Dams power down in the largest US dam removal

By PHUONG LE, Associated Press Posted Sat May 28, 2011 2:55pm PDT

The Elwha Dam on the Elwha River, with Lake Aldwell behind it, is seen near Port Angeles, Dec. 10, 2008. On June 1, nearly two decades after Congress called for full restoration of the river and its fish runs, federal workers will turn off the generators at the 1913 dam powerhouse and set in motion the largest dam removal project in U.S. history. Contractors will begin dismantling the dams this fall, a $324.7 million project that will take about three years and eventually will allow the 45-mile Elwha River to run free as it courses from the Olympic Mountains through old-growth forests into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

PORT ANGELES, Wash. - The Elwha River on Washington's Olympic Peninsula once teemed with legendary salmon runs before two towering concrete dams built nearly a century ago cut off fish access to upstream habitat, diminished their runs and altered the ecosystem.

On June 1, nearly two decades after Congress called for full restoration of the river and its fish runs, federal workers will turn off the generators at the 1913 dam powerhouse and set in motion the largest dam removal project in U.S. history.

Contractors will begin dismantling the dams this fall, a $324.7 million project that will take about three years and eventually will allow the 45-mile Elwha River to run free as it courses from the Olympic Mountains through old-growth forests into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

"We're going to let this river be wild again," said Amy Kober, a spokeswoman for the advocacy group American Rivers. "The generators may be powering down, but the river is about to power up."

The 105-foot Elwha Dam also came on line in 1913, followed 14 years later by the 210-foot Glines Canyon Dam eight miles upstream. For years, they provided electricity to a local pulp and paper mill and the growing city of Port Angeles, Wash., about 80 miles west of Seattle.