3 Yrs After Elwha Dam Removals, Beaches & Coastline Rebuilding, Life Rebounding

[hatrack]

PORT ANGELES, Wash. — Anne Shaffer sits on the sandy shoreline of the Elwha River and looks around in amazement. Just two years ago, this area would have been under about 20 feet of water.

So far about 3 million cubic yards of sediment — enough to fill about 300,000 dump trucks — has been released from the giant bathtubs of sediment that formed behind the two hydroelectric dams upstream. And that’s only 16 percent of what’s expected to be delivered downstream in the next five years.

All of that sediment is already reshaping the mouth of the Elwha, which empties into the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the northern shore of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. The depth at the mouth of the river has changed by about 50 feet. Long, charcoal-colored sandy beaches have formed where there once only smooth, platter-sized cobblestones.

EDIT

The team scoops up bags of sand to test in the lab. So far they haven’t found evidence of sand lance spawning in this new habitat, Shaffer says. But they have found that surf smelt are spawning in areas where sandy substrate has built up. During recent fish census surveys of the Elwha’s estuary, Shaffer’s team counted baby chum salmon in numbers they haven’t seen in years, if ever, Shaffer said. And they’ve also found a number of eulachon, a type of smelt that was once an abundant food source for coastal tribes. The eulachon is now listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. “As soon as this habitat is available, these fish are using it,” Shaffer says. “None of us anticipated how quickly it would occur. I’d never seen a eulachon in the estuary before, but in the last three months, every time we survey, we see them.”

EDIT

http://earthfix.opb.org/water/article/an-undammed-rivers-sediment-flush-delivers-new-hab/

[Demeter]

1. It's not nice to fool Mother Nature

She'll get her way, every time. It's better to work with her than against her.

[hunter]

2. Taking down dangerous and environmentally destructive dams would be an excellent jobs program.

It could be a direct transfer from the military budget. Fewer soldiers and sailors, more young people doing civilian work. Fewer weapons systems, more projects that make the world a better place.