The Alameda Creek watershed in California is showing signs of recovery, with improved water quality linked to the return of trout and salmon. A concrete barrier that had blocked the creek for seventy
The Alameda Creek watershed in California is showing signs of recovery, with improved water quality linked to the return of trout and salmon. A concrete barrier that had blocked the creek for seventy years was removed in the fall of 2025, and within days, two chinook salmon were observed swimming upstream through waters that had been inaccessible since before the first moon landing.To understand t…
For 70 years, a concrete barrier sealed off Alameda Creek in California from the bay. The water behind it was widely considered lifeless, with no salmon or steelhead returning to spawn. In the fall
For 70 years, a concrete barrier sealed off Alameda Creek in California from the bay. The water behind it was widely considered lifeless, with no salmon or steelhead returning to spawn. In the fall of 2025, work crews finally removed that barrier, and within days, two Chinook salmon were observed swimming upstream through water that had been inaccessible to them since before the first moon landing…
In the fall of 2015, a smallmouth bass swam past a stone bridge in the suburbs of Pittsburgh and entered a stretch of Little Sewickley Creek that no bass had reached since the 1920s. The fish was not
In the fall of 2015, a smallmouth bass swam past a stone bridge in the suburbs of Pittsburgh and entered a stretch of Little Sewickley Creek that no bass had reached since the 1920s. The fish was not released there and was not chased into the area. It moved upstream on its own into a shallow section of the creek where an 87-year-old concrete barrier had stood just four months earlier.Little Sewick…
California pulled a concrete wall from a dead creek, and what happened to the salmon stunned biologists. The barrier had blocked the waterway for decades, leaving the stretch virtually lifeless.
For seventy years, a concrete barrier blocked Alameda Creek in California, and the water behind it was widely considered lifeless. In the fall of 2025, work crews finally removed that wall. Within days, two Chinook salmon were swimming upstream through water that had been inaccessible since before the first moon landing.The fish were not placed there by humans, and no one guided them to the creek….
In Arizona, crews tore down a 96-year-old dam—and then the desert river came back to life. For nearly a century, the concrete structure had blocked the waterway, strangling the ecosystem downstream and leaving a dry, barren channel where wildlife once thrived.
A camera mounted on a rusted metal pole above a dry riverbed in Arizona recorded only cracked mud, heat, and drifting sand for years. Then, on a spring morning, it captured 14 seconds of footage showing water moving through the frame. A hydrologist reviewing the footage stopped and remained silent for nearly a minute. What had appeared in the recording was something she had never seen in that loca…
Florida removed a 60-year-old dam—then two dozen freshwater springs suddenly bubbled back to life. For decades, the concrete barrier had choked the river, silently burying natural springs beneath heavy sediment.
The Florida House of Representatives voted to approve the removal of the Rodman Dam, a structure that has separated two local waterways for decades. Conservation groups argue that the environmental benefits of removing the dam for the historic communities along the St. Johns River outweigh local concerns.The dam, also known as the Kirkpatrick Dam, was built in 1968 as part of the Cross Florida Bar…