Elwha Ecosystem Restoration - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Elwha Ecosystem Restoration Project in the United States is the largest dam removal

Dam removal

Dam removal is the process of removing out-dated, dangerous, or ecologically damaging dams from river systems. There are thousands of out-dated dams in the United States that were built in the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as many more recent ones that have caused such great ecological damage,...

project in history and the second largest ecosystem restoration project in the history of the National Park Service

National Park Service

The National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...

, after the Restoration of the Everglades

Restoration of the Everglades

The restoration of the Everglades is an ongoing effort to remedy damage inflicted on the environment of southern Florida during the 20th century. It is the most expensive and comprehensive environmental repair attempt in history. The degradation of the Everglades became an issue in the United...

. The controversial project, costing about $351.4 million, has been contested and periodically blocked for decades.

History of the Elwha River

Historically, the Elwha River

Elwha River

The Elwha River is a -long river located on the Olympic Peninsula in the U.S. state of Washington. From its source at Elwha snowfinger in the Olympic Range of Olympic National Park it flows generally north to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Most of the river is contained within Olympic National Park...

was one of the few rivers in the contiguous United States

Contiguous United States

The contiguous United States are the 48 U.S. states on the continent of North America that are south of Canada and north of Mexico, plus the District of Columbia....

that supported all of the anadromous salmonid

Salmonidae

Salmonidae is a family of ray-finned fish, the only living family currently placed in the order Salmoniformes. It includes salmon, trout, chars, freshwater whitefishes and graylings...

species native to the Pacific Northwest. Ten stocks of anadromous salmon and trout species are known to have been present in the river before the dams were built: Spring- and summer/fall-run Chinook salmon

Chinook salmon

The Chinook salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, is the largest species in the pacific salmon family. Other commonly used names for the species include King salmon, Quinnat salmon, Spring salmon and Tyee salmon...

Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, Chum salmon

Chum salmon

The chum salmon, Oncorhynchus keta, is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family. It is a Pacific salmon, and may also be known as dog salmon or Keta salmon, and is often marketed under the name Silverbrite salmon...

O. keta, Coho salmon

Coho salmon

The Coho salmon, Oncorhynchus kisutch, is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family. Coho salmon are also known as silver salmon or "silvers". It is the state animal of Chiba, Japan.-Description:...

O. kisutch, Pink salmon

Pink salmon

Pink salmon or humpback salmon, Oncorhynchus gorbuscha, is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family. It is the smallest and most abundant of the Pacific salmon.- Appearance :...

O. gorbuscha, Sockeye salmon

Sockeye salmon

Sockeye salmon , also called red salmon or blueback salmon in the USA, is an anadromous species of salmon found in the Northern Pacific Ocean and rivers discharging into it...

O. nerka, summer- and winter-run steelhead trout

Rainbow trout

The rainbow trout is a species of salmonid native to tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. The steelhead is a sea run rainbow trout usually returning to freshwater to spawn after 2 to 3 years at sea. In other words, rainbow trout and steelhead trout are the same species....

O. mykiss, Bull trout

Bull trout

The bull trout, Salvelinus confluentus, is a char of the family Salmonidae native to northwestern North America. Historically, S. confluentus has been known as the "Dolly Varden" , but was re-classified as a separate species in 1980. Bull trout are listed as a threatened species under the U.S....

Salvelinus confluentus, and Cutthroat trout

Coastal cutthroat trout

The coastal cutthroat trout also known as the sea run cutthroat, or harvest trout are a subspecies of cutthroat trout with an anadromous life history....

O. clarki clarki. The river was considered the most prolific fish producer on the Olympic Peninsula

Olympic Peninsula

The Olympic Peninsula is the large arm of land in western Washington state of the USA, that lies across Puget Sound from Seattle. It is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, the north by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the east by Puget Sound. Cape Alava, the westernmost point in the contiguous...

. It was particularly known for its very large Chinook salmon, weighing as much as 45 kilograms (99.2 lb). Prior to the construction of the two dams on the river in the early 20th century, an estimated 392,000 fish returned annually to spawn. By the late 20th century the number had declined to less than 3,000.

Pink salmon were historically the most numerous salmon species in the river with over 250,000 adult returns. By the 1980s that number fell to near zero. Coho occupied the largest area of the watershed, going up many of the tributaries, and to nearly the headwaters of the Elwha River.

Salmon were an important food source for the Lower Elwha Klallam

Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe

The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe is a federally recognized and sovereign Native American nation. The tribe is part of the larger Klallam culture, part of the Coast Salish peoples of the Pacific Northwest. The traditional territory of the Klallam is the north and northeast portion of the Olympic...

people who still live at the mouth of the river.
The salmon runs provided a valuable food source for many animals such as black bear

American black bear

The American black bear is a medium-sized bear native to North America. It is the continent's smallest and most common bear species. Black bears are omnivores, with their diets varying greatly depending on season and location. They typically live in largely forested areas, but do leave forests in...

, coyotes, gray wolves, bald eagles, racoons, and dozens of others. In addition, salmon carcasses, which would litter stream banks during prime fall and spring spawning, providing food for scavengers and decaying. In the Elwha River basin salmon once contributed over 300 tons of phosphorus

Phosphorus

Phosphorus is the chemical element that has the symbol P and atomic number 15. A multivalent nonmetal of the nitrogen group, phosphorus as a mineral is almost always present in its maximally oxidized state, as inorganic phosphate rocks...

and nitrogen

Nitrogen

Nitrogen is a chemical element that has the symbol N, atomic number of 7 and atomic mass 14.00674 u. Elemental nitrogen is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard conditions, constituting 78.08% by volume of Earth's atmosphere...

every year, via decaying carcasses and the scat of predators and scavengers. In this way salmon played an important role in the overall health of the ecosystem. About 130 species benefit from the nutrients in salmon carcasses.

Today, about 83% of the Elwha River's watershed

Drainage basin

A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...

lies within Olympic National Park

Olympic National Park

Olympic National Park is located in the U.S. state of Washington, in the Olympic Peninsula. The park can be divided into four basic regions: the Pacific coastline, alpine areas, the west side temperate rainforest and the forests of the drier east side. U.S...

, more than any other river on the Olympic Peninsula. Most of the Elwha's basin is in pristine condition, unlike many other rivers on the peninsula whose basins have been harmed by extensive land use, especially logging

Logging

Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...

. Above the dams, the Elwha's basin remains largely in a natural condition. Limited development has occurred below the park boundary. Water is withdrawn for municipal and industrial use and there is some logging.

The dams

The primary function of this project is the removal of the 108 ft (32.9 m) Elwha Dam

Elwha Dam

The Elwha Dam is a 108-ft high dam located in the United States, in the state of Washington, on the Elwha River approximately upstream from the mouth of the river on the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The dam was built under the direction of Thomas Aldwell...

and the 210 ft (64 m) Glines Canyon Dam

Glines Canyon Dam

Glines Canyon Dam , built in 1927, is a high concrete arch dam that forms Lake Mills upstream from the Elwha River's mouth....

from the Elwha River on the Olympic Peninsula

Olympic Peninsula

of Washington state.

Elwha Dam was built from 1910 to 1912 by Thomas Aldwell

Thomas Aldwell

Thomas Aldwell built the Elwha Dam on the Elwha River, approximate 4.9 miles upstream from the mouth of the river. Construction began in 1910 and the dam was completed in 1913. Lake Aldwell is named after him.- References :...

. The dam blocked passage for migrating fish, limiting them to the lower 4.9 miles (7.9 km) of river below the dam. In 1927 Glines Canyon Dam was built 7 miles (11.3 km) upriver of Elwha Dam.

Olympic National Park

Olympic National Park

came into existence in 1938. In 1940, the park's boundaries were expanded to include Glines Canyon Dam and Lake Mills

Lake Mills (Washington)

Lake Mills is a reservoir formed by the Glines Canyon Dam on the Elwha River located about 13 miles from the mouth of the river on the Olympic Peninsula. It is fully contained within Olympic National Park. The lake was created behind the Glines Canyon Dam. It was formed in 1927 with the completion...

. The presence and operation of the dam was inconsistent with National Park Service policies to "...restore natural aquatic habitats and the natural abundance and distribution of native aquatic species, including fish, together with the associated terrestrial habitats and species", and with Olympic National Park objectives to "...conserve, maintain, and restore, where possible, the primary natural resources of the park and those ecological relationships and processes that would prevail were it not for the advent of modern civilization".

This created a precarious situation where a national park, tasked with preserving natural ecosystems, had a man-made system within its boundaries.

When Elwha Dam was built it was secured to the walls of the bedrock canyon, but not the bedrock underlying the river substrate. In 1912, shortly after the reservoir (Lake Aldwell) filled, pressure at the base of the dam built up so much that the foundation of the dam blew out. The void under the dam was plugged by adding fill material to the river below and upstream of the dam. Elwha Dam became operational in 1913. Because of this and other reasons, this dam has never been federally licensed to operate.

A Washington State law established in 1890 required fish passage devices

Fish ladder

A fish ladder, also known as a fishway, fish pass or fish steps, is a structure on or around artificial barriers to facilitate diadromous fishes' natural migration. Most fishways enable fish to pass around the barriers by swimming and leaping up a series of relatively low steps into the waters on...

on dams "wherever food fish are wont to ascend". Thomas Aldwell ignored the requirement. Fish Commissioner Leslie Darwin offered to waive that requirement if Aldwell built a fish hatchery

Fish hatchery

A fish hatchery is a "place for artificial breeding, hatching and rearing through the early life stages of animals, finfish and shellfish in particular". Hatcheries produce larval and juvenile fish primarily to support the aquaculture industry where they are transferred to on-growing systems...

adjoining Elwha Dam. Although Aldwell initially balked at this proposal, a fish hatchery was built and began operation in 1915. The hatchery was a fiasco. Its managers were unable to successfully rear fish. It was closed in 1922.

Sediment load

With the Glines Canyon Dam blocking sediment from reaching the Strait of Juan de Fuca

Strait of Juan de Fuca

The Strait of Juan de Fuca is a large body of water about long that is the Salish Sea outlet to the Pacific Ocean...

for more than 80 years, most of it has been accumulating in Lake Mills. Historically, the sediment from the Elwha River would accumulate at the mouth of the river, expanding the delta and forming extensive sandy beaches. In addition, east-flowing currents would transport much of that sediment towards the bluffs of Port Angeles and onto Ediz Hook

Ediz Hook

Ediz Hook is a sand spit that extends from northern shore of the Olympic Peninsula at Port Angeles in northcentral Clallam County, Washington, northeasterly into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, located about West of the larger Dungeness Spit...

. However, since the sediment has been accumulating in Lake Mills, wave action and currents have eroded the beaches away until they have become nothing more than rocky or pebbly slopes. The mouth of the river has eroded back several acres over the years, shrinking the size of the Lower Elwha Klallam reservation and eliminating their once abundant clam

Clam

The word "clam" can be applied to freshwater mussels, and other freshwater bivalves, as well as marine bivalves.In the United States, "clam" can be used in several different ways: one, as a general term covering all bivalve molluscs...

beds.

Ediz Hook has also eroded away to the point that rip-rap has to be placed on the feature to protect Port Angeles harbor from the erosive effects of the wave action. The United States Army Corps of Engineers

United States Army Corps of Engineers

The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency and a major Army command made up of some 38,000 civilian and military personnel, making it the world's largest public engineering, design and construction management agency...

spends approximately $100,000 annually to control erosion of Ediz Hook and estimates the Elwha River contributed between 50,000 and 80,000 cubic yards of sediment per year before the dams were built. The dammed river contributes a negligible volume of sediment to Ediz Hook.

The decision to remove the dams

The combined power output of these dams generates approximately 19 mega-watt hours annually, a figure roughly equivalent to 38% of the electricity necessary to operate the Nippon Paper

Nippon Paper Group

Nippon Paper Group, Inc., formerly known as Nippon Unipac Holding, is a Japanese company. It is listed on the Nikkei 225. Its subsidiaries include Nippon Daishowa Paperboard Co,. Ltd...

mill in Port Angeles

Port Angeles, Washington

Port Angeles is a city in and the county seat of Clallam County, Washington, United States. The population was 19,038 at the 2010 census. The area's harbor was dubbed Puerto de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles by Spanish explorer Francisco de Eliza in 1791, but by the mid-19th century the name had...

. The dams have blocked and nearly eliminated the once enormous runs of salmon in the river and their nutrients into Olympic National Park. The sediment no longer makes it to the sea, resulting in erosional problems on the shore. The Elwha Dam is about a century old and still has never been secured to the bedrock, resulting in a potential danger to downstream communities. These are some of the arguments used in favor of removing the dams.

The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe have sought the removal of the two dams since they were built. In 1968 the owner of the dams, Crown Zellerbach Corporation, applied to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is the United States federal agency with jurisdiction over interstate electricity sales, wholesale electric rates, hydroelectric licensing, natural gas pricing, and oil pipeline rates...

(FERC) for a license for Elwha Dam, and in 1973 applied to renew the license for Glines Canyon Dam. The Tribe opposed both applications, intervening before FERC. The environmental community got involved. By the 1980s there were twelve conservation groups opposing the relicensing process, including Olympic Park Associates, Seattle Audubon Society, Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and American Rivers.

A series of political battles occurred locally and in Washington D.C., particularly with Senator Slade Gorton

Slade Gorton

Thomas Slade Gorton III is an American politician. A Republican, he was a U.S. senator from Washington state from 1981 to 1987, and from 1989 to 2001. He held both of the state's Senate seats in his career and was narrowly defeated for reelection twice as an incumbent: in 1986 by Brock Adams, and...

blocking the project, while Senator Brock Adams

Brock Adams

Brockman "Brock" Adams was an American politician and member of Congress. Adams was a Democrat from Washington and served as a U.S. Representative, Senator, and United States Secretary of Transportation before retiring in January 1993.Adams was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and attended the public...

strongly supported the plan. Final approval came with the Elwha River Ecosystem and Fisheries Restoration Act of 1992, which authorized the Secretary of the Interior

United States Secretary of the Interior

The United States Secretary of the Interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior.The US Department of the Interior should not be confused with the concept of Ministries of the Interior as used in other countries...

to acquire and remove two dams on the river and restore the ecosystem and native anadromous fisheries. However, Senator Gorton continued to block and delay the process. By 2000 Gorton retreated, allowing the dams to finally be purchased.

In 1987 the dams, and all the assets of Crown Zellerbach, were acquired by the James River Corporation, which owned the dams until 2000. The corporation, concerned that it might someday be required to remove the dams and pay for river restoration, sought to transfer the dams to the federal government. In February 2000, the government bought the dams and related facilities for $29.5 million. Until removal, the dams have been operated by the Bureau of Reclamation

United States Bureau of Reclamation

The United States Bureau of Reclamation , and formerly the United States Reclamation Service , is an agency under the U.S...

, with National Park Service oversight.

When the federal government purchased the dams in 2000 the James River Corporation was freed from any further liability related to the damage caused by the dams in the past or potentially in the future.

Dam removal and river restoration

After the 1992 Elwha River Ecosystem and Fisheries Restoration Act was passed, a number of alternates were explored by the Department of the Interior. The Final Programmatic EIS (Environmental impact statement

Environmental impact statement

An environmental impact statement , under United States environmental law, is a document required by the National Environmental Policy Act for certain actions "significantly affecting the quality of the human environment". An EIS is a tool for decision making...

), released in June 1995, concluded that the only way to fully restore the river was to remove both dams. The Final Implementation EIS, released in November 1996, concluded that sediment that had accumulated in the two reservoirs should be allowed to erode downstream naturally.

Dam removal will begin in 2011 and is expected to last two and a half to three years. The estimated cost of removing both dams is $40 to $60 million. The total cost of the Elwha River restoration is approximately $351.4 million. This price includes the purchase of the two dams and related facilities, construction of two water treatment plants and other facilities to protect water users, construction of flood protection facilities, a fish hatchery, and a greenhouse for growing native plants for revegetation.

Partnerships, Research, and Education

The partnership includes the National Park Service, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, in addition to, local and state governments and outside public interest groups. As the largest project ever of its kind, huge research opportunities are available and are being pursued by students and professors at Peninsula College

Peninsula College

Peninsula College is a community college located in Port Angeles, Washington with satellite operations in Forks and Port Townsend. Founded in 1961, it serves the Olympic Peninsula. Peninsula College has approximately 10,000 students, two-thirds of whom attend part-time.-External...

, Eastern Washington University

Eastern Washington University

Eastern Washington University is an American public, coeducational university located in Cheney, Washington.Founded in 1882, the university is academically divided into four colleges: Arts and Letters; Business and Public Administration; Science, Health and Engineering; and Social & Behavioral...

, and Western Washington University

Western Washington University

Western Washington University is one of six state-funded, four-year universities of higher education in the U.S. state of Washington. It is located in Bellingham and offers bachelor's and master's degrees.-History:...

, as well as professors from many other universities.

The National Park Service and Olympic Park Institute are involved in education projects to inform the public about the history of the river, the dam removal process, ecosystem restoration and the return of salmon to the upper river.

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