Proven Successes
The Elwha River in Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula is a dam removal success story. Two dams, the Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams, were removed between 2011 and 2014. A mere five years since dam removal began the river ecosystem has experienced a rapid recovery. Sediment has flowed downriver, recharging spawning beds and restoring the beach at the river mouth; vegetation is creating new riparian habitat on ground once covered by reservoirs; and fish and wildlife populations are rapidly rebounding. The first season after Elwha Dam was removed, more than 4,000 spawning chinook salmon were counted above the dam site, after 100 years of zero fish passage to the area.
Another success story is San Clemente Dam on the Carmel River. That long-term effort saw the removal of the dam in 2015 after two years of work to
reroute the river, relocate the reservoir sediments, and prepare the site for dam removal. It is the largest dam removal project in California's history and cleared the way for steelhead which are listed as "threatened" under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Results have been immediate here as well. Gravel and sediment have been deposited in the riverbed downstream of the dam site providing good habitat for steelhead to spawn. Steelhead have been observed throughout the river channel, both above and below the dam site.
A New Era... The era of dam building has passed and we've now entered the era of dam removal. With the eventual removal of the five dams highlighted in CalTrout's Top 5 California DAMS OUT Report, California's salmon and steelhead will realize their greatest opportunity to thrive in flowing rivers once again.