81 Small Dams Being Removed From Four Streams In One SoCal National Forest

[hatrack]

Removing one gigantic dam can have a massive effect on restoring a river ecosystem. But bringing down more than 80 smaller dams? That can also cause a transformation. This spring the Forest Service, aided by U.S. Marine Corps members, will blast apart 13 more dams in the Trabuco ranger district in Southern California’s Cleveland National Forest.

It’s the last phase of a groundbreaking project that began more than five years ago to remove a total of 81 dams from four streams in the mountains of Orange County. “Nobody’s really taken on a project this large and with this many partners and methods,” says Forest Service fish biologist Julie Donnell, who’s been working on the project. The mammoth undertaking is designed to help boost populations of native aquatic species — most importantly Southern California steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss), which are federally listed as endangered. It may also be a crucial learning tool due its sheer scope. Last year an estimated 90 dams were removed across the country, and nearly a quarter of those were in the Cleveland National Forest. That makes what’s happening in California the place to watch as organizations plan for other multi-dam removal efforts around the country.

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Large dam removals, like those on the Klamath River in California and Oregon, or the hotly debated Snake River dams in Washington, get lots of media attention. But smaller dam removals are quietly happening all across the country. In the past 20 years around 1,100 dams have been removed in the United States — many of them aging, unsafe structures that had outlived their usefulness.

That’s the story in the Cleveland National Forest, too. Not a lot is known about the early history of the dams there, but most were likely built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps, a public work program started to help Americans rebound from the Great Depression, says Kirsten Winter, a biologist in the Cleveland National Forest who has spearheaded the dam-removal project. It’s not unusual for dams to be built in national forests, but this high a concentration of small dams may be a regional phenomenon in Southern California forests.

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https://therevelator.org/cleveland-forest-dam-removal/

[Botany]

1. Good news!

thanks for posting

[2naSalit]

2. It's a good start.

A lot of old dams need to come down to preserve native species... not just fish.

[Mickju]

3. I'm glad they are doing this.

[Mickju]

4. I'm glad they are doing this.