Dam removal projects in Oregon, Washington state and California are receiving money from a new fund set up by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for dam removal and river restoration in the West.

The foundation, based in Menlo Park, California, marked its 50th anniversary in November by announcing a $50 million grant to the Resources Legacy Fund to establish the new Open Rivers Fund.

It is the largest fund dedicated to supporting local community efforts to remove obsolete dams and restore rivers.

During the next 10 years, the Open Rivers Fund will support dam removal, related river restoration and infrastructure modernization. There are more than 14,000 dams across the country identified by engineering experts as high hazard, according to the foundation.

“Once communities come together and agree to remove a dam, there is often little money available,” said Larry Kramer, foundation president.

Open Rivers Fund inaugural grants are:

• $215,000 to help with removal of a series of small dams and obstructions in Oregon’s Rogue River basin.

• $175,000 to help with removal of Matilija Dam in Ventura, California.

• $75,000 to assist in removing Nelson Dam in Yakima, Washington.

Economic and environmental benefits have led to broad community support for the removals which help fish habitat, according to the foundation.

The Rogue River basin work builds on the removal of Gold Hill, Gold Ray and Savage Rapids dams, already accomplished and resulting in free flow of the river for more than 150 miles.

The new work addresses several other river impediments including removal of the 5.5-foot Beeson-Robinson diversion dam on Wagner Creek in the Bear Creek sub-basin, near Talent, Oregon.

Beeson-Robinson serves 19 irrigators but blocks upstream fish movement. A diversion channel will serve the irrigators when the dam is removed.

Matilija Dam is 160 feet tall and has a 7,000 acre-foot reservoir 90 percent filled with sediment on Matilija Creek, a tributary of Ventura River and 15.6 miles upriver from the Pacific Ocean, according to the Hewlett Foundation. The dam’s sediment trapping contributes to ocean beach erosion and has made it ineffective for its original purpose as water storage for agriculture. The dam also blocks steelhead spawning habitat. Local groups have been working toward removal.

Nelson Dam on the Naches River near Yakima is 8 feet tall, 190 feet long and is owned by the city. Its diversion serves orchards and city residences.

Removal and consolidation with two downstream diversions into one new diversion structure will cost about $8 million, mainly funded by city bonds and other grants, said Joel Freudenthal, senior natural resources specialist for Yakima County.

The changes will benefit fish and will increase diversion flow for irrigators from the 35 to 40 cubic feet per second range to about 57 cfs, Freudenthal said. The Naches-Cowiche Canal Co., which also receives water from the diversion, supports the project. Work will hopefully start in 2018, he said.