page_title: Restoration of the Elwha River
section_title: The dams
hierarchical_section_title: Restoration of the Elwha River / The dams
caption_attribution_description: English: Elwha Dam constructed 1913, slated for demolition 2012. Photo by Larry Ward, Lower Elwha Fisheries Office (2005).
context_page_description: The Elwha Ecosystem Restoration Project is a 21st-century project of the U.S. National Park Service to remove two dams on the Elwha River on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state, and restore the river to a natural state. It is the largest dam removal project in history and the second largest ecosystem restoration project in the history of the National Park Service, after the Restoration of the Everglades. The controversial project, costing about $351.4 million, has been contested and periodically blocked for decades. It has been supported by a major collaboration among the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, and federal and state agencies.
  The removal of the first of the two dams, the Elwha Dam, began in September 2011 and was completed ahead of schedule in March 2012. Removal of the second dam, the Glines Canyon Dam, was completed on August 26, 2014.
context_section_description: The primary goal of this project was the removal of the 108 ft (33 m) Elwha Dam and the 210 ft (64 m) Glines Canyon Dam from the Elwha River on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state. Elwha Dam was built privately from 1910 to 1912 by Thomas Aldwell, who owned land in the area. This resulted in blocking passage of 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 km) upriver of Elwha Dam.
  Olympic National Park was established by the federal government in 1938 during the Great Depression.  In 1940, the park's boundaries were expanded to include Glines Canyon Dam and its reservoir of Lake Mills. 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."
  The national park, tasked with preserving natural ecosystems, had a man-made system within its boundaries that was known to disrupt major portions of the ecology.
  When Elwha Dam was built, it was secured to the walls of the bedrock canyon, but not to 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 did not receive a federal license to operate.
  An 1890 Washington State law required fish passage devices to be built on dams "wherever food fish are wont to ascend". Thomas Aldwell ignored this requirement. Fish Commissioner Leslie Darwin offered to waive that requirement if Aldwell built a fish hatchery adjoining Elwha Dam. Although Aldwell initially balked at this proposal, he did build a fish hatchery that began operation in 1915. The hatchery was a fiasco. Its managers were unable to successfully rear fish. It was closed in 1922.
caption: 108-ft Elwha Dam
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