Nature, Undammed | The largest-ever dam removal is underway, a milestone in the nation’s reckoning over its past attempts to bend nature to human will

2023 marked the beginning of the largest-ever dam removal in U.S. history, a milestone in the nation’s reckoning over its past attempts to bend nature to human will. 

The Klamath River dams, built between the early 1900s and 1960s, fundamentally reshaped one of the West’s most important watersheds. They electrified this hard-to-reach part of the country for the first time, powering the nation’s vision of a Manifest Destiny. But these hydropower dams also devastated the salmon population and the Indigenous tribes who had subsisted on the fish for millennia. For many Native people here, the structures always have been monuments to American imperialism. 

“It’s like you’re removing a clot — we’ve got four clots in our artery,” said Charley Reed, who grew up along the river and descends from the Hupa, Yurok and Karuk tribes, three of the Native groups who consider the Klamath their sacred and spiritual lifeblood. “And now we’re getting surgery done.”

You can view the entire project at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/interactive/2023/klamath-river-dam-removal/

Flight of the Condors | Once pushed to the brink of extinction, condors are soaring in Northern California skies again with the help of an Indigenous tribe and a team of scientists.

Among the world’s tallest trees, next to the world’s biggest ocean and along the state’s longest highway, the largest birds in North America are returning to Northern California after a 130-year absence.

Over the course of several months, my colleagues and I documented the unlikely and triumphant return of California Condors to their ancestral range in Northern California.

In the 1800s, California condors were the heartbeat of the region, soaring higher than any bird. But humans pushed the condors to the brink of extinction. Now, the Northern California Condor Restoration Program, the native Yurok Tribe and government agencies have introduced a program to blend the species back into the natural landscape of the Pacific Northwest over the next two decades.

You can view the entire project at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/interactive/2022/california-condors-yurok-program-extinction/

Klamath River Basin Drought | Climate change fuels a water rights conflict built on over a century of broken promises.

For more than a century, the federal government has overseen an intricate and imperfect system of water distribution intended to sustain an ecosystem and an economy. The whole precarious balance was based on the assumption that enough snow would always fall, and melt, and fill the vast watershed of the Klamath River Basin, which straddles the border of California and Oregon and is home to about 124,000 people.

But in 2021, the region buckled under one of the worst droughts ever recorded.

My colleagues and I traveled the length of the Klamath River Basin in order to document how the extreme effects of climate-related drought have worsened a long-existing conflict between Native Americans and farmers and ranchers, all fighting for the resource essential to their survival.

You can view the entire project here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2021/klamath-river-basin-drought/

The Arctic Dilemma | Scientists set out to explore the Arctic's fabled waters. But they could also alter its future.

The resulting multimedia package is an immersive experience that combines video and text into one seamless project. We wanted both mediums to work in tandem and provide viewers a rare glimpse into one of the most remote places on the planet: the Arctic Ocean. 

You can view the entire project at: http://wapo.st/arcticdilemma