PORT ANGELES – A Clallam County hearing examiner Wednesday approved permits for 15 of 16 projects sought by the National Park Service for removing the Elwha River dams.
Attorney Kristin Ballinger, sitting in place of vacationing Hearing Examiner Chris Melly, said she will issue written approval in 14 days.
Her decision at the end of a 3½-hour hearing allows Olympic National Park to remove the Elwha Dam – one of two dams that are scheduled to be removed beginning in 2009 – and to make mitigations the removal will require.
Glines Canyon Dam is within the park and therefore does not need county permits.
The Elwha Dam lies outside the park and within county jurisdiction.
Ballinger denied permission only for the park’s request to ring a house owned by the Green Crow timber company with a dike that would encroach on a wetland.
What she granted were six shoreline exemptions, 11 critical areas certificates of compliance, three zoning conditional use permits, nine shoreline substantial development permits, three shoreline variances, three critical areas variances, and five critical areas reasonable use exceptions.
