*The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured these natural-color images of Lake Aldwell
on August 10, 2004 (top), and May 12, 2012 (bottom). These images have been rotated so that north is to the lower right. Removal of
the Elwha Dam started in September 2011 and concluded in March 2012. The high-resolution images also show changes in Lake Mills
and the Glines Canyon Dam, which is expected to be completely removed by the summer of 2013.
Just happened to check in at NASA’s Earth Observatory this evening and saw a familiar site selected as the image of the day. Here’s a link to the page where you can directly compare both images as an overlay- http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=78953
Top image is pre-river recovery program, bottom is post-dam removal. The silting is impressive, more post-holocaust than recovery. I’ve walked the drained lake bed a few times, and probably need to a few time more before it fully sinks in.
*photos and caption courtesy http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov