Friday July 10, 2026
Active NorCal —
The largest dam removal in world history has now added the engineering world’s highest honor to its legacy.
The Klamath River Renewal Project won the 2026 Grand Conceptor award, the top prize in the American Council of Engineering Companies’ annual Engineering Excellence Awards. The recognition went to McMillen, Inc., of Boise, Idaho, which served as the owner’s representative on the project.
The award honors work that spans from Hornbrook, California, to Klamath Falls, Oregon, where four aging hydroelectric dams once choked a river that was once the third-largest salmon producer on the West Coast. Built as far back as the early 1900s, the dams severed more than 400 miles of habitat, degraded water quality, and cut Tribal Nations off from a river woven into their culture. Removing them reopened that habitat, reconnected tributaries, and returned floodplains to their historic shape.
The results have outpaced expectations. Within months of the final dam coming down, Chinook, Coho, and Pacific Lamprey were returning in numbers not seen in over a century. Scientists watched salmon spawn in tributaries that had been unreachable for generations.