The Copco Lake store has been closed for over a decade; still, it’s easy to imagine stopping in for some bait and sandwich fixings, or chatting with a neighbor in one of the mismatched rocking chairs on the front porch. The sidewalk in front of the store is cracked, but the building is tidy, and on a sunny day in late May, Francis Gill is mowing the lawn. Danny Fontaine, Gill’s husband, recalls a time when rafters, still breathless after riding in on the Klamath River’s Class 3 and 4 rapids, crowded the grass.
“It was really lively,” says Fontaine. “And so we're thinking, well, that would be really cool to recreate that out here.”
Home to about 100 residents in Siskiyou County, California, Copco Lake is just 30 minutes from Interstate 5 and Yreka. The store, fire station and community center are clustered on the lake’s southeast end—what Fontaine calls “town.”
“I usually refer to it as Walton's Mountain, because it's such a tight community,” says Fontaine, who serves as deputy chief of the volunteer fire department under Gill. “Everybody knows everybody, and we're all friends. If anybody needs help, or is in trouble, we're there.”
The pair recently purchased the store and plan to reopen it, but for now the shelves are bare, the coolers empty.
“We're going to hold off on this until we know what's exactly going to happen,” says Fontaine.
The impending removal of four hydroelectric dams on the main stem of the Klamath River has thrown this normally tranquil community into turmoil. The smallest of the dams is scheduled to be deconstructed this year. The reservoirs behind the remaining three—Copco 1, Iron Gate, and J.C. Boyle—will be drawn down starting next January; by summer, it’s expected that the river will flow freely for the first time in over 100 years. And while many people are celebrating the removals and what they could mean for salmon runs and the overall health of the river, Copco residents are devastated to lose their namesake lake.
“A lot of people feel the same way—that they came here to retire on a lake and came here to retire in this lifestyle,” says Gill. “And now that's being taken away from them forcefully.”
Though they were angry at first, Gill and Fontaine are trying to imagine a future without the lake, in part so they can help their neighbors.
“People are going through all forms of the stages of loss and grief,” says Gill. “We love our community so much, and the people in it, that we're just trying to do our best to hold together what we can.”
Linda Ebert and her husband, Steve, moved to the north shore of Copco Lake in 1999. An avid fisherman, Steve taught high school science until he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. They chose their home in part because of the gentle slope and easy access to their private dock and the lake.
“He knew he was going to become more and more disabled,” says Ebert. “That attracted him, that and the beauty of the lake.”
Steve died in 2021; now, Ebert is anticipating other losses, including the birds and wildlife that thrive along the shoreline.
“It’s a lot of habitat. Deer are born in those tules, not to mention duck nests, goose nests,” she says. “All that’s going to be wiped out.”
According to Fontaine, many residents feel they were left out of the decision-making process, and they’re worried about how dam removal will transform their community and homes. Will properties lose value? Will the lakebed become a barren wasteland? Who will own the land between the river and the homes?
Some are also concerned that the effort and cost and heartache will all be for naught—that removing the dams won’t improve water quality or help salmon runs.
Ebert calls dam removal “a grand experiment.” “It’s going to be a real question mark how this is going to enhance fishing,” she says. “It’s been a problematic river and it’s been dammed a long time.”
Compensating losses
The electric utility PacifiCorp has transferred ownership of the four dams to the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, or KRRC, a nonprofit corporation set up to oversee decommissioning of the dams and the restoration of the reservoir footprints. KRRC has acknowledged that property owners who live around the reservoirs and below Iron Gate, the lowest of the four dams, could experience direct physical impacts from dam removal. Groundwater wells that are “hydrologically connected” to Copco Lake might not be as productive. Homes built on unstable soils on the rim of Copco Lake could settle or slump. Some properties downstream of Iron Gate that are located within the 100-year floodplain could face a higher risk of flooding.
To help compensate residents, KRRC launched the Klamath Mitigation Fund this spring.
“We have invited private property owners into this claims process to evaluate the opportunity to be compensated with funds,” says Mark Bransom, CEO at KRRC. Residents whose claims are settled must agree not to litigate.
KRRC recruited Joan Smith, a longtime public servant in Siskiyou County, and Monte Mendenhall, regional manager for PacifiCorp, to administer the fund. They have sent letters to individual property owners, held virtual information sessions, and visited residents in person.
Patty Vinikow, a Copco Lake resident whose home is perched on a rim of basalt rock on the north shore, says she was informed in a letter this spring that her home could be vulnerable to settling.
“So I'd be living in a home that at best might crack and fracture, and at worst might tumble down the edge of a 50-foot cliff,” says Vinikow, who purchased her property two years ago. “Believe me, I would never have bought here if I'd known that.”
Vinikow has been offered vouchers to cover the cost of six months of lodging, should she choose to temporarily relocate while the reservoir is being drawn down. The actual cost of any mitigation measures won’t be estimated until (and unless) slumping actually occurs.
KRRC is offering $5,000 to residents whose wells could be affected. Vinikow calls the compensation a “pittance.” “You know wells are $20- $30,000 to redrill,” she says.
Bransom says that the flat fee is intended to help pay for the deepening of existing wells, or to upgrade equipment.
“We discovered through a well monitoring program that we implemented that the majority of wells that we monitored are not in fact hydraulically connected to the reservoirs,” says Bransom, adding that few, if any wells are expected to see reduced production, much less go dry.
Ebert is not eligible for compensation from the mitigation fund, and although she’s been assured that her property is not at risk for flooding, she’s concerned about the pulse of sediment that will be released when the J.C. Boyle Dam is removed upstream of her home.
“They’re going to fill the river channel with sediment, so the water will be spreading out with all this junk in it,” she says.
Ebert doesn’t have a computer or Internet access, but she has mailed letters and attended meetings held by the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors to voice her concerns and to request help salvaging her dock, which property owners must remove by October 30.
Gill wishes there had been more face-to-face and town hall-style meetings over the years, but he admits that the residents’ anger may have discouraged physical visits to the community.
“Yes, everybody is very angry and hurt,” says Gill. “But if they came out to our community and called us to a meeting, there might be some feelings in the room, but there wouldn't be any type of violence or scary things. That's not how this community works.”
The bad guys
Kevin Felts is all too familiar with the brew of emotions Copco Lake residents are experiencing. For 20 years, his family co-owned a vacation cabin on then-Northwestern Lake, in southwest Washington. The serene setting, with cabins tucked around the shoreline, felt like traveling back in time, says Felts.
“Our kids grew to love the outdoors there,” he says. “It was just a magical place for our family.”
The lake formed when the White Salmon River, a tributary of the Columbia, was dammed in 1913. Tribes and environmental groups had long lobbied for removing Condit Dam to provide habitat for struggling salmon and steelhead. Rumors of dam removal were already swirling when Felts purchased the cabin.
“It caused a great deal of consternation,” he says. “Nobody likes to have their ox gored, right? We all have things we treasure, and when somebody comes along and wants to take them away from us or alter them, it’s painful.”
Mirroring the present-day Klamath River, PacifiCorp, the dam’s owner, decided removing the dam would be less expensive than retrofitting it with fish ladders.
“PacifiCorp was the good guy because they were willing to take the dam out; we were the bad guys because we had cabins on the lake and we wanted to keep the lake,” says Felts. He wishes critics had put themselves in the cabin owners’ shoes.
In October of 2011, Condit Dam was breached. Great chunks of silt sloughed away, forming a steep canyon.
“We watched it happen,” says Felts. “It broke our hearts in a way, but in another way—I have to be really honest with you—we were upset when it was gonna happen but by the time it came around I was like, ‘I get it. The fish are important. A wild river is a wonderful thing to witness.’”
PacifiCorp paid to have the foundation of Felts’ cabin replaced and offered to pay for a new well. The families declined, and soon after the dam was removed, they sold the cabin.
Imagining the future
With its wood paneling, flower-print couch, and commanding brick fireplace, the Copco Lake community center feels a little bit like your grandparents’ living room. Here, residents gather for BBQ dinners, raffles, and arts and crafts; Gill and Fontaine, who serve as president and vice-president host karaoke nights. Fontaine prefers Steely Dan, and Gill likes Garth Brooks, but with a hard drive stocked with 600,000 songs, they can accommodate just about any request.
Though they will mourn the loss of the lake, Vinikow, Ebert, Gill and Fontaine all plan to continue living at Copco Lake, even after the lake is gone. Gill and Fontaine say what makes Copco Lake special is ultimately the people who live there.
“We’re in creation mode; trying to create something out of it,” says Fontaine. “But we don't know because I can't see what's under the water yet. It's like this big surprise.”
As soon as the reservoirs are drawn down, restoration crews will plant thousands of seeds, shrubs and trees in the muddy expanse that was Copco Lake. KRRC has released artistic renderings envisioning what the river corridor could look like once the vegetation has taken root and begun to mature.
“We did it with the best of intentions, to address some of the concerns that folks expressed about a moonscape and a mud bowl,” says Bransom. In the same breath, he warns that it will take time for the river and the surrounding landscape to heal.
“I think that people need to take a long view of this,” says Bransom. “As tribal folks tell me often, the river and the lands are going to have to undergo some additional pain before the long term restoration of balance will be expected to be achieved.”
Though he’s skeptical that salmon will be able to run all the way up the Klamath in low water years, Gill says that in the best-case scenario, the freed river will be “beautiful.” “You know, greenery and plant life going down to the river, there'll be big salmon runs and steelhead runs coming up through here,” he says. “There'll be anglers; there'll be rafters. And it will still be paradise.”