The contractor for the Elwha dam removal project jumped right into the job yesterday, pounding away at the upper Glines Canyon Dam with a hydraulic hammer mounted on an excavator, which was sitting atop a barge.
By this morning, a good-sized chunk of concrete had been eaten out of the dam, as you can see in the photo below. This picture was taken by one of six webcams that are focused on the two dams. As I mentioned in Water Ways on Aug. 16, this could be the best seat in the house for the deconstruction of the two dams.
On the Elwha River Restoration Project webcam page, click on “slideshow” below “Glines Canyon Dam” to get a time-lapse video of all the shots beginning Sept. 4, about two frames per hour during daytime.
At slide 213, you will see the first chunks taken out of the dam yesterday at 10:18 a.m. Use the controls at the bottom to slow down the slideshow to one frame per second, or march through the slideshow frame-by-frame to get a good view of the action.
While these photos will be fun and interesting for everyone to follow, they are an essential part of the monitoring program to ensure that sediment trapped behind the two dams erodes according to plan. I’ll talk a little more about this plan in a story I’m writing for Sunday’s Kitsap Sun.
Olympic National Park’s “Dam Removal Blog” describes the chipping process, including the use of shears to cut steel rebar inside the dam. Workers will chip away a few feet of concrete at a time until reaching the water line. At that point, notching will begin to carefully control the lowering of the water level.
Reporter Tom Callis of the Peninsula Daily News does a nice job describing the start of the actual work. An accompanying video provides the sounds at the start of this historic demolition project.
Also, if you haven’t heard, a formal ceremony to commemorate the removal of two dams on the Elwha River will be shown in a live webcast beginning at 11 a.m. tomorrow.
The ceremony itself, which will be held near the Elwha Dam, is limited to 400 invited guests. But anyone may watch from a big screen at the Port Angeles City Pier or on a special web page accessed through the Celebrate Elwha! website. The webcast is sponsored by the law firms SNR Denton and Perkins Coie.
Speakers at the ceremony will include Gov. Chris Gregoire; U.S. senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell; U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Belfair; Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar; Lower Elwha Klallam Tribal Chairwoman Frances Charles; and Olympic National Park Superintendent Karen Gustin. Musicians also will be featured.
Activities will continue Saturday and Sunday in Port Angeles as part of a weeklong celebration. Live music, artists, food and educational activities will be featured. For a full schedule of events, visit the website Celebrate Elwha!
