Pictures and more of the article in the link

http://seattletimes.com/html/fieldnotes/..._100_years.html

She's all river now": No more reservoirs on the Elwha

Posted by Lynda V. Mapes


With a big shot of dynamite, the last of Lake Mills drained through what's left of Glines Canyon Dam last week. There's still about 50 feet of the Glines Canyon Dam standing. But the last of the once 210-foot-tall structure will be gone by May.

Today the river crashes over what's left of the dam in a waterfall. And while there is still a mixture of water and sediment that can't get past the remaining concrete yet, there are no more reservoirs on the Elwha. "She's all river now," Andy Ritchie, restoration hydrologist for the National Park Service said with a big smile.

Lake Aldwell, the former reservoir above Elwha Dam, disappeared last March, along with that dam.

The pace and scope of change has been breathtaking, as this amazing pairing of aerial photos by photographer John Gussman shows. Gussman is making a documentary film about the Elwha. He got started before dam removal began, and his comprehensive documentation of the river, the dams, and the watershed as the world's largest dam removal ever unfolds is invaluable......

Once that last piece of concrete is gone we could use a nice pineapple express to create a rain on snow event in the watershed and really clean her out.

Hell of a stump there.

Wow. That stump is impressive. The tree that once stood there was likely even more impressive.

It's gonna be awhile before the sediment is cleaned out.

However, when looking at the former Glines Canyon dam site, I couldn't help but think "That's a really great spot for a dam". Narrow canyon slots like that are almost extinct in this country. They're all underwater.........

to bad they were netting it still the other week.

Yeah, some newspaper needs to call out the Elwah tribe for netting when, at least as far as I understood it, there was to be no netting for 5 years.

Let her flow free!

Full slideshow of Gussman's images here

http://www.elwhafilm.com/LakeMillsIsDead/

I've been watching this project since 1968......the tear down was talked about back then but for reasons only known to "others", the "wheels of of the tear down project" moved ever so slow.

Time tells all......just sorry, I probably won't be able to see/enjoy/ the return of salmon, steelhead and searun cutthoat.

Gillnet the mouth of the Elwha? Does that sound like the right thing to do?

It's always the right thing to them when money is involved

It will be interesting watching the long term silt removal/deposit unfold.

One of the Oregon rivers that had its dam removed cleared the silt about 10 times as fast as had been predicted.

They're probably netting debris to prevent it from going into the Ocean.

RUFKM.....They are netting the Elwha???? For real????

I saw them personally about a month ago and have heard others reporting that they have saw them as well

Mebbe they were gathering broodstock for the hatchery?

Either way...I'd rather see them head up the river.

Fish on...

Todd

Looks like the silt and sediment should be moving downstream....will be interesting to see if the plantings done to stabilize the banks will hold....


http://waterdata.usgs.gov/wa/nwis/uv/?site_no=12045500&PARAmeter_cd=00060,00065

That Oregon River was the Sandy River, just outside Portland.

When Marmot Dam on the Sandy River was removed the sediment whad entirely filled in the reservoir. In fact, at the lip of the dam, the reservoir was only about 6 inches deep, although the dam was 40 feet high. When the dam was removed, the sediment moved downstream VERY quickly. Within two years, all the sediment had completely disappeared. It had become re-distributed throughout the river. You can't tell it was even there.

My guess is that something similar will happen on the Elwha. The vegetative re-plantings will stabilize most of the sediment, while the remainder of the material will get deposited off shore. The Elwha River will chew it up and spit it out very quickly. It will eventually end up on Ediz Hook and Dungeness Spit, where it belongs.......

This small muddy pool above the foot of the concrete remnants at Glines is all that's left of Lake Mills. Pretty f'n cool if you ask me.

Hmmm.....not exactly what I would say is all river yet.....fish can't get over what I'm looking at