[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 89 (Wednesday, May 22, 2024)]
[House]
[Page H3413]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        REMOVAL OF KLAMATH DAMS

  (Mr. LaMALFA asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, in my district in northern California there 
is this catastrophic removal and destruction of the Klamath dams. These 
are hydroelectric dams that provide clean, CO2-free power 
for about 70,000 homes. It is reducing the renewable grid that 
everybody seems to want, eliminating recreational assets, hurting 
property values, damaging the local economy, and making it tougher on 
agriculture in the Klamath Basin.
  Mr. Speaker, many of these products right here that are grown in 
California, 90 to 99 percent of what America relies upon. Even 100 
percent of some of those same crops are grown in the Klamath Basin. 
They won't be able to do that much longer if they keep tearing down our 
infrastructure and taking water away.
  The removal of these dams currently has released many millions of 
cubic yards of accumulated silt which has ruined the water quality and 
killed hundreds of thousands of fish and their spawning beds that they 
have laid new smelts in.
  We have seen even full-sized deer getting stuck and dying in the mud. 
The Governors of California and Oregon seem willing to ignore these 
because they think it is a win to tear out the dams.
  Local farmers, again, are suffering. The project borrowed water from 
the dams to extend irrigation systems. We won't have that flexibility 
anymore with that out. We won't be able to grow some of these crops 
that Americans enjoy and rely upon.
  We have this devastation going on all in the name of the environment 
and all in the name of saving some fish, and in the meantime they have 
destroyed and killed hundreds of thousands of fish and will continue to 
do so with this reckless dam removal that won't end here. It will keep 
going. We will have less hydroelectric power, less stored water, and 
less recreation with this crazy type of thinking.

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