Los Angeles --
A $1.4 billion project to remove four hydroelectric dams and restore habitat to return Chinook salmon to the upper reaches of the Klamath River amounts to an experiment with no guarantee of success, an independent science review has concluded.
A panel of experts evaluating the proposal expressed "strong reservations" that the effort could overcome the many environmental pressures that have driven the dramatic decline of what was one of the richest salmon rivers in the nation.
Even after the decommission of dams that have for decades blocked migrating salmon, the panel said, biologists would probably have to truck the fish around a stretch of the river plagued by low oxygen levels.
