On This Earth Day, Enjoy These Animations Of The Elwha River Dam Removals!

[hatrack]

http://www.interactive-earth.com/visualizations/glines_removal.htm


http://www.interactive-earth.com/visualizations/elwha_removal.htm

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Cool....

[pleah]

2. K&R

[gulfcoastliberal]

3. Very cool. I hope lots more dams are removed.

Reservoirs can be huge methane emitters. And they fuck up ecosystems.

[phantom power]

4. How do you dismantle a dam?

Very carefully!

[Cronus Protagonist]

5. Damn, that was a nice dam

Shame to remove it. I wish it couldn't be repurposed for something.

[pscot]

7. Riprap

That river starts in the heart of the Olympics, and once sustained runs of really big chinook salmon as well as steelhead and coho. The dams killed off those fish. It's past time for the dams to go. Maybe the fish will return.

[hatrack]

11. The 2 dams combined didn't provide enough power for a single paper mill

And, as someone below has noted, no shortage of water in the Olympic Peninsula. On balance, I'd prefer a couple hundred thousand salmon, though that won't happen for some years yet.

[4_TN_TITANS]

6. Are all dams necessarily bad?

Nature even has it's own dam-makers, but beaver dams don't generate near the electricity that the TVA dams here in TN do. The dams can't be worse than the coal that would be burned in their place.

[Cronus Protagonist]

9. I'm thinking of the world shortage of potable water

... that's a lot of water to lose.

[depakid]

10. One thing about the Olympics is that there's no shortage of potable water!

[Muttocracy]

13. Water isn't "lost" unless you inject it deep into the earth. It will just be moving more naturally.

[depakid]

8. Very cool

Looking forward to seeing the same thing on the Rogue.

[hatrack]

12. Speaking of which, Savage Rapids Dam - gone by winter - cofferdam construction under way

The removal of Savage Rapids Dam on the Rogue River will take another step forward next week.
The 39-foot high dam east of Grants Pass is one of several scheduled for decommissioning on the southern Oregon river, which before long could run unimpeded for 157 miles from the Pacific Ocean to the Cascade foothills.

On Tuesday, construction will begin on a cofferdam around the six northern bays of the dam, the next step in the $40 million project.

Once the coffer dam is in place, demolition of the 88-year old dam will begin. The north side of the dam is expected to be removed by October, and salmon, whose path was blocked by the dam, will be able to migrate freely for the first time in decades.

The federal government estimates the number of salmon reaching spawning grounds will increase by nearly a quarter once the dam comes out.

EDIT

http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2009/04/rogue_river_dam_removal_moves.html