RESPONSIBLY REVIVING AMERICA'S RIVERS THROUGH DAM REMOVAL

A second life for the Elwha PG. 18

Restore RESPONSIBLY REVIVING AMERICA’S RIVERS

A SPECIAL PUBLICATION BY THE HYDROPOWER REFORM COALITION

Letting dams go

9
... and letting rivers find
their new equilibriums PG. 10
dams
that are
now gone
+
t hree more that will be soon
BC’s bad
gamble
on small
diversion
PG. 40

Restore
restore

RESPONSIBLY REVIVING AMERICA’S RIVERS

director’s note

Our hope Project director
Rich Bowers

Principal author/designer

R
estore is a special protection and restoration efforts Christian Knight
publication of the at individual hydropower dams
Hydropower Reform regulated by the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission, as well Hydropower Reform Coalition
Coalition, which provides
as a long history of developing Pacific Northwest Office
an overview of dam removal
diverse and long-lasting Rich Bowers
nationally, and documents past,
partnerships with industry, 830 Reveille Street
current, and planned removals in
agencies, tribes, and nonprofit Bellingham, WA 98229-8804
the Pacific Northwest.
organizations. Our members 360-303-9625 (phone)
The Coalition developed this
have participated in improving rich@hydroreform.org
report to discuss removal of
and restoring fish habitat, www.hydroreform.org
hydropower and other dams as a
topic and to highlight restoration natural flows, water quality,
successes and community sediment management, riparian
and watershed benefits from land protection, and recreational
dam removal in Alaska, opportunities to rivers harmed
Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and by hydropower dams. The primary focus of the Coalition
is river restoration and reoperating of
Washington. We have also been the existing dams for environmental gain.
Providing timely and credible nation’s leading voice on the Coalition members do
data, and facilitating dialogue environmental aspects of not advocate removal
hydropower policy. of all dams. For each
regarding dam removal to dam removal example
decision makers, stakeholders OUR MISSION: The mission in this publication, the
and other community of the Coalition is to protect owners and operators
and restore environmental and have agreed to removal
members is another goal of this
as a final option. The
publication. Our hope is that recreational values at rivers report attempts to
this dialogue will be useful in affected by hydropower projects provide complete and
determining the benefits and and to reform hydropower accurate information,
but the Coalition
costs of future dam removal policy to guarantee needed does not make any
opportunities. environmental protection warranty, express or implied, or
OUR COALITION: The measures in hydropower assume any legal responsibility for the
regulations. accuracy, completeness, or usefulness
Hydropower Reform Coalition of any information or process described
is an association of more than STEERING COMMITTEE: or contained in this document. The
150 organizations representing In the Northwest, Steering information in this document does not
more than one million Committee members include represent a complete record of dam
removal nationally or in the Pacific
conservationists, anglers, American Rivers, American Northwest. This document is intended for
boaters, and homeowners that Whitewater, Idaho Rivers United general information purposes only and
have effectively reduced the and Trout Unlimited. Additional should not be construed as legal advice or a
legal opinion.
footprint of hydropower dams on information can be found on the
rivers. The Coalition has more Coalition’s website:
than seventeen years of on-the- www.hydroreform.org.
ground experience with river

n RESTORE n Winter 011 n www.hydroreform.org

restore
Fall-time angling on Idaho’s
Boise River.

photo by rich bowers

When we try to pick out anything by itself,
we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
— JOhN MUIR

About the cover
The Hydropower Reform Coalition was orga- an example of when non-power values were well-
nized to capitalize on a change to federal law that balanced with operating requirements. The No-
requires the Federal Energy Regulatory Commis- vember 006 license issued for the Lake Chelan
sion (FERC) to give equal consideration to non- Project restored flows and recreation to four miles
power values like water quality, recreation, and of the Chelan River Gorge, improved 55 miles of
the protection of fish and wildlife when issuing the Lake Chelan through balanced and comprehen-
federal licenses that established the operating re- sive management, as well as 10 miles of fisher-
quirements for hydropower dams. ies improvements in the Stehekin River and other
The cover photo of the Chelan River Gorge is lake tributaries.

www.hydroreform.org n Winter 011 n RESTORE n

restore

This photo: S. Fk.
of the Skykomish’s Eagle
Falls. Photo by Christian
Knight.
Cover: Chelan Gorge during an
American Whitewater-coordinated
recreational release. Photo by
Rich Bowers.

fall 2010
feature
28 TIME TO LET IT GO
The White Salmon's Condit Dam has been
poised for removal for more than a decade.
Now, the time for removal has come.

essay
10 A NEW EQUILIBRIUM
Letting go of the things we love can be hard.
Sometimes, however, letting go is the best
for everyone and everything.


restore

departments 16 RELEASE
Profiles on the removal of dams on the Bear,
6 OVERVIEW Clark Fork, Sandy, Rogue and Trout Creek
The concept of removing dams might be and upcoming removals of dams on the
new to you. But the act is common and Elwha, White Salmon and Sullivan Creek.
becoming increasingly more common in the
Northwest and the nation. By Rich Bowers
on the web
8 CURRENT WWW.hYDROREFORM.ORG
The danger of old dams; the difference Learn the most recent developments in
between run-of-river dams and hydropower policy and events; learn more
impoundment dams and dam removal by about the Coalition's diverse array of
state. member organizations and get involved.

www.hydroreform.org n Winter 011 n RESTORE n 5

ove r v i e w

the

last
benefit
Dams provide an array of benefits to society. But as they
age, those contributions morph into liabilities of safety,
economics and environmental harm. The last gift of an
aging dam might be its own disappearance.

STORY BY RICh BOWERS n PhOTO BY ThOMAS O’KEEFE

E
leven years ago, a bell in a church’s steeple Corps of Engineers) and it's especially true of the
began ringing up on the hill. It had rung 14,615 completed before the turn of the century.
every Sunday since the late 1800s to As dams' structural integrities deteriorate, so do
usher in Augusta, Maine's French Catholic their benefits to society.
parishoners. But on July 1, 1999, it was ringing on The power they once generated is weakened by a
a Thursday. And instead of ushering in another century's worth of accumulated sediment pressing
congregation, it was ushering in a new era. A new against their bases. The fields they were retrofitted to
era of dam removal. The Kennebec’s Edwards Dam irrigate may now be parking lots.
was the first removed by order of the Federal Energy These diminished benefits come with risks—the
Regulatory Commission. And since then, owners and risks of breaches that could result in catastrophic
regulators have removed another 460 — accounting flash floods; bankrupting repair requirements; harm
for nearly half of the 836 removed dams counted they impose on our most threatened species.
by American Rivers, the national non-profit river “The number of deficient dams has risen to more
restoration organization. than 4,000, including 1,819 dams with high hazard
This trend acknowledges what dam removal potential, asserted the American Society of Civil
advocates have been saying for some time: That all Engineers' 2009 report card. Over the past six
dams — even the best-built dams — age. years, for every deficient, high-hazard potential dam
This is true of the dam built yesterday. It's true of repaired, nearly two more were declared deficient.
the 18,690 built in the 1960s (according to the Army The average age ... exceeds 51 years.”

6 n RESTORE n Winter 011 n www.hydroreform.org

The gorge wall of Cornell
University’s Triphammer Dam
was completed in 1902.

In these circumstances—when environmental on Oregon’s Rogue and Sandy Rivers, Idaho’s Bear
damage or safety risks outweigh the economic or River, Washington’s Trout Creek, Montana’s Clark
power benefits of maintaining the Fork, Oregon's Hood River, and
dam—the Hydropower Reform In these circumstances ... the others. A number of additional
Coalition recognizes that dam Coalition recognizes that dam dams are either currently under
removal is an increasingly useful removal is an increasingly study for removal or are being
tool for river restoration. useful tool for river restoration. removed, such as Condit Dam on
The Coalition also recognizes the Washington’s White Salmon River,
value of maintaining—and upgrading—some dams, Mill Pond on Sullivan Creek, Elwha and Glines Canyon
especially those that produce sufficient energy. dams on the Olympic Peninsula, Iron Gate, Copco,
More than 2,500 megawatts of power could be and J.C. Boyle dams on the Klamath. A number of
added by simply improving efficiencies at existing other dams, such as the Middle Fork Diversion on
hydroelectric plants and adding hydro to non- Washington’s Nooksack River and Growden Dam
generating dams, concluded the 1997 U.S. Hydropower within Washington’s Colville National Forest are also
Resource Assessment for Washington State. being considered for future removal.
ThE NORThWEST PERSPECTIVE Dam removal in the Northwest has restored
Dam removal has been studied or successfully hundreds of miles of river and provided more fish,
undertaken on more than 80 rivers in Alaska, Montana, wildlife, recreation, improved public safety, flood
Oregon and Washington. This includes dam removals protection, and better water quality.


836
3 The number of dams
removed through 00,
according to American
Rivers' most recent
survey.

1960-1969 28
The decade of dams. 9 3
U.S. companies and
agencies built more 23
than percent
(1,60) of the 14 14
nation's dams
3
during this era.
The second
most prolific era 1 6
of dam building
4
occured prior to
100. 12
76 10

Kansas
has 6,0 dams, second No da
3
only to Texas' ,10. 2
Thirty percent of Kansas'
dams were built before
100.

n States that have removed 51 dams or more 10

n States that have removed 1 to 50 dams
n States that have removed 1 to 0 dams
n States that have removed 11 to 0 dams No data

n States that have removed 10 dams or less
* All data retrieved from American Rivers (americanrivers.org) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (usace.army.mil).

DAMnation
For the first time since the beginning of last century,
dams are coming out of rivers as quickly as they
are going in. The states that have embraced
this change have used it repeatedly, 14
460+
The number
as this map, compiled
of dams
11 from American 14 removed
Rivers data, 15
since the
125 shows. 10
16 July 1, 1
40 1 removal
19 of Maine's
1 163 11 Edwards
48 15 Dam on the
23 1
Kennebec
1 3 River.
3 18
5

12
25
ata
5

83,983
4

2 1
No data

4 The number of dams the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers
counts in its official inventory.

4

2,500,000
The National Research Council's total estimate of
U.S. dams, including small dams, which are not
claimed or maintained. From: National Research Council's 1992 report,
Restoratoin of Aquatic Ecosystems: Science, Technology and Public Policy.

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A new equilibrium
Even after a century of impoundment, nature will discover balance.

W
e’ve all broken our parents’ hearts. At be messy. But we still need to let the river go.
least once. On that day when we told When the dam is new, we fool ourselves into
them they did a good job and then told believing the structure and the lake it formed will
them goodbye. be with us forever, that it has become a part of our
Of course we weren’t gone for good. We’d visit on the landscape.
weekends, for sure. And all the But dams,
major holidays. like children,
But they wept anyway because age. After 50
they knew the relationship had years, their
changed. They knew that we concrete
had begun our quest for a new rapidly begins
equilibrium. to decay and
Getting there, our parents eventually
knew, would be messy. It would crumble.
be replete with broken cars, fold-out beds, empty Sediment, intended to provide mortar for the river’s
refrigerators, break-ups and two-week notices. downstream banks and nutrients for its species,
A river’s re-entry into its native riverbed can be instead halts at the dam, accumulating every day like
every bit as volatile. Before establishing its own new cobwebs in the attic.
equilibrium, it must deposit many decades worth of The existing riverbed, vulnerable to the force of
sediment, scour lakeside wetlands, and drain. It can floods now, changes regularly. Microscopic life, whose


Landscape architect Cody ErhartCreek before and
Sullivan created these images
to depict Sullivan Creek’s Millremoval, its current state,
after Pond in according to the
two and then 10 years after removal of Millarchitecture
scaled landscape Pond Dam.
of Cody Erhart.

survival has depended on that sediment for millions go?” we ask. “What will those migratory birds eat?”
of years, disappear. So do entire salmon and steelhead Yes, the transition is always a little messy. Despite
runs. all the scaled models, expert analysis, environmental
Of course, these effects are invisible to most of us. impact statements, it’s always a little uncertain. At
What we see is the lake—our favorite picnic spot, the least in our own minds.
place where, that one time, we caught a 10-ounce But that doesn’t mean we should stop it. Nature
Small Mouth Bass. designed rivers to run
The place that could to the sea the same way
take the burn out of our parents raised us
the hottest summer to explore the world, to
day. become self-sufficient.
This is what we see And until a river gets
when we gaze upon there, it will always be
the lake. And so, we out of balance.
try to hold onto it. “In the lifetime of a
Even though the dam river, a dam for 100
no longer produces years matters very
electricity. Even though its fish passage system has little,” says U.S. Forest Service hydrologist Gordon
aged so mercilessly, it now kills the very fish it was Grant. “From a geological perspective a dam that sits
originally engineered to protect. for 100 years does not cast a long shadow.”
And to make the dam owners think twice about But letting a dam go allows the river to develop what
removal, we do what our parents did to us when we Grant calls “a new equilibrium.”
left their homes: We fret over the transition process. “Fundamentally, once you remove a dam, you
“But where will you stay?” they asked us. “How will initiate a set of processes, some fast, some slow, by
you eat?” which a river re-establishes a new equilibrium,” Grant
With dam removal, the vernacular is different, but explains. “This new equilibrium may have never
the message is the same: “Where will all that sediment existed that way before.”


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In 2010, PacifiCorp began
removing Hood River’s Pow-
erdale Dam, pictured below.
photography by sam drevo

Natural consequences
Eventually, most of the nation’s two million dams will be removed.
The question is: At nature’s whim or human’s engineering?

T
he Ka Loko Dam never should have breached In the sleeping hours of March 14, 2006, however,
because its owner never should have graded the worst of greed, poor regulation and nature
over its spillway. conspired to unleash 300 million gallons of water in
It never should have become dilapidated a series of 30- to 70-foot waves. The torrent uprooted
because state inspectors should have evaluated it trees, devoured the land and drowned seven people—
every five years, and forced its owner to maintain it. one of them a pregnant mother and another a 2-year-
And it never should have had to hold so much water, old boy.
because even in Kauai—Hawaii’s Garden Island—the Compared to Arizona's Mead and Washington's
heavens rarely dumped so much water for so long. Ross, the Ka Loko Reservoir was tiny. It measured
None of these three culprits should have ever less than 20 feet high. But it proved—as history has
converged. so many times—that pent up energy can wreak a


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Oregon’s Sandy River is
recovering, according to the
models, illustrated below.
illustrations by pacificorp

disproportionate amount of damage. They’ve aged. Sediment has built up behind them.
The United States has 83,983 dams listed on its Their power generation significance has dwindled.
inventory and, some say, a couple million more, which And they need to be retrofitted.
are not. “To own and maintain a dam it costs a lot of money,”
Of those inventoried dams, more than 26,000 pose says David Hamilton, the water section manager of
a significant or high hazard to the people and lands Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources and

that are downstream, according to the U.S. Army Environment. “It’s cyclic when you need money. You’ll
Corps of Engineers. And most of those, roughly 73 go years and years and there’ll be need for investment.
percent of them, are privately owned. This requires And all of the sudden one year, big years, they drop.”
each respective state to inspect dams for weaknesses In 1986, floods swept through much of Michigan,
and order the owners to maintain them. But just toppling several dams, which destroyed property and
like the Ka Loko Dam, states don’t always have the lives. In response, Michigan passed the Dam Safety
budgets and the man-power to regularly inspect the Act of 1989, which accomplished several things.
dams. And owners frequently don’t have the money The act set standards for dam safety. It established
to repair them. classifications for the dams—high potential for failure
The result is a dangerous concoction of ever or low potential—and it required regular inspections.
weakening dams, growing downstream populations Budget shortfalls have forced the department to
and more surface water, which combined can devastate focus on the high potential and significant potential
the land and lives of the people who live beneath them. dams. Despite the shortfalls, Michigan has removed
This is why so many owners are resorting to a third 40 dams through 2009, behind Pennsylvania (163),
option: Removing the dams. Allowing rivers to return Wisconsin (125), California (76) and Ohio (48).
to their natural states. “That program is making sure dams in place are safe,
Michigan is one of the nation’s leaders when it comes well-maintained and regularly inspected,” Hamilton
to dam removal. It has an estimated 2,500 dams, 114 says. “When we find dams that are not safe we say
of which produce hydropower. Because so many of something needs to be done with them. We work with
Michigan’s dams were built more than a half-century the owner to make sure they fix the dam or that they
ago—and, as in the case of the Boardman River, remove the dam. Our position as an agency is we don’t
more than a century ago—many have outlived their care whether the dam stays in place or is removed.
purposes. But if it is in place, it needs to be safe.”


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For more federal information
on hydropower, visit: www.
eere.energy.gov
illustration by the u.s. department of energy

How do they compare?
Run-of-river and impoundment dams differ more
in industry semantics than practical application.
RUN-OF-RIVER projects facilitate the energy of IMPOUNDMENT dams rely on stored water, which
the river’s current to produce electricity. Nearly all when needed generates electricity. Impoundments
require a small reservoir to divert water through a are the most common form of hydropower plants and
penstock or flume and into turbines, and then return consist of the world’s largest projects.
the water downstream. ADVANTAGES: Provides stable and predictable
ADVANTAGES: Require less flooding. Produces energy supply. Produces relatively insignificant
fewer carbon emissions. carbon emissions. Public scrutiny ensures utilities
DISADVANTAGES: Their power supply can’t be construct and operate with significant mitigations of
coordinated with consumer-demand. “Eco-friendly” dam impacts.
label gives false sense of benign nature, despite minor DISADVANTAGES: Requires large-scale flooding,
flooding and destruction of ecosystems. which destroys habitats, blocks salmon runs and rots
ExAMPLES: Bonneville and Wells dams on the vegetation, which releases carbon dioxide.
Columbia, and most of British Columbia’s Independent ExAMPLES: Hoover and Glen Canyon, Rocky
Power Producer projects are run-of-river dams. Reach (Columbia), Three Gorges (China).


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U. of Minnesota’s Center for
Earth’s Surface Dynamics is
the place to go for models.
photography by gordon grant

Role of the model
W
hen a group of fishermen decided in prediction of a scaled, 60-foot-long, five-foot-wide
10 to remove a Rogue River dam, model of the Sandy River.
they didn’t conduct feasibility stud- When the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams come out
ies, environmental impact studies or starting in the fall 011, a 5-foot-long scaled model
sediment studies. All they did, was light the fuse. will guide the $51 million deconstruction.
Stream ecology has progressed in the last century The researcher involved with both of these models
and hydrologists today often rely on models to reduce is Gordon Grant, a research hydrologist from Oregon
uncertainty in large-scale projects. State University and the U.S. Forest Service. Below
The removal of Marmot Dam relied on the are his words on the models.

ACCURACY: We were surprised at how quickly the model. We wrote a paper on it. It’s great fun.
sediment [at Marmot Dam's removal] was evacuated PAPIER MAChE? The basic form is plywood with
under very modest flow conditions. About 20 percent concrete poured over the form and painted. The
of the total volume [of sediment] stored, was evacuated Marmot model cost $30,000 to $40,000.
during the first 48 hours. It came out very quickly. The WhO BUILDS ThEM: [The University of
physical model predicted that, but we didn’t believe Minnesota’s Center for Earth’s Surface Dynamics] are
it. On the river … the numerical models predicted masters of the model. [The Marmot model] took about
that sand would flush and gravel would linger … The a month to build, for a team of four to five people.
models predicted that pretty well. The team consists of lab techs and engineers. Lots of
TRIAL AND ERROR: [Physical] models are engineering is done with these models.
expensive and hard to build. We use them to test n To see video of the model’s construction and test go
ideas. No one had done this [removed a significant to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd2CfsFpjAU
dam with natural erosion] before. [The models] get and
run a lot. We ran 10 experiments with the Marmot http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTMW4-PVPI8


release
The Forest Service expended
more than 1,000 logs to
anchor the creekbed.
photography by gifford pinchot national forest


release
Check out http://www.
bpa.gov/corporate/
BPANews/ArticleTemplate.

Trout Creek revival
A day after removal of the Hemlock Dam, a young adult steelhead swims upstream

F
or 75 years, one picnic shelters, kiosks and
half mile of Trout
Creek lay buried in
hEMLOCK DAM other Forest Service assets.
Hemlock Dam came down in
sediment. The 22- n Removed 00 three days. The creek’s
foot-high dam had justified n Wind River is recovery was just
the 1935 drowning of this considered Tier I beginning. And much
section of the Wind River Key Watershed of its success relied
TROUT CREEK
tributary by generating n Project on the contributions
power for a 200-man logging exhausted 1,000 of humans—the same
camp into the 50s, irrigating logs for bank species that had
a conifer nursery into the 90s, reinforcement drowned the creek 75
and providing a swimming n Old growth years earlier.
hole warmed by its perpetual conifers from splash dam Using more than
exposure to the Columbia provided logs for bank reinforcement, 1,000 trucked-in logs and
River Gorge’s sunshine. plus milled wood for kiosks, signs and some of the old growth
But the warmth, which took picnic shelter conifers from the splash
the sting out of a summer’s n Removal re-connected upper 0 dam they had uncovered
dip for swimmers above the miles to lower two miles of creek during excavation, the Forest
dam, had evicted or killed Service rebuilt the Trout
the young steelhead below Creek riverbed and banks
the dam. The concrete, which had provided jobs and and incrementally pumped
electricity for decades, had also severed the creek’s water around the restoration zone and back into the
upper 20 miles from its lower two miles. Ultimately, river below the dam.
the dam contributed to the 1998 Endangered Species On that first day, U.S. Forest Service hydrologist
listing of the Lower Columbia steelhead. and project manager Bengt Coffin witnessed the first
And so after several years of studying the watershed, glimpse of a long recovery: A young adult steelhead
the Gifford Pinchot National Forest decided in approached the worksite and swam upstream
December 2005 to remove the dam and allow the through the rebuilt streambed.
creek to become again what it once was: the Wind Removal costs of Hemlock Dam were provided
River watershed’s most important habitat for native by the U.S. Forest Service, Salmon Recovery
steelhead. Beginning in July 2009, the James Dean Funding Board, the Yakama Nation, U.S. Fish and
Construction company toiled 17 hours a day for 40 Wildlife Service, Ecotrust, Mid Columbia Fisheries
days, excavating 2,000 dump truck loads (60,000 Enhancement Group, NOAA Fisheries and American
cubic yards) of sediment in a search for the original Rivers.
creekbed. “This project is a great example of the painstaking
Crews discovered the original splash dam that science behind our efforts to protect and enhance
lumberjacks used to transport timber downstream. habitat for fish. In this case, dam removal made
The Forest Service would use those buried cedars to perfect sense,” said Bill Maslen, BPA Fish and Wildlife
help anchor the recovering streambanks and to build official.


release
Glines Canyon Dam reveals
the wear of age. It traps 14
million cubic feet of sediment.
photography by thomas o’keefe

This time, it’s for real
Efforts to remove the Elwha River’s two dams began two decades ago. But
the August 010 announcement of a $-million contract gives advocates
genuine optimism for a 011 start date.

T
wenty years ago, Gordon Grant sat around the responsible for modeling the removal. “It’s been on
dinner table with fellow scientists, making the books for 20 years. The removal date has been
wagers on a napkin. pushed back four times.”
The bet: the fate of the Elwha River’s two The dams’ fifth removal date is October 2011. And
dams—the only man-made barriers obstructing the if Grant were sitting around the dinner table with a
pristine river’s source in the mountains of Olympic bunch of scientists and a spare napkin, the date he’d
National Park from its mouth at the Strait of Juan de scribble on that napkin would be October 2011.
Fuca 45 miles and 4,500 vertical feet downstream. “It does look like it’ll come out in the next year,” he
And Grant, being a skeptic, waited until the last of says.
those scientists had placed his wager. The delays resulted from similar—but more
“I, of course, would pick the one day after the last intense—issues that have delayed the removal of so
day claimed,” says the Forest Service hydrologist, many unproductive dams throughout the United


release
The announcement of a $26
million contract indicates
removal will begin late 2011.

States. Permits. Red tape. landsliding and bleeding for years to come.”
Now that the removal seems imminent, however, The best method, Grant says, is to remove the dam
Grant—and the group of scientists to which he 15 vertical feet at a time, then drain and to repeat this
belongs—has shifted his attention from the question process over and over and over again.
of when the dams will be removed to how. How do “If you do it in stages, if you allow the river to reach
you make thousands of tons of 100-year-old concrete equilibrium with each new stage,” Grant says. “Each
disappear? How do you delete 20 million cubic yards new stage redistributes the sediment. Each time
of trapped sediment from an empty lake? How do you you lower the dam, you have a new delta. It’s a very
undo a century’s worth of human interference? effective strategy.” This method releases about 25
Of the 600-plus dams percent of the sediment and
removed since the Kennedy redistributes the rest along the
administration, Glines
Canyon would represent
ELWhA DAMS sides of the canyon.
The dam would be gone in
the biggest. Elwha Dam n Owned by U.S. Dept. of Interior two years.
would be the second n Elwha built in 11; But the model
largest. Glines built in 1 revealed another
No one has ever done n Combined potential hazard. The
this. Except by model. capacity of .1 ELWhA current, given too much
In 2010, a team of megawatts GLINES
freedom, could wander
engineers from the n 1 million cubic away from the location
University of Minnesota’s yards of sediment; 1 of its buried riverbed
National Center for Earth’s million behind Glines and cut a new channel
Surface Dynamics built Canyon Dam through the sediment
a 35-foot long precisely n Removal would restore 0 miles of along one side of the canyon or
scaled model of the Elwha habitat the other. This could undercut
River out of concrete and n Both dams impound combined the canyon’s unstable
plywood. 6,500 acre feet of water sediment walls and result in
And since that time, a perpetual state of landslides
Grant has been testing a and salmon-choking turbidity
series of hypothesis with levels. To avoid this problem,
the model. Grant says, an excavator will cut a pilot channel
The first lesson he learned is the natural erosion through the middle of the riverbed.
method used during the Marmot Dam removal won’t And, if the 45-mile river replicates its 35-foot scaled
work for the Elwha and especially for the Glines model, the Elwha River could once again host runs of
Canyon Dam. Most of the 800,000 cubic yards of 400,000 salmon per year relatively soon.
sediment stacked up behind the 47-foot-high Marmot But it wouldn’t be the same river that it was before
Dam was front-loaded, as if consolidated at the end of 1910, when the Elwha Dam severed the river’s lower
a wheelbarrow. All it needed was a big gush of water 4.9 miles from its upper 38 miles.
to shove it out. The 17 million cubic yards of sediment “In the lifetime of a river, a dam that sits there for 100
behind Glines Canyon Dam, by contrast, is dispersed years matters very little,” Grant says. “Fundamentally,
throughout 140 of Lake Mills’ 415 total acres. The gush once you remove a dam, you initiate a set of processes,
of water would be more like the spout from a garden some fast, some slow, by which the river reestablishes
hose cutting a channel right through the middle of it. a new equilibrium. The new equilibrium may have
“It would leave a 115-foot-high canyon full of unstable never existed that way before. It’s a new river, a new
sediment,” Grant says. “The thing would be calving, equilibrium.”


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As models predicted, the
force of the river eroded the
stacked sediment quickly.
photography by portland general electric

Nudging natural erosion
The removal of the Sandy River’s Marmot Dam was a first for the natural
erosion method. And scientists have studied it carefully.

T
he 2007 removal of Marmot and trapping sediment. Lots of sediment.
Dam sparked a lot of theories Portland General Electric rebuilt it in the
about what would happen to late 1980s and by 2007, the dam had piled
the 43 miles of Oregon’s Sandy 800,000 cubic yards of sediment up to its
River below the 47-foot-tall hydroelectric brim and spread it a mile upstream.
project. But none of the hydrologists, This was the equivalent of 150 Olympic-
geomorphologists and engineers really sized swimming pools worth of sediment.
knew exactly how the river would digest Some forecast models were dire: They
all that sediment. predicted the river would require two- to
“No one had ever done this before,” said five years to disburse half of the sediment.
Gordon Grant, a research hydrologist And in the meantime, the sediment would
with the United States Forest Service. block salmon from downstream tributaries,
Since its construction in 1912, Marmot bury spawning beds and suffocate salmon.
Dam had been impeding fish passage But that’s not what happened. After 18


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To see time-lapse video, go
to: http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=CaNb2wouYUk

months of negotiation, members of the Hydropower The main concerns about blocking never
Reform Coalition, Portland General Electric and 21 materialized,” Esler says. “We had Coho spawning the
other signatories had considered two plans: Excavate next week. Literally. It was amazing. You could stand
the sediment mechanically or allow the river to erode up on the bridge, look downstream and feel like you
it naturally. were looking at a river in the Olympic Peninsula.”
The former plan would be expensive, would The Sandy River’s faster-than-hoped-for
require at least a year of excavation and would stir restoration has been the reward for PGE’s pursuit
up turbidity that could choke salmon for the entire of a modeled, yet untried method of removal. But
time. According to a the impetus for removal wasn’t
plethora of models, environmental.
the latter option
would be faster,
MARMOT DAM It was economic. PGE began
preparing to renew its license in
more natural and n organizations signed the 1998—six years before its
unprecedented. settlement agreement current license would expire.
“At the time, it n First major U.S. Its financial officers
represented the single dam to be removed quickly realized the 22
largest instantaneous with natural erosion megawatts of power wouldn’t
SANDY RIVER
release of sediment,” method justify the expense of the
Gordon Grant says. n 00,000 cubic modifications necessary to
Portland General yards of sediment relicense the project.
Electric began was -feet thick “It came down to simple
preparing for the and extended a mile exercise,” Esler says. “On one
removal late in the upstream side, we were considering
summer of 2007, n The 00 removal connected 100 what the agencies were asking for,
when the water was miles of river such as higher flows, rebuilding the
low. And on October n PGE donated 1,500 acres of land to fish ladder, a screen system that put
19, 2007, after a the public fish back into the river, the need
series of rainstorms to leave water in the Little Sandy,”
swelled the Sandy Esler says.
and strained the cofferdams, PGE provided the final “Then, with a simple Excel spreadsheet, we added up
push that allowed the river to once again control the the costs that we were going to do, plus maintenance.
riverbed. On other side, we considered the value of energy. It
“For me personally, it moved faster than I had was about a wash.”
anticipated,” says John Esler, one of PGE’s project The removal connected 100 miles of river, and led
managers for the removal. “Once the cofferdam was to the donation of 1,500 acres of PGE’s land to the
moved out of the way, the sediment just left. About public.
as fast as you could watch it. It came out amazingly “As much as the public complains about dams on
fast.” rivers, they get used to dams on rivers,” Elser says.
The next three or four storms continued to disperse “That’s the status quo. If we had not been as committed
the sediment. The fine sands, the stuff that can choke as an entity to see this thing through, there would have
or suffocate fish, moved through the system quickly, been 100 ways to stall this thing from happening.
Esler says. The team [at] PGE had to bulldog this to keep it on
The gravel never blocked side-channels. track. But it’s understandable. It was different. No one
It never cut off the tributaries. had ever done this before.”


Opposite page: Condit’s pow-
erhouse and surge tank will
all be eliminated as well.

time
to let it
Southern Washington’s Condit
Dam is 97 years old, in need
of repair and too inefficient to
justify the environmental and
economic expenses.
Photo by Thomas O’Keefe
go

F
ive years and three postpone- Just getting to this point has required the
ments after Condit Dam’s original collaboration of stakeholder groups,
removal date, PacifiCorp, the proj- and scientists from several state, federal
ect’s owner, received one of the and local resource agencies to study every
final go-aheads to remove the 15-foot- detail and consequence of removal.
high, 1-foot-wide wall of concrete from And though they all acknowledge the short-
the lower White Salmon River. term impacts of removal, they all agree it
The state order for this $ million removal is necessary for the survival of the White
project came October 1, 010 in the form Salmon River ecosystem and the restoration
of the Washington Department of Ecology of one of the region’s most prolific salmon
water quality permit. and steelhead habitats.

Photo by TomasO’Keefe Photo by Nicholas O’Neil Photo by ThomasO’Keefe

SEven million eggs White Salmon River 3.3 miles from its mouth with
1907: Biologists collect more than seven million the Columbia and about 40 miles from its source on
Chinook eggs at a hatchery near the mouth of the the southern slope of Mount Adams.
White Salmon River.
No more fish? oh well.
Harnessing the power 1919: After floods destroyed the original fish
1913: Northwestern Power Company builds 125-foot- ladder and its replacement, the dam’s owner absolves
high, 471-foot-wide Condit Dam to generate power for itself of fish migration responsibilities by paying the
processing local paper operations and to supply power Washington Fish Commission $5,000 for a mitigating
for a growing population. The dam, equipped with a fish hatchery. This extinguishes the local populations
wooden fish ladder, barricades southern Washington’s of native fall Chinook, coho and steelhead.


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Historic photographs show
construction, and the narrows
section before Condit

The federal power act the outcomes of the licensing process.
1920: Congress passes the Federal Power Act, which
creates the Federal Power Commission—now the New license, please
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission DECEMBER 27, 1991:
(FERC)—to coordinate hydroelectric PacifiCorp applies for a new
projects and maintain “reasonable, license to continue operation.
nondiscriminatory and just rates to the
consumer.” FERC modifies
A new lease PacifiCorp's idea
on power OCTOBER 1996: After
1968: PacifiCorp renews its license considering five options for
through FERC to operate the Condit Photo by Rebecca Sherman Condit Dam’s fate, FERC
hydroelectric project. The lease will recommends PacifiCorp’s
expire in 28 years. proposal to maintain the dam
with modifications.
Necessary imposition
1984: The U.S. Supreme Court rules Section 4(e) They all agree
of the Federal Power Act gives FERC no discretion SEPTEMBER 1999: Fifteen environmental groups,
to reject the conditions imposed upon a hydropower two tribal entities, and five government agencies
operator by federal land reservation managers, such negotiated a comprehensive agreement for an October
as the U.S. Forest Service. 2006 removal of what would be the nation’s largest
hydropower dam. PacifiCorp estimates removal will
Flower power cost $17.5 million. Environmental signatories include:
1986: The Electric Consumers Protection Act amends American Rivers, American Whitewater, Columbia
the Federal Power Act to give equal consideration to Gorge Audubon Society, Columbia Gorge Coalition,
the preservation of recreational, ecological, and other Columbia RiverKeeper, Federation of Fly Fishers,
values of natural rivers. Friends of the Columbia Gorge, Friends of the
Combined with the 1984 Supreme Court decision Earth, Friends of the White Salmon, Rivers Council
and a 2000 decision by the Ninth Circuit court, these of Washington, The Mountaineers, The Sierra Club,
interpretations of the Federal Power Act recognize Trout Unlimited, Wild Fish Conservancy, Washington
the rights of federal and state agencies to influence Wilderness Coalition.

Photos by PacifiCorp


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Condit Dam has a peak
capacity of 14.7 megawatts,
good for 7,500 homes.

It will come down, one day be fully evaluated before accepting.
OCTOBER 1999: PacifiCorp applies for extension of Raincheck
license to October 1, 2006, at which point PacifiCorp FEBRUARY 2005: All signatories to the Condit
would remove the dam. This increases the license Dam settlement agreement agree to postpone removal
term from 28 to 41 years. until October 2008. The extra time allows PacifiCorp
an extra two years to acquire
Send it all to permits and accrue $3.3 million
our landfill
FEBRUARY 2000:
CONDIT DAM to cover unanticipated permitting
and mitigation expenses.
FERC responds n Impounds . million cubic yards of
to environmental sediment Agencies
analysis by conducting n Built from 111 to agree
hearings on the array of 11 2006: National Marine
alternatives for Condit n Provides CONDIT DAM Fisheries Service and
Dam's fate. Klickitat, maximum capacity U.S. Department of Fish
Skamania counties and of 1. megawatts and Wildlife issued
U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton, n Settlement biological opinions
R-Wash. are concerned agreement was signed under the Endangered
with the short-term by groups in 1 Species Act, which agree
consequences of the n Removal would connect lower . the long-term advantages of
sediment-flush, the miles to the upper Wild and Scenic removal outweigh short-term
loss of Northwestern River miles impacts of the sediment flush.
Lake’s trout fishery n Was first designated Wild and Scenic
and lakefront property in 16; then again in 005
Long-term
values. benefits
The counties urge outweigh short-
FERC to mandate dredging and disposal of most of term costs
the four million tons of sediment blocked by the dam 2007: The Washington state Department of Ecology
and dumping this into Klickitat County's landfill. asserts in its Environmental Impact Statement
that removal will benefit salmon and steelhead
We will sue, if ... populations.
2002: Klickitat and Skamania counties threaten
to sue the Department of Ecology if the state agency Waiting on permits
allows PacifiCorp to violate the state’s water quality FEBRUARY 2010: As it waits for two water quality
standards by releasing sediment downstream. permits—one from the Army Corps of Engineers
and one from the Washington state Department
Federal Power Act of Ecology—PacifiCorp files for another one-year
loses power extension, postponing the removal date until 2011.
2005: After a decade of lobbying by utility operators,
Congress amends the Federal Power Act to weaken the Success is Within reach
power of resource managers to prescribe conditions OCTOBER 2010: Ecology issues the 401 water
that would mitigate the project's impact on fish. quality permit, one final barrier between fish and
The amendment allows any stakeholder to propose several miles of free-flowing White Salmon River.
alternatives to the prescribed conditions, which must This sets up a Fall 2011 removal.


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Except for leakage, the
narrows section has been
dewatered for a century.

Sediment solution
Beginning in 006, FERC has been trying to figure out what to do with
Condit Dam. Much of the problem lay in the . million cubic yards of
sediment buried beneah the surface.

I
n 16, shortly after PacifiCorp’s license and FERC realized the chronic effects of
expired, the Federal Energy Regulatory maintaining the dam would be far more destructive
Commission (FERC) reviewed PacifiCorp’s than the short-term trauma of removing it.
plans for bringing the 15-foot-high dam into In 1, a negotiated settlement between
compliance. environmental and recreational organizations and
At the time, both PacifiCorp and FERC rejected PacifiCorp advocated removal. After a second
removing the dam in favor of modifying it for fish environmental analysis, FERC agreed—with
passage. PacifiCorp quickly realized, however, some caveats. The next two pages summarize
removal was more cost-effective than modification the primary options considered in 16 and then
in 00.


release
The impacts of Condit Dam
reveal themselves in biology,
recreation, and ecology.

1996 FERC removal options build a 1,000-foot diversion tunnel and gate capable
Basic upgrades, $9.39 million of withstanding a five-year flood.
Upgrade turbines, generators, transformers and The project would require a series of cofferdams to
electrical auxiliaries for more efficiency. divert the water and the transformation of 50 acres of

Photo by Rebecca Sherman Photo by Rebecca Sherman Photo by Daniel Dancer Photo by Tomas O’Keefe

The plan would also create a tailrace barrier privately owned pear orchard into a sediment disposal
to protect fish. These upgrades would increase site.
megawatt production from 1. to 15. while reducing PacifiCorp would transport much of the one- to-
by 100 cfs the amount of water necessary for energy two million cubic yards of sediment and 50,000 cubic
production. yards of loose concrete to the disposal site using off-
highway haul vehicles. To get the sediment from the
FERC additions to upgrades, $24 million dry lakebed to the disposal site, the energy company
FERC’s version of the plan adds to PacifiCorp’s would have to build a .5 mile road for access. Total
proposal to include upstream/downstream fish time: one year.
passage, spillway modifications, seasonal ramp rates,
gravel enhancement, post-installation monitoring Removed, wet excavation, $83 million
studies, and converting the dam from a peaking/ This operation would require the .5-mile, temporary
pulsing operation to a run-of-river operation. road, 1,000-foot diversion tunnel and cofferdams. It
would also require a diesel-driven hydraulic cutter
Removed, sediment flushed, $35 million head, which would dredge into the entire lake, starting
To remove the dam, PacifiCorp would draw down the at the upstream end, working its way toward the
lake with scheduled spills for two to three months. For dam.
the next two years, a diversion tunnel would transport A floating pipeline would transport the dredged slurry
the lake’s remaining sediments around the dam and to the shore, where a pump would push it uphill to the
back into the riverbed. disposal site. With a connecting pipe, this disposal site
Once back, the current would push the sediment would drain the water and suspended-silt to a smaller
downstream, where it would likely form a delta in the treatment pond.
Bonneville Pools at the White Salmon’s mouth. FERC
eliminated this method as a viable option. Partial dam removal, $67.066 million
“The river would not flush these sediments from Partial removal would decrease the height of the
this wide shallow area for 10-0 years, creating an 15-foot dam to 5 feet and eliminate two million
unacceptable situation from a fisheries stand point.” cubic yards of sediment from the lake-bottom.
The plan would require an intake and pipeline, the
Removed, dry excavation, $72 million disposal of two million cubic yards of wet sediment
To de-water Northwestern Lake, PacifiCorp would and the construction of a new hydropower diversion


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n RESTORE n Winter 011 n www.hydroreform.org Photo by Thomas O’Keefe

release
Husum Falls and Double Drop
are a few of the rapids that
attract thousands of paddlers.

at the head of Northwestern Lake that would release the advantage of a dry lakebed. The dam would be
00 cfs into the .-mile bypass reach. This would gone in one year. FERC predicts this method would
provide full fish passage and eliminate the need to release a lethal amount of sediment downstream that
remove the trapped silt. would eliminate entire fish populations, scour a .-acre
The signature of the partial removal option is the wetland and, for two years, bury the spawning beds
construction of a waterfall directly downstream of the at the Bonneville Pools at the mouth of the Columbia.
removed dam. PacifiCorp would mitigate these temporary impacts
The intent of this system is to allow upstream and through engineering, fish capture and hatchery, and
downstream fish and kayak passage. the development of several programs.
—FERC Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), “In the 16 FEIS, we concluded that the no-
October 16; retrieved from: http://elibrary.ferc.gov/ sediment treatment would be unacceptable because
idmws/common/OpenNat.asp?fileID=11010 it would result in the long-term (10-to 0-year)
2002 FERC removal option deposition of sediments …” the 00 FERC EIS says.
1.) Settlement Agreement: Twenty-three signatories “[T]he issue [with no sediment treatment] is where the
agreed to cap PacifiCorp’s liability at $17.15 million (in sediments are deposited, not how they get there.”
1999 value). The plan calls for PacifiCorp to excavate The plan earned the support of vested interests,
a 1-foot-high by 1-foot-wide drain tunnel at the ranging from those representing conservation and
base of Condit Dam. Models predict this would drain fishing to utilities and the Yakama Nation. FERC
the lake at a rate of 10,000 cubic feet per second amended the settlement agreement with additional
and would flush 65 to 0 percent of the sediment mitigations. This plan provides the blueprint for
downstream. In six hours, Northwestern Lake would removal in October 011.
be gone. --Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. (2002).
Using rock-quarrying techniques, PacifiCorp crews Final Environmental Impact Statement. Washington
would then remove the dam and power station with D.C. pp. B-6.

Photo by Thomas O’Keefe


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The end of an era began with
deconstruction in 2007 and
with a 2008 organized breach.


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The $225 million settlement
to remove Milltown Dam was
reached in 1998.

Undoing the harm
Mining turned Milltown into one of the nation’s largest Superfund sites.
The removal of -year-old Mill Town Dam is changing that.

A
few months after copper mining tycoon of 2006. Crews initiated the drawdown process in
William Clark had completed the Milltown 2007 by first excavating 700,000 cubic yards of toxic
Dam in the summer of 1908, a series of sediment. They breached the dam in 2008. And in
torrential rains flooded the Clark Fork the coming years, the river will redeposit 300,000
Valley, washing millions of tons of non-toxic sediment
tons of mine waste from the downstream.
Butte shafts—arsenic, copper, MILLTOWN DAM “We all know Montana is
lead, zinc—toward the base of perfect,” Sen. Max Baucus,
n 00 removal reconnected Clark
Mill Town Dam. D-Montana, told a crowd
Fork and Blackfoot Rivers
For the next 100 years, the gathered at the
n Milltown
toxic sediment contaminated dam during the
Dam part of
anything it contacted—river March 2008
West’s largest
water, drinking water, aquatic breach. “And
Superfund site MILLTOWN DAM
life, and the sediment that today we are
n All but
accumulated at the dam every making it more
seven Montana
second of every day. perfect.”
Superfund sites
By 2008, scientists estimated In time,
are mining related
6.6 million cubic yards of 200,000 fish—
n ARCO took
sediment had settled at the trout, suckers,
responsibility for part of cleanup
dam’s base. And every once pike minnows— will swim
n To see video, go to: http://www.
in a while, a flood or an ice past the dam. And already,
youtube.com/watch?v=ISLInzprzM
jam would send a pulse of scientists have marveled at
toxic water over the dam and how quickly aquatic life has
downstream, resulting in rebounded in the renewed
periodic destruction of fish and river.
insect populations. “Over the last few years, almost three million cubic
This happened in 1996, when an ice jam scoured the yards of sediment has gone, and remediation is almost
toxic sediment from above the hydroelectric dam and complete,” Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks biologist
gushed it downstream. Dave Schmettering told The Missoulian and a crowd
The resulting fish kill—combined with contaminated of fishing guides last March. “And it’s had an effect on
drinking water and a 1983 Superfund listing— the watershed.
compelled the Environmental Protection Agency to The impacts of the dam removal are now behind
order in 2004 the dam’s removal, and the dredging us by a couple years. We’re going to see lots more
and disposal of the sediment. diversity, and not just the pollution-tolerant insects
The $225 million project began in the summer or the ones that were limited to certain substrates.”


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Removal of Cove Dam provided
30 miles of critical habitat to a
threatened species.
photography by idaho parks and recreation

A fair trade
To pay for the removal of the Bear River’s Cove Dam, conservationists
had to give up 1 cfs. In return, they got 0 miles of restored river habitat.

U
p until October 2006, the Bear River began
its 500-mile journey to the Great Salt Lake in
eastern Utah’s Unita Mountains, 100 miles
away. Along the way, the river visited Wyo-
ming and Idaho, and then Wyoming again before it
circled back into the state of its origin and spilling into its
destination.
In those 500 miles, the Bear River plummeted over six
dams and, for 26,000 feet, funneled through an open,
concrete and wooden flume. The Bear River’s journey from
the Unita Mountains to the Great Salt Lake is still basically
the same today as it was in September 2006—except for
one small, but significant detail: It now plummets over five
dams, not six. And no longer does it have to funnel around
Black Canyon in a six-mile-long wooden flume.


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The key to agreement was
17 cubic feet per second of
water.

This, due to a creative solution proposed by an Both sides took the deal.
energy company official and the willingness of The agreement freed up 30 miles of river, restored
conservationists, such as Idaho Rivers United, habitat to the threatened Bonneville Cutthroat Trout,
American Whitewater and Trout Unlimited, to work and guaranteed whitewater releases for paddling
with it. enthusiasts. “Reestablishing as much connectivity as
PacifiCorp had agreed in 2002 possible will help that species
to strongly consider removing the to survive,” says Kevin Lewis,
unproductive 26-foot-high by 140-
foot-wide Cove Dam and all of its
BEAR RIVER conservation director for Idaho
Rivers United. “Reestablishing
facilities. But that removal would n Cove Dam a habitat where fish can move
have cost the company more than included a 6,000- up and down the river is a big
$3 million. foot flume, through win.”
And PacifiCorp hadn’t included which the entire river A hundred years ago, the
the costs of Cove Dam’s removal in was transported to Bonneville Cutthroat Trout
its budget. The only money it could a powerhouse at migrated freely through
devote to its decommissioning the bottom of Black the Bear River.
would have to come from other Canyon. They were easy
funds, such as the habitat n 006 removal to catch, highly
mitigation fund. restored 0 miles of COVE DAM nutritious and
“No one wanted to give up habitat for the native plentiful to the
their fund,” says Charlie Vincent, Bonneville Cutthroat point of being a
a regional representative for Trout. nuisance. For 70
American Whitewater. “So we n $ million-removal years, starting
looked at grants. But grants are was paid for by extra energy in the 1850s, communities
for thousands of dollars. Not produced from 1 cfs. near the Bear River relied
millions.” n Was one of six on the 500- on the Bonneville Cutthroat
After 10 months of dead ends, mile-long Bear River. Trout for food and for trade.
PacifiCorp project manager Monte n Cove Dam was built in the And that intense reliance,
Garrett asked if the signatories World War I era. combined with six World
would be willing to give PacifiCorp War I-era dams, strained
17 cfs of water. the species’ survival. Now, it
Up until 2002, you see, is listed on Utah’s Sensitive
PacifiCorp had the right to funnel all of the water Species list.
around the six-mile-long Black Canyon and pump it The removal of Cove Dam, however, represents a
through a powerhouse at the end of the gorge. possible comeback point for the Bonneville Cutthroat
The agreement of 2002, however, mandated the Trout. And the opportunity revealed itself in the non-
release of 80 cfs into Black Canyon—an amount functioning flume of Cove Dam.
devoted to restoring some habitat for the Bonneville “The flume had become a significant maintenance
Cutthroat Trout. Garrett calculated that PacifiCorp problem,” says Dave Eskelsen, spokesman for
could pay the $3 million removal bill with the extra PacifiCorp’s subsidiary Utah Power. “It would have
revenues generated from an additional 17 cubic feet required wholesale maintenance construction. As
per second of water. we looked at the work required to operate Cove, it
The environmental groups concerned with the made more sense for our electricity customers to
health of the fish, in turn, realized habitat recovery decommission the project than to perform this kind
could work with 63 cfs, nearly as well as with 80 cfs. of work needed to keep it running.”


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Gold Ray Dam, pictured
below, was the last of the four
Rogue River dams to fall.

The Rogue runs wild
In a matter of three years, four of the Rogue River’s five dams
have become non-existent, freeing up more than 150 river miles.

S
ince the end of the last century, some them.
dam removals have required a decade of But these were all unfulfilled promises.
coordination and negotiation. It requires “The salmon piled up below it and wouldn’t go
scientific analysis of stream habitat, through the dark tunnel of a fishway,” wrote local Glen
spawning beds, sedimentation, turbidity and Woolridge in his 1982 book, The Rogue: A River to
countless other details to which most humans are Run. “It destroyed more salmon than the commercial
oblivious. Deconstruction itself can cost millions of fishermen ever caught.”
dollars and much more time than exists on the dam- And so, in 1912, a group of vigilantes dynamited
owner’s license. a portion of the Ament Dam. In 1921, it was legally
But in 1902, all removing a dam required was a removed, the first of the Rogue River dams to be
group of angry men and a few sticks of dynamite. removed. In the nine decades since, four of the
The Golden Drift Mining Company had promised Rogue River’s dams have aged into obsolescence
the people of Grants Pass, Oregon, that its dam would and expensive maintenance. This combined with the
provide the community with irrigation water and Rogue’s status as one of the nation’s original eight Wild
power generation. The fish tunnel would still allow and Scenic Rivers and Oregon’s most active salmon
salmon to run the river freely, the company assured run, has encouraged dam owners to take them out.


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Just one dam remains between
the upper Rogue, pictured
below, and the Pacific.
photography by rich bowers

GOLD hILL, JULY 2008 a means of providing irrigation water
Even after the Gold Hill Dam
stopped producing electricity
ROGUE RIVER to local farmers. The installation of
12 irrigation pumps, which provide
in the 1970s, the city of Gold n Was one of the original water to 7,500 acres in the Grants
Hill kept it around for water eight rivers Pass valley, however, rendered
diversion. But in 2006, the included in the 89-year-old dam useless. In
eight-foot-high dam lost that the 16 April 2009, construction crews
purpose as well, when the city Wild and ROGUE RIVER
began the five-month process
installed a pumping station Scenic that re-connected an additional
to deliver its water, allowing Rivers Act. 50 miles of river.
the Rogue's second-greatest n Rogue
hindrance to fish passage to be is Oregon's GOLD RAY, AUGUST 2010
removed. most After Gold Ray Dam stopped
prolific salmon spawning river. producing hydroelectricity in 1972,
ELK CREEK , JULY 2008 n Removal of four dams freed Jackson County, Oregon, assumed
Not so long ago, Elk Creek 150 miles of river and more responsibility of this 106-year-old,
provided spawning habitat for than 500 miles of tributaries. 38-foot-high dam from Pacific Power.
30 percent of the Rogue River’s n The Rogue's water quality Maintenance costs quickly convinced
Chinook and coho. But in the is rated between 5 and the County to decommission the dam
1980s, construction began— on the Oregon Water Quality and remove it.
and 80 vertical feet later halted Index. So did the Oregon Department of
on the Elk Creek Dam. The Fish and Wildlife’s listing of the dam
massive concrete obstruction as the state’s fifth-highest priority for
blocked fish travel for 30 years and offered no benefit removal or modification. In August 2010, with the help
in return. In July 2008, the Army Corps of Engineers of $5 million of stimulus funds, construction crews
blew a river-wide notch in the dam with a series of drained a slough causing a cofferdam connected to a
blasts, enabling that portion of river to flow free. sand spit to fail.
Most of the slough drained, which exposed the
SAVAGE RAPIDS, OCTOBER 2009 original log dam and freed up more than 157 miles of
The Savage Rapids Dam replaced the Ament Dam as the Rogue River.


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The 2009 removal of Savage
Rapids Dam reconnected 500
miles of stream.

Survival is more likely
For fish, the removal of Savage Rapids Dam
means a better chance at life.

I
f you’re a juvenile Coho is the other half of that label.)
making your way along
Oregon’s Rogue River
SAVAGE RAPIDS It is also part of the reason a
salmon traveling the Rogue after
to the two-year-long n Dam impacted 500 miles 2009 would no longer encounter
feast awaiting you in the of upstream the gauntlet that once was
Pacific Ocean, you’d have spawning habitat Savage Rapids Dam.
already survived as many as n Removed But the main reason you,
three other dams. And you 00 ROGUE RIVER the juvenile coho, no longer
might be feeling good about n Economists have to worry about that
that. expect the wild 3.5-mile traverse and the
That good feeling would river will lead murderous elevator is that
disappear at river mile to $5 million the dam had simply become
107, however, when you’d of additional obsolete. It was built in 1921
encounter something of economic activity to provide irrigation water
a medieval fish gauntlet. Was primarily devoted to the Grants Pass agricultural
In the 3.5-mile placid to irrigation community. It never provided flood-
pool just ahead, you’d control or electricity. And its costs
see a congregation of far out-weighed its benefits.
pikeminnow, the predator “A lot of people lead more with
that accounts for so many of your fellow species emotion and don’t want change,” said Grants Pass
deaths every year. Hovering above you, you’d sense Irrigation District Manager Dan Shepherd in a
the acute attention of a Great Blue Heron or two. And WaterWatch short film about the Savage Rapids
all around you, you’d see nothing but placid water removal. “But the district had to look at change to be
with few places to hide. Your prospects suddenly able to survive and go into the future. There would be
seem hopeless. in the future some very big costs to keeping the dam.
But millions of years of evolution have programmed Which is no doubt above the districts ability to do it.”
you to continue. And so you do. Often at your peril. Contingent on an agreement for the irrigation
If somehow you survive the 3.5-mile traverse, your district's ability to provide irrigation water through
fate hinges on the functionality of an 88-year-old fish- a new 12-pump system, the Bureau of Reclamation
elevator. You might feel safe here. But you shouldn’t. began removing the dam in 2006. It completed the
Instead of depositing juveniles in the bubbling pool $40 million removal in October 2009.
below the Savage Rapids Dam, the elevator sometimes The elimination of Savage Rapids Dam re-opened
deposits them into the dam’s pumps or into its turbines. 500 miles of salmon and steelhead spawning habitat
Either route ends with the same result: death. on upstream tributaries, including an additional 50
This is half the reason federal fish agencies referred miles on the Rogue itself. This has fish biologists
to this 88-year-old dam as the Rogue River’s most estimating the annual return of an additional 114,000
prolific fish-killer. (The dam’s convoluted fish ladder adult salmon and steelhead to the river.


release

SAVAGE RAPIDS DAM

WaterWatch is a coalition member and a front-row advocate for all Rogue River dam removals.
To see video of the dam’s removal, check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdCfsFpjAU


RESPONSIBLY REVIVING AMERICA'S RIVERS THROUGH DAM REMOVAL

RESPONSIBLY REVIVING AMERICA'S RIVERS THROUGH DAM REMOVAL

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