Originally published June 9, 2012 at 8:03 PM | Page modified June 10, 2012 at 11:04 AM
New life emerges as dams come down
Despite tons of sediment left behind, vegetation is beginning to transform a drained lake bottom in the Elwha River Valley.
Seattle Times staff reporter
STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Looking back in time: Andy Ritchie, Elwha restoration project hydrologist for the National Park Service, examines remnants of the pre-dam forest floor exposed by the Elwha's erosive power. Trees were logged and burned before the river was dammed in 1910.
STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Despite their pretty faces, these forget-me-nots are an invader, one of many nonnative plants already taking hold in the emerging landscape of the Elwha River Valley.
STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Moss fruits on the sediment left behind as the former Lake Aldwell drained. Mosses can help prepare the way for plants to come in, catching and holding seeds and retaining moisture.
See it for yourself: How to get out and explore the Elwha
To volunteer on native-plant revegetation, gathering seeds in the Elwha Valley, and helping in the greenhouse: jill_zarzeczny@nps.gov
To learn more, read our Seattle Times Special Report.
The Elwha River is forming a new landscape — and the first brave pioneers are quickly moving in.
Since last September, contractors have been taking two dams out of the Elwha River in a $325 million federal project intended to revive the Olympic Peninsula river, its wilderness watershed and its legendary fish runs.
Elwha Dam, the lower of the two, is already gone. Glines Canyon Dam, about eight miles farther upriver, will be gone by this time next year.
As the river is freed, it is rinsing out sediment stuck behind Elwha Dam for a century, shaping and reshaping a fantastic landscape of terraces and badlands. The river also is opening a window into a lost world as the Elwha exposes the valley bottom logged more than a century ago before Lake Aldwell was filled.
Everywhere, there are signs of new life. Scientists last week discovered the first wild, adult male steelhead — at least 35 inches long — arriving to spawn in the Little River, a tributary upstream from the old Elwha Dam site, where the river now flows free.
Visible amid the gray sediment flats are the green starts of new plants and the tracks of animals.
Millions of cubic yards of sediment trapped behind Glines Canyon Dam start coming out this fall: more big change is still ahead.
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