--Chad Love

An almost century-old dam that blocked crucial spawning waters for Pacific northwest salmon and steelhead came crashing down yesterday.

From this story in the Seattle Times:

With a massive charge of TNT detonated at the base of Condit Dam, the White Salmon River roared back to life Wednesday. Penned up and drowned under a reservoir since the 125-foot-tall dam was completed in 1913, the White Salmon quickly found its natural channel.

Engineers had predicted it could take up to six hours to drain Northwestern Lake, which covered 92 acres and stretched 1.8 miles upstream. But the river was free flowing within two hours of blasting through a drain tunnel at the base of the dam at 12:11 p.m. Thomas Hickey, senior hydro engineer for PacifiCorp, said all went as planned in the breach. And while the river was a muddy mess, sluicing out some of the 2.4 million cubic yards of sediment behind the dam, scientists had expected that to occur. They planned ahead, salvaging 679 adult tule fall chinook from below the dam last month, and carrying the fish above the dam to spawn.

"...Located three miles from the river's confluence with the Columbia, taking out the dam is expected to reopen about 33 miles of habitat for steelhead and about 14 miles for chinook, depending on how well different runs of fish contend with natural falls in the river.

Comments (5)

from dneaster3 wrote 29 weeks 6 days ago

that was cool!

0 Good Comment? Yes | No | Report

from jbird wrote 29 weeks 6 days ago

Cool.

0 Good Comment? Yes | No | Report

from BringEmNorth wrote 29 weeks 6 days ago

Very cool!!! I would have liked to see it in person!

0 Good Comment? Yes | No | Report

from Clay Cooper wrote 29 weeks 4 days ago

I'll bet the level of hydrogen sulphide was at toxic or near toxic levels and the stench? WOW!

I wonder how many more dams are no longer needed?

0 Good Comment? Yes | No | Report

from Carney wrote 26 weeks 4 days ago

I live in SW Washington and what hasn't seemed to make its way to the national news is that draining the lake has created an environmental nightmare down river from which the lower river may never recover -- a much worse situation than the dam ever posed to the environment.

+1 Good Comment? Yes | No | Report

Post a Comment

 

All submitted comments are subject to the rules set forth in our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

from Carney wrote 26 weeks 4 days ago

I live in SW Washington and what hasn't seemed to make its way to the national news is that draining the lake has created an environmental nightmare down river from which the lower river may never recover -- a much worse situation than the dam ever posed to the environment.

+1 Good Comment? Yes | No | Report

from dneaster3 wrote 29 weeks 6 days ago

that was cool!

0 Good Comment? Yes | No | Report

from jbird wrote 29 weeks 6 days ago

Cool.

0 Good Comment? Yes | No | Report

from BringEmNorth wrote 29 weeks 6 days ago

Very cool!!! I would have liked to see it in person!

0 Good Comment? Yes | No | Report

from Clay Cooper wrote 29 weeks 4 days ago

I'll bet the level of hydrogen sulphide was at toxic or near toxic levels and the stench? WOW!

I wonder how many more dams are no longer needed?

0 Good Comment? Yes | No | Report

Post a Comment

 

All submitted comments are subject to the rules set forth in our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.