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Month: February 2010

An immovable force

Switchback trail, Lower Elwha, February 2010

The Elwha River Valley has been undergoing some changes. The lower bridge has been demolished and rebuilt, and the lower and upper dams are scheduled for removal.  In the planning stages since 2000 or so, now they’re getting fastracked with the extra $54  million or so of stimulus money for the $308 million (estimated) project.    The reasons for the de-reclamation are myriad, but mainly this:  the salmon runs that once numbered roughly 400,000 adult returns in 70 miles  of available habitat at the turn of the last century now number less than 3,000 adult returns in under 5  miles of available habitat.

The dam was built under the direction of Thomas Aldwell, who had  previously bought up most of the  land around the river. With the help of Canadian financier  George Glines began construction of the Elwha Dam in 1910.  Aldwell build the dam on the cheap, not building fish passages and also deciding not secure it to the bedrock. On Halloween 1912 the foundation of the dam failed. The dam had been bedded on a deep gravel deposit and water pressure overwhelmed the the foundation, the resulting torrent destroying property and displacing yet again an often-imposed-upon settlement of the Elwha (Klallam) tribe. Various methods of repair were attempted but it was finally decided to fill the hole with debris and seal the fill with a poultice made of fir boughs and limbings weighted in place with dirt and rock. Later a layer of gunnite was poured on top of the fill. What resulted, and what still exists today, is a jimmyrigged assembly of trees, rocks, dirt and concrete held in place by gravity and the original concrete structure which bridges the blowout.

Although state law required fish ladders at the time the dam was built,  Aldwell sidestepped  the regulation by building a hatchery instead. The hatchery was short-lived, closing in 1922 after only a few years. (Another hatchery did open up much later, but under the auspices of the WDFW. ) The dam is keeping salmon from a combined 70 miles  of mainstem and tributary habitat.  At its peak, the Elwha once supported spawning runs of Chinook, Coho, Chum, Pink, and Sockeye Salmon as well as Steelhead, Cutthroat, and Bull Trout. Sockeye, Chinook, Chum, and Pink Salmon are all currently thought to be extinct or close to extinction on this run.

Despite the spectacularly disastrous and compunctionless supervision of Aldwell, the lake behind the lower dam was named for him anyway, most likely by himself personally.  But this too will soon pass.

While you were sleeping

Westbound Road, Joyce Quadrangle, February 2010

I took several months off to reboot. Not sure if I’m back in the swing of it so much as just temporarily re-engaged. One of my favorite dawn strolls has been…what’s a good word here? Destroyed? That really has too much finality to it. Re-purposed is a ghastly word but it suits, at least for the moment.

Chanteys

Rosario Strait, October 2009

My father was the keeper of the Eddystone light
And he slept with a mermaid one fine night
Out of this union there came three
A porpoise and a porgy and the other was me!
Yo ho ho, the wind blows free,
Oh for the life on the rolling sea!

One night, as I was a-trimming the glim
Singing a verse from the evening hymn
I head a voice cry out an “Ahoy!”
And there was my mother, sitting on a buoy.
Yo ho ho, the wind blows free,
Oh for the life on the rolling sea!
“Oh, what has become of my children three?”
My mother then inquired of me.
One’s on exhibit as a talking fish
The other was served in a chafing dish.
Yo ho ho, the wind blows free,
Oh for the life on the rolling sea!

Then the phosphorus flashed in her seaweed hair.
I looked again, and my mother wasn’t there
But her voice came angrily out of the night
“To Hell with the keeper of the Eddystone Light!”
Yo ho ho, the wind blows free,
Oh for the life on the rolling sea!

-traditional