Ep. 4 - The Water Remembers with Amy Bowers Cordalis
The largest dam removal in U.S. history
For the first time in over a century, the Klamath River flows free again—thanks to the vision, courage, and determination of the Yurok Tribe.
In this episode of A People’s Climate, Shilpi Chhotray interviews Amy Bowers Cordalis, a member of the Yurok Tribe and leader in the largest dam removal project in U.S. history.
From devastating fish kills and lost salmon runs to confronting corporations and navigating the law, Amy shares a story of environmental restoration, Indigenous sovereignty, and the power of nature-based solutions.
This is a story of rivers, resistance, and the multi-layered fight—legal, political, and cultural—to heal the land and its people.
Key Topics
Largest dam removal in U.S. history
Indigenous-led environmental restoration and sovereignty
Rights of Nature and legal personhood for ecosystems
Multi-generational activism and cultural preservation
Climate justice and regenerative nature-based solutions
Resources to Explore
The Water Remembers by Amy Bowers Cordalis (Bookshop) (Amazon)
Yurok Tribe Celebrates 50-year Anniversary of Mattz v. Arnett
Credits
Presented by Counterstream Media and The Nation
Powered by Wildseeds Fund
Host: Shilpi Chhotray
Executive Producer: Mindy Ramaker
Engineer: Dennis Maxwell
Project Manager: Marianella Nuñez
Additional Research: Sarah Morgan
Amy Bowers Cordalis
Amy Bowers Cordalis is a devoted advocate for Indigenous rights and environmental restoration. A member of the Yurok Tribe, she is a fisherwoman, attorney, and mother deeply rooted in the traditions of her people. As Founder and Executive Director of Ridges to Riffles Indigenous Conservation Group, Amy leads efforts to support tribes in protecting their sovereignty, lands and waters, including the historic Klamath Dam Removal project—one of the world’s largest river restoration and dam removal initiatives. Former general counsel for the Yurok Tribe and an attorney at the Native American Rights Fund, Amy has earned honors as a UN Champion of the Earth and Time 100 climate leader and is the author of the forthcoming book, The Water Remembers, anticipated in October 2025.
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A People’s Climate with Amy Bowers Cordalis
Shilpi Chhotray [00:00:02] This is A People's Climate, powered by Wildseeds Fund. From Counterstream Media and The Nation, I'm your host, Shilpi Chhotray Chhotray.
CLIP [00:00:13] Thousands of years as far back as ancient Mesopotamia.
CLIP [00:00:17] Between 1918 and 1962, four dams were built along this stretch of the Klamath as western settlers bent nature to their will, harnessing the river's power for electricity.
CLIP [00:00:30] Last year, Pacific salmon season did not happen at all, and there are fears it may not happen again.
CLIP [00:00:37] Let the rivers flow!
CLIP [00:00:40] For the first time in 100 years, salmon swimming free in the Klamath River. Several hydroelectric dams had blocked part of the river along the California Oregon border.
CLIP [00:00:50] These dams are coming down and it's about damn time.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:00:59] Hey everyone, welcome back to A People's Climate. Dams have long been celebrated as feats of engineering, symbols of progress, even defined as clean energy solutions. But that's a dangerous myth. They require massive amounts of concrete, which is a major driver of global CO2 emissions. They also choke rivers, decimate salmon runs, and unravel indigenous cultures whose survival is inseparable from the water. The four Klamath dams in Northern California were built in the first half of the 20th century, and they did exactly that. They cut off life from the river, devastating tribes that for millennia relied on it for food, for travel, and for spiritual sustenance. Today's episode is about another way. My guest is Amy Bowers Cordalis, a member of the Yurok tribe who helped lead the largest dam removal project in US history. She and her tribe took on Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. The owner of the utility company that operated the Klamath River dams, and they won. For the first time in over a century, the Kalamath River now runs free. This is a story of environmental restoration, indigenous sovereignty, and the power of fighting for the future by remembering the past. Hi, Amy, welcome to A People's Climate. I'm so honored you're here. Thank you for having me. I'm honored to be here. Let's get into it. Your family is from the village of Requa, which sits at the mouth of the Klamath River in Northern California. Can you start us off by painting a picture of the beautiful Klamat and how it has shaped you personally?
Amy Bowers Cordalis [00:02:40] Just imagine a place where water surrounds you in all four directions. And then there's just blue vast ocean in front of you for as far as you can see. And then also the estuary is surrounded by redwoods, and redwood are some of the oldest trees on the planet. They actually survived. The ice age, which is really remarkable, and fog is what redwood trees eat. The mist from the ocean, from the clouds, it all sort of combines in this really mystical like union of different ecosystems, all meeting in one powerful confluence. And then that's where my people have been since the beginning of time.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:03:39] And the Yurok people have a very special relationship with the environment. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Amy Bowers Cordalis [00:03:46] The Creator told the people that we would never want for anything. We would always have what we needed so long as we lived in a balance with the natural world. And we agreed. And in that original agreement, we created what I like to call a cultural covenant in which the natural resources and the people, we have duties. We have responsibilities to steward that. And to take care of it in times of need. I was raised as a fisherwoman, and that's what I love. And I so wish that my generation could have been the generation where we had a healthy river and bountiful salmon runs, and I could have spent my time just fishing. But that wasn't our time. There was a very dark moment in 2016. Where the lowest salmon run in history returned to the river, it got to the point where the salmon runs were so compromised there was only 1% to 3% of the historical size of the salmon run left. And that small percentage puts you in a place where Bye. You're starting to lose genetic diversity of the run, which means you're headed on a fast track to extinction. And so things got pretty dire right around then. And that was the first year in the history of the Yurok people where we did not fish for salmon. After the closure of the fishery, the Yura tribe also declared a suicide emergency because there were a string of suicides. On the reservation, and it was all young people. And I raise that because it highlights how without salmon, it's difficult for our Yurok people to see a future. And I share that because my relationship to the river, it's been this beautiful, deep love of being on the river and catching salmon and exploring everything there. But it's also been a responsibility to protect and fight for it.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:06:01] One of the things that I did want to raise as you're talking about the symbiotic relationship is rights of nature.
CLIP [00:06:10] And there are amazing, successful examples of this around the world.
CLIP [00:06:16] The Ganges River is one of two Indian rivers that have just been given the same rights as people.
CLIP[00:06:23] In 2008, Ecuador became the first country to enshrine the rights of nature in its constitution, recognizing nature, known as Pachamama, as a legal entity.
CLIP [00:06:35] And right here in California, the Yurok tribe granted legal personhood to the Klamath River.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:06:41] In 2019, the Yurok tribe made history by granting the Klamath River legal personhoods through rights of nature. And this is something that I've been following as my family's from India. So when I heard about this, I was like, wow, rights of natures come here. You know, this is pretty groundbreaking because if you don't know, corporations enjoy full legal protections in the court of law, but there's nothing that protects nature or natural ecosystems. Rights of Nature is the closest we've gotten. What does this mean for protecting resources, more broadly speaking, and applying this really clever legal and cultural framework? The person who.
Amy Bowers Cordalis [00:07:22] Rights was a key element of the overall strategy. Now, why personhood rights are so important is because they expand the scope of legal protections available under the law. So you had mentioned that corporations enjoy personhood rates. And so what that means is like the Corporation is injured in some fashion. It then has standing to sue whoever harmed corporation. Likewise, when an ecosystem and when the Klamath River now has personhood rights, it has standing any entity that would harm it. And it's really powerful, the scope of rights of the river. It says things like, the river has the right to flow freely. The river has a right to exist. The river as the right too clean water. And that is so powerful. The law is merely a reflection of society's values. We make legal things that we want to uplift. We're capitalists, and so we give corporations standing in order to better protect them. So well said. Yeah. And then for rivers, for ecosystems, the country's been focused thus far on exploitation, and so, we don't protect them
Shilpi Chhotray [00:08:57] Yes, exactly. I love how you stated that so clearly. And your family has been protecting this river for more than 170 years. I want to go back to your Uncle Raymond Mattz since he played such a key role in securing Iraq fishing rights.
Amy Bowers Cordalis [00:09:12] Uncle Ray was the ultimate river warrior, and he was the ultimate salmon fisherman. I mean, he was legendary. And the state in 1933 passed a law that outlawed Yurok fishing on the Klamath River. And the states sent game wardens to patrol the river.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:09:33] Your aunt Susan Masten and Diane Bowers speak about this in the PBS documentary series called Tending the Wild. At this point.
CLIP[00:09:42] We're frightened, we're afraid to ride in our cars alone. Whenever we plan a trip to the store, more than one person has to go. We're afraid and we're just scared all of the time.
CLIP [00:09:54] That didn't prohibit my family who believed that we have that right to fish, that inherent right to fish, and so my uncles kept fishing but they fished at night and they continued to fish and eventually they did get caught.
Amy Bowers Cordalis [00:10:09] And so that's how Uncle Ray got arrested 19 times. And the wardens were super aggressive with them as they always were, you know, slamming their faces in the dirt, on the rocks. You know, that happened to Uncle Ray so many times. There was one final arrest. Uncle Ray was called into, you now, the local court and by now the judge knew him. And he said, the judge said, Thank you very much. Pay me a dollar and I'll give you back your nets and we can drop the charges and go on. And Uncle Ray, without a lawyer, stood up, pounded his fist on the table and said, I have Indian rights and I will assert them and I am taking this case to the highest court of the land if that's what I have to do and I will not pay you a dollar. Out of that came the California Indian Legal Services. And so they agreed to represent my family in Ray's case and push the case all the way to the Supreme Court.
CLIP [00:11:20] This morning in 71, 11, 82, Mattz against Arnett.
CLIP [00:11:29] The issue presented is whether an 1892 federal statute terminated part of the Indian reservation and thereby made that area subject to state fishing laws. Commissioner Raymond Mattz is a Yurok. He and his family and his ancestors have always fished along this stretch of the Klamath River and they've done so with large nets, including gill nets.
Amy Bowers Cordalis [00:11:54] And there we won. And I think about, for us, continuing to fish was our protest. It was our act of resistance. And they never stopped. And because they never stop, we have rights today.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:12:17] I do want to talk about 2002 because this sort of tees up where the plot thickens. You were in college working as an intern on the river. The largest fish kill in United States history happened.
CLIP [00:12:33] Disaster on the Klamath River, dead salmon everywhere. Mile after mile of riverbank littered with dead fish.
CLIP [00:12:42] We just never had even could have imagined in our worst nightmare what was to come. More and more, just start washing up. It was very horrific.
CLIP [00:12:54] Because there were thousands of fish that were coming down the river.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:12:59] So we just heard your aunt Susan again from the documentary Freeing the Klamath River. It was clearly a devastating moment, you know, not only for the Yurok tribe, but for anybody that cares about the environment, for culture, and for humanity. The fish kill isn't actually something that's discussed that much even in environmental circles. Can you share what that day was like for you?
Amy Bowers Cordalis [00:13:24] Day was tragic and changed the whole trajectory of my life. I was, let's see, I was a junior in college and I always loved music and singing and so I wanted to become a singer. Like that was where I thought I was going in life and then I, um... You know, went home for a summer internship with the Yurok Tribe Fisheries Department. You know I just was on the river every single day. And that summer there was a very large Chinook fall salmon run returning. And so there were a lot of fishing families that came back and the fishery was just alive and vibrant and buzzing. And you know it was sort of glorious. It was like. This is how this is supposed to be. And then September hit, and things started getting very, very hot. And you saw river flows just drop, drop, and drop. Water temperatures rose, water levels went down. And as a result, a fish disease called it. Spread through the entire salmon run and killed somewhere around 70,000 adult Chinook salmon. But when it first started, I'm on the river and I'm watching it and people are saying like the fish are dying, the fish you're dying. And what you would see was like a Chinook Salmon come out of the depths of the water, grasp for air. Like with their mouth open, and then dive back in, and then not so long after, that same fish would come up to the surface dead. Thousands of them floating in the water on like a 12-mile stretch of the river.
Shilpi Chhotray: So heartbreaking, Amy.
Amy Bowers Cordalis: Their bodies started lining the banks of the River, three, four layers deep, and then it just smelled like a war zone. It smelled like death. I mean, you can imagine how one fish rotting smells. Think about 70,000. I mean this is our sacred river. It felt like there was nothing we could do to stop them from dying. I remember having that feeling and I was standing in a tribal fisheries boat observing all this. And then it was like, I just felt this rush of energy. And it was my great grandma, Geneva Mattz, kind of moved through me and was just like, it's your turn. And then my next thought was I have to go to law school to try to prevent this from ever happening again. And that's what I did. And that why I did it. I wanted to go law school so I could learn the system. And I also fundamentally believe in the constitution. I believe in separations of power. I believe the rule of law. I believe in the decency of humanity and our desire to create a better world and to continue to live on planet Earth. I believe and all of those things. And so I thought if I go to law school, I can learn all these rules. And then, you know, maybe if we work together with other like-minded people, build a coalition, we can build a different future.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:17:13] That's extremely powerful and foundational to understand. I also want to uplift that less than 1% of lawyers in the US are Native Americans. So, you know, also about representation, what you've done in this career path you've chosen is groundbreaking for multiple reasons. I want to go back to something that I found really insane in the book. There is a major political angle here. And that's Vice President Dick Cheney. Okay, personally intervened to divert water to farmers up the river for votes.
CLIP [00:17:49] There, farmers have turned a desert into green farmland by diverting water from the Klamath. A year and a half ago, the federal government turned off the irrigation water to help endangered fish. Farmers were enraged. They appealed to the Bush administration, which turned the water back on.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:18:06] What did that moment reveal to you about the role of law and power in this country?
Amy Bowers Cordalis [00:18:12] That moment revealed to me that the Yurok people were still at war with the U.S. Government. What the Bush administration did was an act of ecocide against the Yura people and all indigenous peoples on the Klamath River, because they knew that if they diverted that much water to agriculture up river, flows throughout the rest of the river. Would fall lower than they had ever been in history. And all of the federal scientists said, if you do that, you will cause a massive fish kill. They knew that was going to happen, and yet they did it anyways. The decision to divert the water over the objections of scientists, over the injections of other leaders demonstrated that the Bush administration did not value Indian rights, indigenous cultures, or the rule of law. Because the Yurok tribe has senior water rights, we have federally reserved fishing rights that are the supreme law of the land.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:19:33] And I know Warren Buffett's team came to visit the river and you were the one that took them. It was really important for them to actually be there in person and see it, not just read about it or look at documentation. They had to breathe the air, they had to witness the colors, they had to see exactly what would be missed.
Amy Bowers Cordalis [00:19:56] They did. In 2020, and just think like pandemic, the world is closed down. I had just had my third baby right in the middle of it. And a couple of months later, after baby came, I get a call from the, from Frankie Myers, the then Yurok tribe vice chairman. And it was like, it was late summer in 2020. And he tells me that some Pacific Corps and Berkshire Hathaway executives are coming out to talk about dam removal. And so they get out, they come, they agreed to come to their credit. We decided like it's the pandemic, you can't really meet in the tribal government office. We'll go meet on the river and specifically we will take them to Blue Creek. And we will let Blue Creek and the river speak for itself. Blue Creek is this magical place in itself. It's crystal clear blue waters, it's the entrance to the tribe's spiritual country. It is also a cold water refuge for salmon coming up the river. And the salmon like to use it as basically a rest stop as they're going up the River. You know, think about how like if you're on a highway or freeway and there's those little rest stops, like Blue Creek is one of those for the salmon. And it's just beautiful. So we take the executives there. And I should say on the way up, we met some protesters that had completely blocked off the middle of the river so our boat couldn't pass with a sign that said something along the lines of, close the damn deal.
CLIP [00:21:42] It just isn't a salmon, and it just isn't water. It is our livelihood, our culture, our heritage, our customs and our beliefs of the native people that we are. We stand up for our future generations. Bring our salmon home.
Amy Bowers Cordalis [00:22:04] You know, and these were activists who had really started the movement with protests through the, like the two thousands, traveling all over the world to stakeholder meetings, protesting and demanding climate dam removal and bless their hearts, they've just worked so hard and were so effective. The role of protest is pivotal in these people powered movements. It really is. And of course, it was all nonviolent, but they were fierce and powerful. And basically, they told the executives, close this deal. We will never stop advocating for dam removal. And if you pull out, we're just going to intensify the protests. So we went up the river and then got to Blue Creek. And we had our scientists there so they could tell them about the importance of it. We had our cultural people there who shared information. And what I appreciated about those executives is that they listened. And then the following Monday, I got a call from one of the executives and he said, all right, let's figure this out.
CLIP [00:23:16] A major river in the west is being unleashed thanks to the largest dam removal project in U.S. History.
CLIP [00:23:23] For the first time since 1912, salmon are now freely flowing through the Klamath Basin and tribes there are celebrating.
CLIP [00:23:29] We did this, we did this. The people.
CLIP [00:23:34] Move over here! Woohoo!
CLIP [00:23:37] But we did it with a lot of determination. We're a small tribe. So I guess my parting words would be, we're not damned Indians anymore, we're damned proud of it, and we've got our damned fish back. And if you keep working hard, so will you.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:23:57] That was Annelia Hillman of the Yurok tribe and Russell Hepfer of the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe. Well, I wanna underscore that this is the largest dam removal in US history. So this is four dams in total and it's resulting in more than 2,000 tons of steel being hauled out of the river's path and nearly 1.5 million cubic yards of earth in concrete. That's pretty impressive. It's also going to reopen hundreds of miles of salmon habitat of course, improve water quality, which you've talked a lot about, and help one of the world's greatest salmon rivers begin to heal. Let's go to the moment when the river was first set free again. What was that moment like for you?
Amy Bowers Cordalis [00:24:42] I cried, I cried so hard. There are so many moments of just tears of, like, deep release of, you know, I think all that, like inherited anger that, you sort of just pick up through generations of fighting for a river and being marginalized and oppressed and assimilated. It was like all that came through my tears. Because it meant that there is a better future. You know, one that we believed would happen, but then actually seeing it, it was real. And the water, one of the most profound experiences I've ever had was watching the water gradually, you know, go over what was left of Iron Gate Dam. And it was a hot sunny day and so the sun was shining on it and it was sort of sparkling but then gradually it got stronger and stronger and brighter and then it reconnected with the water below the dam and in that moment I just thought like there is balance there is peace like it was this deep, deep peace that I had never experienced before.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:26:10] And you just literally painted the singular moment that you saw the water begin to heal, which I think is incredibly profound. And in a way, it was probably where you and your community could begin to heel too. There is one last question I wanna ask. There are about 500,000 dams in the United States. Correct me if I'm wrong, Amy. Is that the right number?
Amy Bowers Cordalis [00:26:33] One dam has been built in America every single day since the signing of the Direct Declaration of Independence.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:26:41] What needs to happen to get other communities to see that dam removal is possible. And it could be indigenous communities or non-indigenous communities. Because what you've painted here today is this was very much so a multi-stakeholder effort. You were working with businesses, you were working with scientists, you are working of course with tribal elders and multi-generational leaders. What do you want the audience to know? It's possible.
Amy Bowers Cordalis [00:27:10] The Klamath and Klamath Dam removal is scalable. And the model of Klamath Dam removal supports that we can create a global regenerative economy based on restoring ecosystems and using indigenous-led nature-based solutions. What we did on the Klamath. All started with a little fire in the belly, right? And I hope that listeners and that perhaps it helps to light their fire in their belly. And I that hearing this story empowers others to know that whatever they're fighting for They are good, they are enough. You know, when you bring people together, when you empower diverse voices, when you work with nature, that anything is possible. I was just an indigenous girl who liked to fish. That wanted to be a singer and here I am and I still like to sing and if I can do it anybody can do. And I know so many people have deep climate anxiety. They have political economic Anxiety there, you know, there's so much that feels out of balance in the world right now Klamath Dam Removal shows that we can work together to heal ourselves. That moment of just deep peace that I experienced, I think everybody could experience that when they work towards climate justice. We don't have to continue to just exploit for profit. That will no longer serve us. Let it go, right, and move into our free-flowing future.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:29:22] Well, thank you so much. This is so much a story about memory, how the water remembers and how the fight that your people have been involved with for generations is leading into a much more balanced future.
Amy Bowers Cordalis [00:29:40] I'm just really honored to be able to share the story and the good work with you all. Thank you for having me. Wokhlew.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:29:51] And that's all for our episode today. A heartfall thank you to Amy for joining us in sharing such a powerful story of environmental and cultural restoration. If you want to learn more about the Klamath Dam removal, check out Amy's new book, The Water Remembers. It's available on October 28th. If you liked today's episode, share it, rate it, and drop us a line at hello at apeoplesclimate.org. Thank you to Wildseeds Fund for making this podcast possible. This episode of A People's Climate is executive produced by Mindy Ramaker, with engineering and sound design by Dennis Maxwell, theme music by Khafre Jay, and additional research by Sarah Morgan. Recorded at Studio 132 in Oakland, California. From Counterstream Media and The Nation, I'm your host, Shilpi Chhotray Chhotray. Until next time.