Jeffrey F. Mount, Founding Director of the Center for Watershed
Sciences, University of California – Davis I had the great
pleasure of being up in the Olympic Peninsula for the Elwha Dam
removal ceremonies a few weeks ago. With the Native American
tribes singing songs to welcome the salmon back, and innumerable
dignitaries pontificating and bloviating, it was a great
celebration that culminated when an excavator punched the first
hole in the Elwha Dam. But what, if anything, can we here in
California learn from this effort in Washington? As background,
the Elwha River flows from the Olympic National Park into the
Straits of Juan de Fuca, just west of Port Angeles. In 1913 the
Elwha Dam was completed. In 1927 the Glines Canyon Dam was
constructed upstream. These two dams were built to provide
electricity used in a paper mill in nearby Port Angeles. The
dams blocked 90% of the watershed’s spawning habitat for
steelhead and salmon. Prior to closure of these dams, the Elwha
Chinook salmon runs supported large com