Undammed: Freeing Rivers and Bringing Communities to Life

by Tara Lohan

Free-flowing rivers in the United States are an endangered species. With more than 500,000 dams in place, we’ve dammed and diverted almost every major river, straightening curves and blocking passage for fish and other aquatic animals, pushing many to the brink. Now a heartening new movement is helping to demolish harmful or obsolete structures and restore new life to rivers and the communities that depend on them. In doing so, it offers a pathway to undoing environmental harm to nature—and to ourselves.

In Undammed, environmental journalist Tara Lohan takes a clear-eyed look at the unexpected benefits of dam removal after centuries of dam-building. In helping to restore rivers, she argues, we’re protecting our own communities by improving water quality, enhancing public safety, and boosting fish populations that feed people and restore rights for Native American Tribes. Lohan chronicles the removal effort of four dams on the Klamath River in northern California and southern Oregon, the largest dam-removal and river-restoration project in the world. In the Northwest, she walks readers through the politically heated debate over potential removal of dams on the Lower Snake River in Washington to help restore salmon and orcas. And she visits the Kennebec and Penobscot rivers in Maine where time is running out to save Atlantic salmon. In the Southwest, Lohan considers the need to rethink the concrete monoliths on its largest rivers in the face of longer droughts, higher temperatures, and overallocated resources. And in Ohio, she highlights how removing unneeded dams is helping the once lifeless Cuyahoga River bounce back, benefitting urban communities in innumerable, tangible ways. In other efforts across the country, she shows why removing deadbeat and small dams can have big impacts and is helping drive action beyond our borders. In Europe, where river barriers occur almost every half-mile, the US movement is spurring a rival effort to restore natural flow to rivers degraded by obstructions.

Undammed is an inspirational look at our changing relationship with the natural world, showing the cascade of benefits that come when we no longer turn our backs on rivers. And in helping to restore rivers, we’re helping ourselves.
 

Genres: Nonfiction, Audiobook, Nature

264 pages, Hardcover

First published January 6, 2026

Reviews

[Tabitha Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply put, Tara Lohan brings esoteric subjects to life. In her book, “Undammable,” I found myself engrossed in a topic I thought I had no interest in: the impact of keeping and removing dams on America’s river ecosystems. The book is not only informative, but fascinating. In this way, her writing reminds me of Tony Horowitz’; she has a way of engaging while educating her readers through the process of her own compelled investigations until they become our interests, too.

We experience her awe as she boats down both newly released rivers and along dams whose fates are uncertain in the West :

“There is …nothing like this desert landscape to remind me how very short my lifetime is and our tinkering here. Glen Canyon Damhas stood for less than sixty years. Lake Powell was full for only two
decades. I can run my hand along rocks here that are 300 million years old. Downstream in the Grand Canyon I boated past the Vishnu Schist “basement rocks,” formed two billion years ago. Surely in comparisonour cement wall [dam] is insignificant, fleeting. (pg 140)

We become fish cheerleaders with her as she taxis a pair of increasingly rare Atlantic salmon in a water tank by truck from the bottom of a series of dams on the East Coast to drop them off in their spawning waters some 50 miles away. And we revel in learning how hydroelectric dam companies, ecologists, and native tribes have come to work together to take down thousands of unuseable, dangerous “deadbeat dams.”

“I put my feet in the water, and I can feel the push and pull here. A tide coming in. A river
moving out. People rooted in place. People moving forward.” (pg 205)

The information just seems to wash into us while we are focused on Lohan’s insightful and exquisite writing—

“Now with the lake drained, the river braids through the bottom of the valley, and there’s a ribbon of recently planted alders and willows, a chaperone between the water and the evergreens.” (pg 12)

—as well as her charm and cleverness:

“It started a long battle that continues today: pickerel versus payroll. Fish versus jobs” but “with each successful ecological restoration following a [dam] removal, there was more pudding, more proof.” (pgs 41, 53)

Lohan is a deft narrator who guides her readers on a joyous journey many of us didn’t expect we needed to take, focusing not on the doom and gloom we expect to hear about our planet’s precarious situation, but on a bright spot of hope for ecological renewal that is in action today. “Undammable” is insightful and uplifting—dare I say it, a dam good read.

[M Nesbit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every once in a while, a book comes along that changes the way you see the world around you. Undammed did that for me. Part science lesson, part history lesson, and part human study, Lohan takes something we’re all surrounded by and rarely think about - dams and the rivers they block - and uncovers stories about resilience, community, and the power of people who refuse to give up on what’s been lost.

Undammed is an environmental come-back story that filled me with hope for our natural work, and maybe more importantly, for the power of people to work together across divides.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an absolute delight to be transported to so many diverse and (newly) wild watersheds where dams have come down in the last few decades. In an era of so much negative news about our natural world, this book is a glimmer of hope and speaks to nature’s infinite ability to heal. This book is a joy to read.

[Melanie Klym · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent look at the history, motivators, current state, and future of freeing rivers through dam removals. VERY inspiring stuff!