The Elwha River in Washington was once home to the
largest salmon in the continental United States. But when the
Bureau of Reclamation built two dams in 1914 and 1927, 100-pound
chinook were unable to make the downstream passage and disappeared.
Now that the Clinton administration has allotted $111 million of
its proposed 1997 budget to tear down the dams, environmentalists
are ecstatic. “If this passes it will be a coup,” says Jim Wilcox
of Trout Unlimited, who has spent decades advocating dam
removal.
The inclusion of the money in the budget
was a victory for Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Interior
Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who found resistance to the dam
destruction minimal. Even a local pulp mill which buys electricity
from the dams favored the move.
Washington’s
Republican Sen. Slade Gorton, however, disagreed, arguing for fish
passages around the dams. Though that option would be cheaper, an
environmental impact statement drafted last year by Olympic
National Park says it wouldn’t fully restore the
salmon.
Gorton will have ample opportunity to
voice his opposition to tearing down the dams. The 1997 proposal
will not be debated until the 1996 budget is
resolved.
* Bill Taylor,
HCN
intern
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Dam destruction moves closer.
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