PORT ANGELES — The National Park Service is finally seeking proposals for the demolition of the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams on the Elwha River.
The Park Service, which expects to award a contract by August, announced the move late Wednesday evening.
It comes slightly more than 10 years since the federal government purchased the two dams on the Elwha River, and about 2 ½ years since the first major construction effort preceding the dams removal began.
“With today’s bid request for dam removal, we have reached yet another landmark on the way to freeing the Elwha River and restoring hundreds of thousands of fish to its waters,” said Olympic National Park Superintendent Karen Gustin in a prepared statement.
Asked if Park Service staff are excited about being close to having a contract awarded, Brian Winter, the Elwha River restoration manager for the federal agency, answered enthusiastically: “Absolutely.”
“This is a big step,” he said.
Removal of the Elwha and Glines dams, built in 1913 and 1927, respectively, was mandated by the Elwha Act of 1992.
Cost: $350 million
The project, now estimated to cost about $350 million, is the largest dam removal effort in the nation to date.
Click here to see the federal government’s requirements and discussion of the technical details of the Elwha River project: http://tinyurl.com/yceaks2.
For panoramic views of the inside of the Elwha Dam and Glines Canyon Dam electricity generation facilities, click here: http://tinyurl.com/ya2xlj2 .
Gustin said the cost is within the original range of $290 million to $360 million.
Winter said dam removal will begin in late summer or early fall 2011 and take about 2½ years to complete.
The demolition contract is estimated at between $40 million and $60 million.
A “pre-solicitation conference” is scheduled for April 22 at the Red Lion Hotel in Port Angeles.
Winter said the reservoirs behind the dams will be drained slowly, so no flooding is expected.
Draining will begin in summer 2011.
By fall of that year, the reservoirs are expected to be half full. That will allow the contractor to begin the demolition work.
The reservoirs will continue to be drained as demolition progresses, Winter said.
What will happen
Each dam will be demolished in a different way.
Glines Canyon dam, located in Olympic National Park, will be demolished incrementally from the top down.
Its reservoir, known as Lake Mills, will drained slowly as the dam is “notched down,” Winter said.
The Elwha dam, the older of the two, will be demolished after the river is diverted, and the reservoir, known as Lake Aldwell, is fully drained.
Winter said the river needs to be diverted because the fill behind the dam needs to be removed before it can be dismantled.
Those plans may change if the contractor comes up with a better, less costly proposal, he said.
Before dam removal can begin, the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe’s new fish hatchery must be completed, two levees must be improved and an outfall pipe at the Nippon Paper Industries’ Port Angeles mill must be lengthened.
The outfall pipe is for sediment removed from the river water Nippon uses to make paper. Since there will be more sediment in the water once the dams are removed, a longer pipe that reaches deeper water is needed, Winter said.
A treatment plant for river water sent to the mill and the state and tribal fish hatcheries will remove sediment but not to the extent Nippon needs, he said. No further treatment will be needed at the fish hatcheries, Winter said.
That treatment plant, known as the Elwha Water Facility, was deemed complete last Friday.
It, along with Port Angeles’ new municipal water plant, were the biggest construction projects needed for dam removal.
The city’s treatment plant, also needed to remove sediment trapped behind the dams, went online in February.
All projects related to dam removal are paid for by the Park Service.
To date, a fish-rearing facility on Morse Creek and a greenhouse that is growing plants for river bank restoration also have been completed.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
