American Rivers: Record Dam Removals Reconnect US Rivers

American Rivers tracks and drives the removal of aging, unsafe dams across the United States, compiling the country's only annual national database of dam removals used by agencies, tribes and other river groups. In 2025, 100 obsolete dams came down across 30 states, reconnecting a record 4,893 miles of river and bringing the documented US total to 2,350 dam removals since 1912. Its highest-profile win remains the 2024 removal of the last of four Klamath River dams, driven by the Yurok and Karuk Tribes, which reopened roughly 400 miles of salmon and steelhead habitat blocked for over a century in the largest dam removal in US history.