We have to be very careful, though, of how we sell dam removal or any other fix for our resources. There is a big push to remove some Snake River dams. Can we point to the Elwha and say look how well it works? I don't mean for 100 pound fish because there are some toads there now (I have heard of 70s and 80s).

The Snake removal is being sold to the public as the savior for SRKWs. My money is on the idea that it won't help them a bit. At some point the taxpaying public is going to revolt at paying for things that don't work as sold.

My hopes for the Elwha were that the wild anadromous fish would recover to population levels commensurate with the needs of the ecosystem. My expectation is we will get "museum populations" of wild anadromous fish that we can go and loo at. And a lovely free-flowing major river.