OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK — Barack Obama is invited. So is Jon Bon Jovi. And Robert Redford.
Olympic National Park wants “A-list celebrities” to attend a Sept. 17 ceremony heralding the historic tear-down of the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams, park spokeswoman Barb Maynes said last week.
Activities marking the occasion, including a weekend downtown festival featuring local food vendors and a scientific symposium at Peninsula College during the prior week, would reach a crescendo with a keynote ceremony complete with local, state and national dignitaries at one of the dams.
There, the first piece of the dam would be removed as a symbol of the demolition of the two dams, which are to be completely removed by Sept. 15, 2014.
The goal is to draw 5,000 to 10,000 people to the North Olympic Peninsula for a celebration staged at several venues in and around Port Angeles.
“This is going to be a great celebration because it’s about a great project,” Olympic National Park Superintendent Karen Gustin said Friday.
“We want to highlight Olympic National Park and the North Olympic Peninsula and reach out to people who may not know that much about the Peninsula and the park by inviting VIPs and dignitaries and engaging entertainment,” Gustin continued.
“A lot of different events will be going on at the same time, so people will have quite a bit of choices to choose from.”
So far, rocker Bon Jovi has been invited to play, and Redford has been invited to speak at a dinner gala tentatively set for Sept. 16.
It would be hosted by the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe, whose creation site was flooded by construction of the Elwha dam nearly 100 years ago.
Efforts to reach Bon Jovi and the actor and their representatives by phone last week were unsuccessful, and e-mail requests for information were not answered.
The featured band also might be a country act, Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce Director Russ Veenema said.
Veenema is hoping national sponsors can help bankroll some of the expense for drawing a national act to reduce the cost of tickets to the public, he said.
Civic Field at Fourth and Race streets in Port Angeles is being eyed as the concert site, Gustin said.
It can hold more than 3,500 spectators in the stands and on the grass depending on the size of the stage, said Port Angeles Recreation Services Manager Richard Bonine.
U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Belfair, whose 6th Congressional District includes Clallam and Jefferson counties, will attend, his representative said last week.
Dicks, a longtime supporter of the plan to restore the Elwha River to its wild state and bring back the legendary salmon runs, was instrumental in acquiring funding for the $351.4 million project.
Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s representative also confirmed that he will attend, and Gustin said National Park Service Director John Jarvis will be on hand as well.
Also invited were Sen. Patty Murray, D-Bothell, who is hoping to attend, and Sen Maria Cantwell, D-Mountlake Terrace, who said it’s too far in the future to say yes or no, their spokesmen said last week.
As for Obama, he even joked about salmon in an offhand criticism of bureaucracy in his State of the Union address last week.
“The Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they’re in fresh water, but the Commerce Department handles them when they’re in salt water,” Obama said.
“And I hear it gets even more complicated once they’re smoked.”
So how about Obama honoring, in person, a project intended to bring back salmon on a freshwater river once plied by 100-pound behemoths who coursed their way into the saltwater Strait of Juan de Fuca?
“It’s too early to know for sure about an event this far in the future,” a White House spokesman said Thursday.
Potential festivities for the celebration were reviewed Jan. 13 at a private meeting of 20 business, education and government leaders hosted by the park and led by Gustin.
The plans were described in a two-page draft outline titled “Celebrating the Future of the Elwha” that stated as its goal: “Engage 5,000-10,000 people in learning about and celebrating Elwha River Restoration.”
The removal of the first piece of a dam will be witnessed by “dignitaries, invited guests and as many members of the public as possible,” according to the draft plan.
It also could be streamed to a giant-screen TV at The Gateway center downtown and be followed that night with musical entertainment tentatively slated for Civic Field — featuring what park officials hope is a national rock or country music act.
“The idea of the weekend is to have it really feel like it involves the whole community,” Veenema said.
Events also may be held at Lake Crescent Lodge west of Port Angeles and the Sequim Holiday Inn Express, according to the draft plan.
All this celebrating will mark the beginning of the end for the most visible, dramatic part of the restoration Project: the $26.9 million decommissioning and removal, piece by piece, of the two dams by Barnard Construction Co. Inc. of Bozeman, Mont.
The intent is to restore the river’s once-thriving salmon run on more than 70 miles of the river’s main stem and tributaries.
The means to that end: conducting the largest dam removal project in the nation’s history and the second-largest ecosystem restoration project in the history of the National Park Service.
Salmon numbers on the Elwha have dwindled to 3,000 yearly from the 400,000 that teemed in the waterway before the 108-foot Elwha dam was completed in 1913 and the 210-foot Glines Canyon dam was completed in 1927.
They were built without fish ladders, blocking the pristine, nutrient-rich habitat just five miles upriver from the Strait.
A core group of those who attended a Jan. 13 meeting will help the park plan the event, park spokesman Dave Reynolds said.
Among those who attended were Diane Schostak, executive director of the Olympic Peninsula Visitor Bureau.
“The attention the event will bring to the area, that’s what we are in this for,” Shostak said.
“It does give us the compass point or the focal point for talking about this huge project and the implications it will have in the short- and long-term here and the bar it raises for the rest of the country as far as the environmental restoration that is happening.”
A follow-up meeting to the Jan. 13 get-together has not been scheduled, Reynolds said.
________
Senior staff writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
