Dam DestructionAug 11, 2012
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Walking on the boat ramp to the emptied Alder Lake
View of Mt. Olympia from the former lake
Tree Stumps now exposed
| Construction vs. Deconstruction. Like many people, I’ve read about the construction of various dams throughout the US. I’ve seen photos of the land being clear, rocks dynamited, rivers diverted, cement poured and the eventual completion of the dam itself. However, the intentional deconstruction of a dam isn’t something that is usually covered by the media. Here on the Olympic peninsula, the largest dam removal project in the United States is going on to remove two dams, the Elwha and the Glines dams, which were built in the early 1900s. This project will be a model for other potential dam removal projects. We decided to learn more about this project by attending a one-hour walk led by the National Park Service. The project is called the Elwha River Restoration. Before the dams were built, hundreds of thousands of salmon would spawn up the Elwha River. However, after the dams were built, the salmon had no way to get up the river and their numbers dwindled to about 3,000. Both dams are now located within the Olympic National Park and, so far, the Elwha dam has been removed and the Elwha River is flowing once again. The Glines dam is scheduled for removal by the summer of 2013 and Lake Mills will be drained and will become part of the free flowing Elwha River. We walked along what was once the bottom of Alder Lake and learned that one of the many problems with this removal was the 18 million cubic feet of sediment that has built up behind these dams. So a gradual drawdown process of releasing the water was devised to minimize the impact downstream. There are fish windows that were built to monitor the sediment so as not to choke the returning salmon. There is also the matter of re-vegetating the area and restocking the Elwha River with salmon just to name a few other environmental impacts of the project. We saw remnants of huge tree stumps from trees that were logged when the dam was built. We saw the bathtub-like ring around the former lake. Now, you can see the Elwha River flowing through what was once Adler Lake. Considering the massive scale this project was on, the ranger led talk concentrated on a limited number of topics. During our walk, I couldn’t help notice the few houses that were built on the hillside above the former lake. Their view has been dramatically changed and I wondered how it altered the value of their homes. I also wondered about the boat and kayak business and the small RV Park nearby that catered to the boaters on the former lake. Certainly they must have been severely impacted by the loss of two lakes. In 25 years, it will be interesting to see the result of the restoration and whether the millions of dollar spent was worth the effort. How easy it is to destroy and how difficult it is to re-create. |
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