Editor’s note 10/17: There’s an updated version of this video here.
My hobby this week has been watching the demolition of the two dams on the Elwha River via webcams. The long awaited dam removal is opening the pristine waters of the Elwha inside Olympic National Park to wild salmon for the first time in a century.
I cobbled together video of breaching the Glines Canyon Dam in four places, from October 3 to 6, using the slightly clunky webcam stream.
And here is a similar, longer video of trenching around the Elwha Dam, from mid-September to October 6.
In Cascadia, most of our problems, like these dams, are things we made ourselves. We can unmake them, too. All it takes is effort. A lot of it. Sometimes for a long time. It took more than two decades of tireless exertion by the tribes and others on the Olympic Peninsula to bring down these dams, which produced very little electricity while undermining fishing, tourism, and our natural heritage.
Videos captured from this website. Images are used by permission of the National Park Service.
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