What the River Teaches: Ten Years After Dam Removal on the Elwha River

Before and after of Glines Dam © John Gussman

Even before the last rubble was blasted away from Glines Canyon Dam on Washington’s Elwha River, two bull trout flashed past the dam site and were detected upstream.  These intrepid explorers were followed a few days later by the first Chinook salmon.  Then coho salmon appeared, then steelhead.

Once the monumental obstructions of two obsolete and illegal dams were erased from Olympic National Park’s largest watershed, the river’s gates opened.  The Elwha’s keystone creatures, Pacific salmon, flooded through to spawn and die in their ancestral waters.  With salmon came a pulse of renewal that reverberated through the ecosystem and revitalized the river from headwaters to estuary.  Elwha salmon also brought a commodity badly needed in our troubled time: a sense of hope to human communities near and far.  The Elwha has shown us a way to reconsider and reverse historic wrongs.

Ceremony marking the beginning of dam removal Sept. 2011 © John Gussman

Ten years after the largest salmon restoration to date, the rebirth of the wild and dynamic Elwha River ecosystem surges forward.  Rainbow trout, descendants of steelhead isolated for nearly a century behind the dams, have “rediscovered” anadromy.  Following some deep genetic memory, they migrated out to the Salish Sea and returned, fueling a resurgence of steelhead trout in the river.  Bull trout ascended the river’s canyons to its headwaters, seeking the coldest waters in which to spawn.  Chinook salmon, kings of the anadromous hierarchy, are spawning heartily in the middle reaches of the watershed but most have yet to make it through the river’s upper canyons.  As their numbers increase, they too will reclaim upriver spawning grounds.

At ten years, salmon recovery is still in its infancy; only a few generations of salmon have returned to the river.  But their effects are cascading through the ecosystem.  Increased productivity has been noted in American dippers and is likely in some 22 other animals known to feed on spawned salmon.  Elk, deer, cougar, and coyote are using the regenerating forests of the former reservoir sites, and ocean-derived nutrients are once more fueling the growth of streamside trees.

Large cedar stump in former Lake Aldwell lakebed © John Gussman

Other aspects of the restoration are churning forward as well.  Bottled up in reservoirs behind the dams were sediments: 24 million cubic yards of river stones, cobble, gravel, sand, and silt.  The bulk of them were let loose on the lower river following dam removal, filling and reconfiguring channels, opening new habitats, and reclaiming historic floodways.  Dead trees and woody debris trapped in the reservoirs hurtled downstream on winter floods and stacked up into log jams, forming pools and riffles, creating spawning areas for fish and sanctuaries for young salmon.

At the river’s mouth, a starved and eroded cobble beach has transformed into a lush estuary where sandy beaches, intertidal areas, and pools host schools of forage fish.  Herring, sand lance, sardines, anchovies, and surf smelt attract a cacophony of predators, including bald eagles, terns, ducks, river otters, seals, and sea lions. Dungeness crabs and other shellfish are adding this spectacular renewal.

Release of coho salmon into river above the lower dam © John Gussman

The Elwha Klallam people, who suffered the most devastating effects of dam construction — and who worked for generations to see the dams removed — began a limited ceremonial and subsistence fishery on the river in 2023.  The youngest generation of Elwha people are now growing up with a productive salmon stream, and like countless generations before them, welcome the return of salmon with prayers and celebrations.

When I look back nearly four decades to the early days of the campaign to “Free the Elwha,” it seemed the longest of long shots.  Elwha Klallam elders and leaders, tribal members from sister tribes, a small cadre of environmentalists, and a few local fishermen took on an entrenched government regulatory agency and a powerful commercial industry.  Even friends considered the effort impossible.  But the overwhelming power and presence of a magnificent river made an eloquent case for its own freedom.  The river spoke and the world listened.  Now a decade into recovery, we watch a bit awestruck as the Elwha teaches us its most vital lesson: how diverse communities can come together to heal a damaged earth.

Sunrise at the mouth of the Elwha River. More than 80 acres of shoreline and sandbars were deposited at the river mouth following dam removal. © John Gussman

Tim McNulty

Tim McNulty is a poet, essayist, and nature writer based on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Tim has received the Washington State Book Award and the National Outdoor Book Award, among other honors. His most recent book is the collaboration Salmon, Cedar, Rock & Rain: Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Learn more at timmcnultypoet.com.