The largest dam removal in United States history is set to take place along the Klamath River by 2023, but getting to this point was neither easy nor quick. Water management, especially in densely populated and water-scarce places like California, is a challenge from practically every aspect: ownership and operations of water infrastructure, local politics, maintenance costs, and sustainability concerns.

But thanks to a collaboration between WSN, an organization focused on bringing together various actors in the field, and leadership training nonprofit Coro Northern California, all actors in the water management ecosystem will now have a voice and the opportunity to use their expertise to help move water projects like this one forward with far less friction in the future.

The Klamath River runs some 250 miles from southern Oregon across the northwest corner of California. Its course crosses arid country at its source, then flows over the Cascade Range and the Klamath mountains, as well as through lush forests before emptying into the Pacific Ocean. This unique pathway has earned it the moniker of a “river upside down.”

This river was once the third-largest salmon run in what is now the U.S. The Yurok and Karuk tribes of Northern California relied on salmon fishing in the Klamath River not only for food but as a way of life for thousands of years. But that all changed by the late 1960s.

Six dams were constructed along the river between 1908 and 1962, first as part of a defeated plan to divert the water to central and southern parts of the state, and then beginning in the 1920s for hydroelectricity. The dams had essentially decimated the Yurok way of life by splitting the river into parts, raising water temperatures to far higher than other Pacific Northwest rivers, and over time, disrupting salmon runs.

Read the full article about water management at Grist.