Peninsula Daily News
and The Associated Press
See the dam removal video here: http://tinyurl.com/pdncondit .
A muddy stew of black silt and water roared through a hole that was breached today in a nearly century-old dam in the south Cascades, marking another step in ongoing efforts to restore habitat for threatened and endangered fish in the Pacific Northwest.
The more than 12-story Condit Dam on the White Salmon River is the second-tallest dam to be demolished in U.S. history to be breached for fish passage, according to the advocacy group American Rivers. The first is the Glines Canyon Dam, now being notched to oblivion on the Elwha River in Olympic National Park.
Condit Dam’s two turbines produced about 14 megawatts of power, enough for 7,000 homes. But its owner, Portland, Ore. based utility PacifiCorp, elected to remove the dam rather than install cost-prohibitive fish passage structures that would have been required for relicensing.
The White Salmon River winds from its headwaters on the slopes of Mount Adams through steep, forested canyons to its confluence with the Columbia River, the largest river in the Pacific Northwest. The 125-foot Condit Dam, which was built in 1913, blocked fish passage for native species of Pacific salmon and other anadromous fish that mature in the ocean and return to rivers to spawn, confining them to the lower 3.3 miles of the river.
Sirens sounded several times to warn about the impending blast shortly after noon today, then black silt and water began pouring through the hole that was breached with 700 pounds of explosives, splashing up the sides of the rocky canyon.
PacifiCorp posted a live video feed of the event on its website, and local residents, conservation groups, recreation enthusiasts held viewing parties to celebrate the event. Full Sail Brewing in Hood River, Ore., turned its Web cam toward the river’s confluence with the Columbia, but little could be seen except several boats floating nearby.
