<\/p>\n
The Oakland Dam is removed from the North Branch of the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania in September 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Endless Mountains Heritage Region<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania led the nation in dam removals last year, accounting for 14 of the 100 dams removed nationwide, according to a recent report from the conservation group American Rivers.<\/p>\n
Massachusetts had the next highest number of removals with 11, followed by Vermont with 9.<\/p>\n
Within the Chesapeake Bay watershed, Virginia and Maryland each removed 4 dams while Delaware and New York removed 1 each.<\/p>\n
The Keystone State has long been a national leader in removing outdated dams, the report noted. In 2024, it removed 27 dams, nearly three times as many as Michigan, which had the second highest total, with 10.<\/p>\n
The pace of dam removals has gradually accelerated nationwide, but the report shows there is a lot of work left to do: There are about 558,000 dams blocking rivers in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cDam removal increases community safety in the face of extreme weather and increasing flood risk, catalyzes the growth of river recreation economies, and benefits fish and wildlife,\u201d said Serena McClain, senior director of American Rivers\u2019 national dam removal program.<\/p>\n
Dam removal has also been key to achieving fish passage goals in the Bay region. The 2025 Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement calls for opening 150 miles of river a year to fish migration by removing dams or other obstructions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Oakland Dam is removed from the North Branch of the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania in September 2023.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[83558,28,30,29],"class_list":["post-187298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-dams","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}