in a group of people capable of determining the question in a fair and inclusive way. Thatâs freedom through democracy.
Disclosure Is Key
How do we win the secret wars? The easiest path may simply be to urge everyone to disclose their views on these issuesâincluding their views on climate restoration, birth equity redistribution, and other matters discussed above. Those blocking freedom for future generations win the secret wars by keeping them secret.
Itâs trite to say that all things are interconnected. It is not trite to say that this is so not because of what we do, but because of who we should be. Changing the way we plan families is the only way to ensure that connection is just.
This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
Carter Dillard is the policy adviser for the Fair Start Movement. He served as an Honors Program attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice and also served with a national security law agency before developing a comprehensive account of reforming family planning for the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal.
A recent financial Webinar features Jindalee mining company executive Lindsay Dudfield selling the companyâs plan for an immense lithium mining project that would tear apart the heart of irreplaceable Sage-grouse habitat at McDermitt Creek in southeast Oregon. Australian miner Jindalee has spun itself off as a US company, just as Lithium Americas did when it formed Lithium Nevada Corporation (LNC) to mine Thacker Pass further south in the McDermitt caldera. This positions the miners for federal loan largesse as they pursue mining destruction of the sagebrush sea. I wrote about the extraordinary McDermitt Creek values at stake, and the damage and habitat fragmentation already inflicted by 70 or so previous Jindalee exploration drilling sites here.
Distant view of scar from a new road and just one of Jindaleeâs past McDermitt drill sites. Look at how wide open and unencumbered by hills this country is â maximizing the distance any mining disturbance sights and sounds will travel.
Jindalee drill hole sump. Drilling waste water left to seep into the ground, Wildlife âexclusionâ fence fallen down.
This is a map of the ghastly 2023 Jindalee exploration plan to punch in 267 new drill hole and sump sites and construct 30 miles of new roads. It would fragment an area with a very high density of nesting sagebrush songbirds of all kinds. Birds like Sagebrush Sparrow require continuous blocks of dense mature or old growth big sagebrush. Jindalee boasts its consultant environmental and cultural studies have found âno show-stoppersâ and âno red flagsâ. Industry gets the results it wants when it pays for mine consultant work. Federal and state agencies, after a bit of pro forma sniping, acquiesce to what the mine comes up with.
No red flags? Does the company really expect us to believe they or their consultants arenât aware of the plight of Sage-grouse, and the importance of the stronghold habitat they would wipe out? The 2015 BLM Sage-grouse plan found the entire McDermitt Creek area and nearly all caldera lands were essential for the birdâs survival. BLM determined that a federal mineral withdrawal was necessary to protect this Focal habitat and to ensure Sage-grouse species survival. The withdrawal never happened, stopped first by mining and cattle industry litigation. BLM then began a stand-alone NEPA analysis for the withdrawal. Trump terminated that withdrawal analysis process. Then after a court ruled his action unlawful, BLM foot-dragging has stalled the most recent withdrawal process at the NEPA scoping stage and it appears merged with a cumbersome major plan revision.
Jindaleeâs new exploration proposal â a prelude to a mine â would tragically rip apart the Basin heart. A full blown mine here would obliterate it. Mining noise and visual disturbance emanating outward would make the remaining sage ringing the mine site uninhabitable. The site is surrounded by dozens of leks.
The impossibility of mitigating a mega-mine at McDermitt Creek just blasted further into the stratosphere. Mounting scientific evidence shows how seriously the sight and sound disturbance footprint of industrial projects harms the birds. New research examined geothermal energy development impacts from Ormat plants at Tuscarora Nevada and McGinness Hills/Grass Valley near Austin. (I remember the Battle Mountain BLM manager extolling Ormatâs virtues when the McGinness project was pushed through and then later expanded to take a bigger bite out of sage habitat). New researchfound:
â⊠sage-grouse population numbers declined substantially in years following the development of a geothermal energy plant ⊠sage-grouse abundance at leks [breeding sites] decreased within five kilometers of the infrastructure and leks were completely abandoned at significantly higher rates within about two kilometers. So, we looked at the mechanisms responsible for declines in numbers and lek abandonment, and we found adverse impacts to survival of female sage-grouse and their nestsâ.
This reinforces common sense: âNests located farther from the plant tended to experience higher rates of survival. Interestingly, where hills were located between sage-grouse nests and infrastructure [high topographic impedance], we found the distance effect to be less important. Under those circumstances topography was compensating for the lack of distance and likely serving to reduce effects of light and soundâ.
âThe physical footprint of geothermal energy infrastructure is small relative to other renewable energy ⊠but noise and light pollution emanating from these power plants likely cause larger adverse direct impacts to wildlife populations than infrastructure aloneâ.
There arenât big hills to block a lithium mineâs 24 hour a day sight and sound impacts in the McDermitt bowl. The mined area would suffer outright sage obliteration. Surrounding sagebrush would be exposed to unimpeded straight line 24 hour a day mine operation visual impacts and noise of all kinds.
Jindalee must know of the indigenous opposition and resistance to the Thacker Pass lithium mine in the southern caldera, located in similarly unceded Paiute-Shoshone ancestral lands. Controversy and lawsuits over Thacker Pass have been in the headlines for years. Itâs a pre-eminent example of an unjust transition to alternative energy and the green-washing of air and water polluting habitat wrecking dirty hard rock mining. Unfortunately, a District Court Judgeâs ruling did not halt the Thacker Pass mine construction. However, the lawsuits by environmental groups, Tribes and a local rancher opposing the mine continue. The District Court decision was appealed to the Ninth Circuit, where a hearing is scheduled for June 26.
Thacker Pass mine development would destroy a Traditional Cultural Property, where Paiute-Shoshone ancestors were massacred. This spring, itâs been the site of the indigenous Ox Sam Womenâs Camp, Newe Momokonee Nokotun, set up in protest. Descendants of Ox Sam, a survivor of a US cavalry massacre at Thacker Pass, helped establish it.
Jindalee Webinar statements also hint at efforts afoot to alter Oregon state mining processes. After lamenting the project wasnât in Nevada, Jindalee said it was talking to politicians and the head of the state mining Department (DOGAMI).
The companyâs braggadocio made me blow off deadlines and go once again to McDermitt Creek to document its great biodiversity values. I then went from the beauty of singing sagebrush songbirds, newly hatched Sage-grouse chicks and peaking rare plant blooms at McDermitt Creek (photos below) and down into the Montana Mountains by Thacker Pass.
Sagebrush Sparrows abound at McDermitt Creek. Theyâre great little birds and often sing throughout the day. And theyâre vanishing from many places. A biologist just told me he thinks they may be extirpated in Morrow County Oregon where heâs long inventoried bird. No larger continuous blocks of lower elevation sage = no Sagebrush Sparrows.
Hymenoxys, an Oregon sensitive plant growing on clay soils.
Humboldt Mountains Milkweed, a medicinal plant, on clay soils.
Mountain Bluebird.
Sky drama all spring long.
Short-horned Lizard â a master of invisibility.
Gray Flycatcher. They nest in head high Basin big sagebrush, which is becoming as scarce as henâs teeth.
Lark Sparrow. Theyâre exuberant singers and are dining on Mormon crickets at McDermitt Creek.
An indescribable Indian paintbrush hue.
Weâre supposed to sit back and let all this beauty and biodiversity be destroyed for a lithium mine? No way.
Thacker Pass â Turmoil, Land Mutilation, Montana Mountains
I drove south to Orovada and headed west to the turn-off from the state highway into Pole Creek road, the main access to the Montana Mountains. Thacker Pass lies at the southern base of these mountains. A maroon Allied Security company truck squarely blocked the road. Chain link fencing with No Trespassing and No Drone Zone signs was placed off to both sides.
I stopped, got out and approached a security guard who appeared at the truck. He refused to let me pass. After several minutes of my insistent repetition that this was a public road, the BLM mine EIS said this road would always be open, and that blocking use of this road indicated the EIS, the BLM and Lithium Americas had lied, the security guard relented and said he would call the head of security.
The boss pulled up in a white truck as a sudden rain whirlwind bore down. His face was obscured, and identity concealed by a tan balaclava-like hood and dark sunglasses. When he first arrived, he got out of his truck and pointed a camera device at me. I thought WTF is this â a security firm mercenary decked out for Operation Iraqi Freedom? Abu Ghraib in Orovada? I again repeated repeatedly that this was a public access road, and I was going up into the Montana Mountains to camp. He retreated to his pickup, likely to run me and my license plates through some creepy database. Finally, I was allowed to pass through.
Just up the road was the Ox Sam Protest Camp site, located on a huge mine water pipeline gash that the lithium company had gouged into the earth. The pipeline gash runs right by the sacred Sentinel (or Nipple) Rock. The tents appeared lifeless, flaps blowing open in the rain squall as I drove by. With better cell phone service up in the mountains, I called Winnemucca BLM, asked to talk to a Manager, Assistant Manager, somebody, and told the receptionist that the mine was trying to block the public access road. She said there was no one to talk with. I asked for a Managerâs e-mall address. She refused to give me an address and shunted me to the general BLM mailbox where public comments go to be ignored. Winnemucca is the BLM outpost in charge of enforcing LNCâs compliance with EIS requirements. Theyâll be sure to jump on enforcement actions when the public brings potential mining violations to their attention over the next 45-years.
Later I saw a Google alert for âThacker Passâ, and read that the camp had been raided after an incident. Underscore News/Report for America writes: âOn Wednesday, police from the Humboldt County Sheriffâs Office and private security for Lithium Nevada, a subsidiary of Lithium Americas, cleared the camp and arrested one protester.
When I left the next day, the chain link fence with No Trespassing signs was still up by the sides of the access route. The security truck was gone, and I drove on through. A local resident pulled up. We chatted, gazing up at the mountains that were witnessing the lithium mine destruction unfold. He knows the country like the back of his hand. He said you could see over 20 mountain ranges from the Montanas. Our presence generated the interest of security guards who came by to check us out as we stood by the state road right of way. A project worker came and moved the chain link fence with its No Trespassing signs away â at least for now.
Allied Securityâs aggressive approach to security has gained notoriety. The Denver city council canceled their contract after two Allied guards beat a black man so hard they caused him permanent brain damage. In May, Time magazine profiled a long troubling history of Allied incidents.
How fitting. Lithium Americas came in claiming Thacker Pass was some kind of great âgreenâ mine, as cover for plain old dirty open pit mining and a noxious lithium processing plant. Now theyâve hired a security firm prone to violence. I donât know what went down with the Ox Sam camp. But I do know that having the security boss decked out in black ops head gear is an effort to intimidate, and an indication the security firm may have things to hide. Security personnel concealing their identity or playing gatekeeper on a public lands access road in this way have no place at a project on public lands. Months before the Ox Sam camp was set up, LNC had established a manned compound with a building and fencing and what looked like cameras right by the Pole Creek access road. Driving up into the mountains in April to trek across the snow to the Montana-10 lek had already felt like running a gauntlet. I wager that anyone going in or out that public road gets recorded.
LNC has many mining claims staked up in the mountains in Sage-grouse stronghold habitat including at the Montana 10 lek. This makes efforts to limit access or intimidate people so they donât go up there more concerning. Back home, I consulted the Thacker Final EIS:
âSR 293, Pole Creek Road, Crowley Creek Road and Rock Creek Road are the main transportation routes in the Project area. Under Alternative A, LNC would not close, block, or limit in any manner access along these routesâ. FEIS at 494-495. The EIS also constrained use of these access roads for certain types of mine activities.
Photos below from up in the Montana Mountains looking down on spring 2023 LNC scars from drilling and bulldozing in migratory bird nesting season. The drilling is creeping upslope. Itâs hard to tell if some may be outside the project boundary. Nevada BLM uses in-front-of-the-bulldozer bird survey protocols that are deeply flawed with transects spaced 100 ft. apart â a distance far too wide to detect cryptic sagebrush birds that are experts at concealment. You practically have to step on or by a nest to detect it. The only way to avoid migratory bird âtakeâ is for the mine to not destroy the bird habitat in spring.
LNCâs drill scarring is a mere prelude to the destruction thatâs planned â 5,694 acres of outright destruction in a 17,933 acre project zone. The enormity and scale of the planned mine is mind boggling â a deep open pit, a waste rock pile, all types of infrastructure, a lithium smelter/sulfuric acid plant on-site using huge volumes of waste sulfur shipped into a new railroad off-loading site by the Winnemucca airport. The latter was just announced a few months ago, to the dismay of nearby residents who find themselves facing living by a hazardous materials zone. Hundreds of tons of off-loaded material will be trucked to Thacker Pass and burned every day in a plant whose air scrubber design wasnât even finalized before the Thacker decision was signed by BLM. What stink and toxic pollution will this lithium processing generate? McDermitt caldera soils contain uranium and mercury. Mine water use is estimated to be 1.7 billion gallons annually. Enormous volumes of diesel fuel will be used throughout the mineâs operation. Whatâs green about all this?
Think of the volume of water that will be sucked through these pipes.
Beautiful dense big sagebrush full of Sage Thrashers, Brewerâs Sparrows, and Sage-grouse sign, up in the mountains where LNC has claims galore.
Sacrificing the Interior West for Corporate Energy Dominance While Energy Conservation Lags or Is Forgotten Altogether
Big Green environmental groups and outdoor interests whoâve been silent on the unfolding lithium mine destruction at Thacker Pass, or the tragic destruction of Mojave Desert Tortoise habitat for Big Solar and many other brewing âgreenâ energy controversies better wake up. The lithium boom plague thatâs descended on the West is hard rock mining at its worst. Thousands of acres at each mine site become essentially privatized (with security guards) for 40 or 50 years. Much of the land is reduced to waste rock rubble piles, gaping pits, infrastructure all over the place. Local water is used up for processing and for suppressing clouds of dust, and mine pollutants contaminate the air and ground water.
US taxpayers are helping finance these colonialist lithium mines. LNC received commitments for a $600 million dollar loan investment of US tax dollars. General Motors, while continuing to pump out gargantuan trucks and EV Hummers priced at $110,000, provided LNC with a $600 million dollar injection. In the Jindalee Webinar, executive Dudfield assured a questioner that their company will also be âin queueâ for similar handouts. The miners are gobbling up funds for a battery technology that may soon be outdated. China is zooming past the US with its development of sodium batteries and is introducing them in low-end vehicles, a sane path forward. Why arenât these funds going to research alternatives to lithium and safer less earth-wrecking technologies? Why isnât Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto directing her attention to spurring new technologies and sustainability? Instead sheâs using âcritical mineralsâ mantra to justify introducing a bill to make the 1872 Mining Law even worse, and a wholesale giveaway to mining companies.
Jindaleeâs Webinar talk said the company embraced âsocial license and responsibilityâ, then later emphasized that McDermitt Creek was âa long, long wayâ from Oregon population centers like Salem and Portland. This highlights how lithium mine pollution, cultural site desecration, community de-stabilization and ecological damage will be out of sight and out of mind of urban elites.
US government policy is now based on greatly accelerating energy colonialism of all types within our own borders, and especially on willy-nilly sacrifice of the public lands of the Interior West. This allows massively subsidized corporations (often tied to a foreign mothership) and billionaires to retain a chokehold on energy. Conservation is paid lip service. BLMâs Tracy Stone-Manning just announced a new proposed rule making it easier for BLM to hand over public lands to wind and solar developers, furthering de facto public lands privatization for half a human lifespan.
But people are catching on. A surprising thing recently happened in Idaho. The entire Idaho legislature (all the Republicans and the hand full of Democrats alike) voted in favor of a Resolution opposing the BLM Lava Ridge Wind Farm, with its 400 turbines standing 800 feet tall sprawling across 3 counties. Lava Ridgeâs plan managed to offend or disgust everybody â from agricultural operations and home site impacts, to Golden Eagle and rare bat killing, to destroying the stark setting of the Minidoka Japanese Internment Camp Monument and marring the Dark Skies and wildness of Craters of the Moon.
The same Legislators, who in a normal year would be inviting Land Grab proponents from Utah to speak in the session, were pushing protection of public lands from this behemoth of LS Powerâs subsidiary Magic Valley Energy. Itâs facilitated by the planned new LS Power SWIP North renewables-focused transmission line. Idaho Power and PacifiCorpâs Gateway âgreenâ transmission line has also resulted in a stampede for more wind and solar
leases in south-central Idaho.
If you live in the West and love the outdoors, be very afraid of what the Biden administrationâs breakneck push for many more of these âgreenâ lines will do to public lands, and your access to areas beyond â once projects feeding energy into the line are built and the fencing goes up. Itâs the sagebrush sea equivalent of building a road through the Amazon.
While there are no huge wind farms yet on public lands in Idaho, there are many smaller scale turbine arrays on private lands across the Snake River Plain. Itâs become quite apparent that industrial wind is not benign. Above all else, folks realized how badly Idaho was getting screwed by the Lava Ridge project and its export of energy to benefit coastal populations. The Legislature said No to Lava Ridge exploitation of Idaho as an energy colony. Counties in the Mojave Desert are now starting to resist some industrial solar developments overrunning public lands. Remotely sited ârenewableâ energy or âcritical mineralsâ projects amount to public land privatization. They cause profound losses of many kinds â scarring the land, sucking it dry, extinguishing the wildlife thatâs managed to persist in the face of merciless domination since White settlement, trenching a massacre site.
Iâm outraged at the ecocidal stupidity with which this âenergy transitionâ is being carried out. Will we soon see Jindalee get US tax dollars to wipe out the McDermitt Creek Sage-grouse stronghold? How ironic that would be. Interior just announced funding for major sagebrush habitat restoration using Infrastructure Bill funds in High Priority sagebrush areas. It turns out one of the sites chosen is the Montana Mountains area. Mapping shows it includes the Thacker Pass mine area too, where nearly all the sage is on the verge of being destroyed by LNC. Close review of maps for Interiorâs Montana ârestorationâ project shows it encompasses the McDermitt Creek watershed, hence the entire area coveted by Jindalee for massive new drilling followed by open pit mining. It would be absurd to greenlight Jindaleeâs ghastly exploration plan in primo habitat, when the Interior Department has identified this very same landscapeto be among the highest priority for restoration â because so much sage has already been lost already. The caldera is also key for connectivity between Sheldon and Owyhee Sage-grouse populations and for biodiversity preservation.
How long before rejection of lithium and other âcritical mineralâ mines grips communities, especially as promised jobs evaporate with increased mine automation and robot technology, and as the environment goes to hell? But hey, as LNC is showing us, thereâs always a bright future as a security guardâ at least until the lithium company gets itself a pack of Robodogs.
Katie Fite is a biologist and Public Lands Director with WildLands Defense.