Gone! Klamath Dams are Kaput!
(Copco 1 Dam rocked by a deconstruction blast. Credit: Shane Anderson of Swiftwater Films)
The Klamath Dams are OUT! For the first time in 100 years, the Klamath River is flowing freely from the Oregon border to the Pacific Ocean. A river that once hosted 500,000 salmon (now about 5,000) is on the path to being restored – an amazing success story about nature, freshwater, and tribal advocacy. What most people don’t know is the role that renewable energy played in enabling this dam removal project to occur. You see, those four dams were owned by PacifiCorp, an energy company based in the Northwest serving customers across Oregon, California, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming and Hawaii. What people also don’t know is that PacifiCorp was acquired and owned by a subsidiary of Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway through Midland Energy. Tribal members, in their decades-long effort pursuing dam removal, protested at Buffet’s annual meeting for years. The success of utility-scale solar energy helped PacifiCorp “make up” for its modest energy production of about 20 MW per year. In an impressive energy transformation, PacifiCorp now plans an Integrated Resource Plan across six states that will achieve net-zero emissions by 2030 with a 70% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, new solar and wind generation, accelerated transmission, and investments in nuclear generation. PacifiCorp plans to join California’s Electronic Day Ahead Market (EDAM), enabling participating utilities to trade the lowest-cost available energy a day in advance. (Shout out to Elliot Mainzer at California Independent System Operator for spearheading EDAM.) With the success of the Klamath Renewal project, PacifiCorp can signal to other dam operators its possible to plan for a brighter, lower cost, more reliable, net zero energy future while also restoring fish passage and ecosystem services.
(Photo Credit: PacifiCorp)
Could the removal of the Snake River dams be far behind? If so, salmon and steelhead could recover access to over 5,000 miles of pristine, high-altitude habitat of the Columbia River Basin. So many people and organizations have made this possible including Klamath Basin Tribal nations, Trout Unlimited, CalTrout, NOAA, The Nature Conservancy, UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, USBR, and the states of California and Oregon, and many others.
(The location of the former Iron Gate Dam following its removal)
Portfolio News
Glanris has secured over $10M of investment and a 5-year offtake agreement to operate its biochar production facility in Colusa, CA. Glanris accepts rice and nut shell waste from California growers to generate its unique carbon-negative biochar capable of treating waste water in a circular economy model. Its biochar water treatment media exceeds performance of conventional carbon block filtration and is already NSF approved in drinking water filters. Their current round is open for additional investment. Contact bryan@glanris.com.
Hohonu was actively monitoring coastal flooding during the Hurricane Debby event in North Carolina. Adaptation investors are “seizing the unavoidable opportunity.” Says founder and CEO Brian Glazer, “We need to decarbonize and we need to electrify,” Glazer said. “But we also need to think about the flooding threats that are going to happen for the coming decades, even if we stopped burning fossil fuels tomorrow — an
Open Hydro is making significant inroads into the UK collaborating with five utilities, and has begun analyzing 22,000 reservoirs for carbon emissions via satellite data.
Echo River News
We said "farewell" to summer Yale MBA Associate Elizabeth Farlow, who worked diligently on Echo River's inaugural Impact Report, which is in final draft stages. So keep an eye out for its release later this month! Thanks also to UC Davis MBA associate Jack Schaufler, who led our research into the Energy/Water/Carbon nexus resulting in a new investment in ShowerStream. We welcome fall intern Nikita Gardi from Yale School of the Environment, who will be picking up our impact metrics portfolio and investigating investment opportunities in Asia.
I signed on to the VCs for Kamala campaign and was delighted when, during her acceptance speech at the DNC, Kamala proposed support for entrepreneurs, founders and the innovation economy. A new survey of the venture signatories found that Business leaders see immigration, climate, and women’s rights as central economic issues - that’s why VCs support Kamala Harris. Read the full report at www.vcsforkamala.org/data
Indigenous Corner
With all four major dams breached and removed, the Klamath River is finally flowing free again to the ocean. What an incredible, compelling journey for the many tribal nations of the Klamath Basin, including the Karuk tribe and the Yurok people, California’s largest tribe by population. Please read about this incredible triumph of regeneration in Maven’s Notebook and the New York Times. “This is truly a great day for the Karuk and all the Native People of the Klamath Basin,” said Karuk Tribe chairperson Russell ‘Buster’ Attebery in the press release. “Our sacred duty to our children, our ancestors, and for ourselves, is to take care of the river, and today’s events represent a fulfillment of that obligation,” said Yurok Tribe Vice Chairman Frankie Myers.”
The Yurok Tribe succeeded in giving personhood to the Klamath River, the first instance in North America. And definitely not the last. Giving personhood to rivers is an up-and-coming necessity and legal strategy in equalizing the balance with nature. The Yurok Tribe resolution “establishes the Rights of the Klamath River to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve; to have a clean and healthy environment free from pollutants; to have a stable climate free from human-caused climate change impacts; and to be free from contamination by genetically engineered organisms.”
The Last Drop
Looking for the best places to take a wild, urban swim in the EU? Here’s a guide from Bloomberg. Top choices include Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Teddington Lock near London, the Isar River in Munich, and lakes around Berlin (“a wild swimmer’s paradise”). Enjoy your next plunge!
(Photo Credit: Julien De Rosa/AFP/Getty Images)
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