After decades of discussion about removing two of the dams on the Elwha River on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, the National Park Service has finally signed a contract to do just that. The firm that won the contract, and signed the deal this week is Barnard Construction out of Bozeman, Montana.
The primary reason for removing the dams is restore the Elwha River ecosystem, once home to many salmon fisheries in the 1800s. The dams have choked off the salmon for almost a century, but don’t expect to see salmon swimming upstream any time soon. The project is expected to take at least three years, with the first pieces of concrete removed next fall, in 2011.
Though Barnard Construction signed the deal for $27 million, the project is expected to cost far more than that, with a total estimate of about $391 million. This total cost includes new flood-protection levees near the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe reservation, salmon hatcheries, and a water system for the city of Port Angeles.
The idea of removing the dams first began in the 1980s when the license for the upper dam went up for renewal with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Since then it has been a debated issue, and the ecosystem of the Elwha River has continued to suffer. With the removal of the dams, it is hoped that the chinook salmon will return to the Elwha River. In it’s heyday, the salmon caught on the Elwha were huge, some even reaching 100 pounds.
Read more about the dam removal project in the Seattle Times.
[...] been only a few weeks since the announcement that Montana firm Barnard Construction would be taking on the huge task of removing the two dams [...]