Scientist: Beaches grow as Elwha dams are removed
PORT ANGELES, Wash. (AP) - A scientist monitoring the shoreline near the mouth of the Olympic Peninsula's Elwha River says beaches are starting to grow as two massive dams are removed.
Ian Miller, a coastal hazards specialist, tells the Peninsula Daily News that some of the sediment held back for nearly a century by the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams is accumulating in sand bars shaped nearly every day by the river's flow. Beaches to the east of the Elwha's mouth are growing slightly and becoming sandier as more sediment is released.
Miller regularly surveys four sites near the mouth: three just to the east and one just to the west.
A key question is how much Elwha sediment is reaching the surrounding shorelines, and whether it can stop or reverse beach erosion that has been documented for decades.
The Elwha Dam was removed last spring. The Glines Canyon Dam is expected to be removed by May.
Ian Miller, a coastal hazards specialist, tells the Peninsula Daily News that some of the sediment held back for nearly a century by the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams is accumulating in sand bars shaped nearly every day by the river's flow. Beaches to the east of the Elwha's mouth are growing slightly and becoming sandier as more sediment is released.
Miller regularly surveys four sites near the mouth: three just to the east and one just to the west.
A key question is how much Elwha sediment is reaching the surrounding shorelines, and whether it can stop or reverse beach erosion that has been documented for decades.
The Elwha Dam was removed last spring. The Glines Canyon Dam is expected to be removed by May.
Did they ever explain how they were going to replace the million dollar a year profit the dams generated?
How is your electricity bill? Too high? Why did we take these dams out and make prices go up? These people that did this care nothing about working families and the poor.
@MonroeMad The only place that used the electricity from the dams, the Nippon paper mill (was once the Daishowa mill) converted to using power from burning locally produced forestry pulp, the remnants of logging. Instead of loggers burning their slash openly, causing all kinds of dirty air, they are now burning it in a controlled plant. Nippon is actually making MORE power than was produced by the old, inefficient dams, and selling it back to the grid.
@MonroeMad The Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams were built for the purpose of supplying hydroelectric power to help economic growth of the Olympic Peninsula. However both dams only provided equivalent of 38% of the electricity needed to operate the nearby the Daishowa America paper mill.
If people like you would do some simple research, you woudnt sound so uninformed. Removing the dams have no impact on the surrounding communities, and will certainly not affect the price of electricity, or the "working families and the poor"
I hope somebody is up there with their number 2 shovel checking for color.
I thank they need to put in a fish ladder to get up over the sediment/mud. What do you think would happen when you pull the Plug.
 @Mike Actually, the sediment moving into the Sound was part of the plan. The river flow will keep a channel for the fish open.
 @OrcasThunder I have a place on the Skagit 50 yrs ago Tug boats would log booms down river dragging changes the size of 5 gal. buckeks. Every time it floods witch was i to2 times a yr. boats don't go up river any more. It takes less water to flood. The river gets shallower ever time it floods. Look at what they have done in Mt Vernon to the dikes the water level keeps going higher and higher. One more look at the Stillaguamish at low tide you can walk from Stanwood to Warm Beach and pick up Sturgeon laying in the mud. I hope that is what there plan really is.
@Mike @OrcasThunder Flooding, is a natural occurrance; placing dikes along the river banks to protect human populations, is not. The rivers have always flooded, the sediment has always accumulated at the river mouths. In the case of the Elwha, it built up behind the dam, in massive quantities.
This is what happens when humans try and control nature, it will always find a way to circumvent our attempts.
 @Mike OK, but the sediments IN the river don't have the tides and cross currents running across them, these beach buildups do.
In the wider parts of a river, the water slows down, you will get silt settling on the bottom that's the same effect behind the dams.
What you describe is not a sudden massive dumping of silt, it's a natural part of the river.
As to the Sturgeon, that remains to be seen.
After a few years of silt accumulation, this could be a good location for an urban community called New New Orleans. Â
@Opus8no5
A close-up would likely show the real-estate signs already starting to pop up.  ;~}
How long has it taken this "scientist" to come to this conclusion? Must work for the government.
 @contraryjim What a silly post.
 @thebigteacher  @contraryjim Not so "silly" as it is lost in space...
Remember, to this subspecies of Homo Sapiens, "science" follows these guidelines:
"the instructed Christian knows that the evidences for full divine inspiration of Scripture are far weightier than the evidences for any fact of science. When confronted with the consistent Biblical testimony to a universal Flood, the believer must certainly accept it as unquestionably true."
http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/p43.htm
 @contraryjim These are the results of his study - in scientific terms that means a repeated and ongoing observation over a long period of time. It's not a quick look and done situation. These settlement patterns will change often time, often even fluctuate with the seasons.
 @OrcasThunder  @contraryjim If this is already known why are we paying someone ?
 @Maynard G Krebbs  @contraryjim "why are we paying someone ?"
You must be a Boeing battery expert...
@Maynard G Krebbs @OrcasThunder @contraryjim Because they know or knew it will happen, and now they are observing it to see how drastically or rapidly it will occur, No one knows exactly how much change will occur or how quickly, since the river has been dammed for almost a century now. This is important to know since it will affect fish species and other animals that depend on the river, as well as humans.
You cant simply expect the river to change and day to day life go on as usual. We know polar ice and tundra are melting, so we study the changes to be prepared for any impact they cause to the ecosystem. Whether you believe in global warming or not, changes occur.
Glad the damss are being removed, good work from all the people involved.
So if the sediment gets to be a problem, on what side of the dredging issue do I come down on as a responsible Conservationist? And what if the Elwah Snail Darter Crab likes the silty sediment? Brain hurting...
@Getov Mylon Dredging is a human activity; nature never dredged anything. In the ocean, sandbars and accumulation occur as the result of jetties and other human activity. In nature, sandbars and accumulation such as this have always occurred, and nature takes care of it on its own.
 @Getov Mylon "if the sediment gets to be a problem"
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Hopefully, nature will find a balance between deposition and erosion.
 @Hountoof "Hopefully, nature will find a balance between deposition and erosion."
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All well and good, but I'ma guessin' there's a sciency person out there goin',"Hmmm, that's a lotta silt..."
@OrcasThunder @Getov Mylon @Hountoof Try not to make sense, the conservatives will only push back further and babble on as the truth begins to make more sense.
"According to a Geological Survey estimate, more than 24 million cubic yards of sediment was backed up behind Elwha Dam at Lake Aldwell and farther upstream at Glines Canyon Dam at Lake Mills. That would be enough to fill eight National Football League football stadiums. About 400,000 cubic yards of sediment has been released so far in the removal of Elwha Dam and partial removal of Glines Canyon Dam, with more sediment still impounded in what remains of Lake Mills."
 @OrcasThunder  @Getov Mylon  @Hountoof Hey stop being so cogent! People want to argue about how little scientists know and how bad government is...
 @Getov Mylon  @Hountoof "I'ma guessin' there's a sciency person out there goin',"Hmmm, that's a lotta silt...""
I suspect they had a fair estimate of what was trapped behind the dams, and made the appropriate estimates about where it would all end up...in fact this accumulation may even disappear at some point since if is composed of all the stuff that was trapped. Once that flows down, the normal silt won't be as substantial so it won't add much to the dunes. Then the normal flow of the river should eat away at the beaches.
Trying to put a positive spin on the whole silt dump thing.
"Two massive dams are removed"? Massive, hell I've seen beaver dams bigger than those two are. This writer must be getting paid by the buzz word scale rather than for his abilities. It was a given that upon the removes of the dams the silt that had been accumulating behind them would wash down stream and contribute to the shoreline. As for the comment about "fish ladders" there has been no viable solution to get the salmon upstream or the fry down stream without running them through the turbine's. Till the can come up with a viable solution that works dams will continue to impede the fish flow. The silt will build up behind the dam and there is no way to allow it to continue down stream to continue rebuilding the shorelines. A dam stops it cold and there is no way around it. We now have viable, reliable, cost effective ways to generate electricity now so many dams can now be abandoned and removed and that will allow Mother Nature to work her miracles. Â Â
 @LongBeachBum Actually, over at the McNary Lock and Dam, the solution for the fish has worked fairly well, it's a portion of the flow that's allowed to flow without going through the turbines. Also, in some other dams, outflow from near the bottom of the dam pretty well takes care of the silt build up.
You mean like nuclear?
 @mstipton YES, it does work if the feds get out of the way.
 @contraryjim  @mstipton A better long run solution would be geothermal. A constant source, does not have to be environmentally intrusive, and no problem with disposal of years of radioactive wastes.
Another example of how little the scientific community knows. The scientific community, a few generations ago, decided it was a good idea to dam the river, now not. So be careful what you believe, even if it is backed up by science.
@Grumpa You should have stayed in school, dropping out after 1st grade did not bode well for you.
The dams, were not built by the scientific community; the dams, were built by Thomas Aldwell who was a developer. Both dams were financed with by funds secured from Canadian George Glines for the purpose of economic growth and supplying power to a timber mill. In fact, no attention was paid to science during the building of the Elwha, and Aldwell and his contractors cut corners during construction which resulted in the collapse of the damn (requiring it to be rebuilt).
This had nothing to do with the scientific community.
 @Grumpa "The scientific community, a few generations ago, decided it was a good idea to dam the river,"
Actually, that was the work of the engineers, politicians and the energy industry.
 @Grumpa "The scientific community, a few generations ago, decided it was a good idea to dam the river..."
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Could you please elaborate. I can't seem to find any evidence to support your claim. Everything I've found seems to say that the Olympic Power and Development Company, led by Thomas Aldwell were behind the project.Â
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On a side note, I think it is unwise to be skeptical of science based on the fact that we have learned many new things over the last 100 years. It seems unfair when you consider all of the advances in technology and engineering during that time.
@Hountoof @Grumpa This is what happens when uneducated hillbillies run their mouths making incoherent statements without doing research first.
 @Hountoof And you seem to think that they, Olympic Power and Development Company, did not use scientists and engineers to build this? It would be naive to think that just because they were a public company meant they did not have that level of expertise. Indeed they had the money in order to afford them. Not that I do not enjoy things that science has brought us but I have to look at some of those things with a jaundice eye, i.e. Electro Shock Therapy. I was just making an observation that is all.
 @Grumpa  @Hountoof "Olympic Power and Development Company, did not use scientists and engineers"
Engineers, yes. Scientists, in the early 1900's, no. Consider that it was engineers - funded by rich money people - who leveled one entire hill in Seattle to fill in the mud flats that much of the city's industrial and shipping facilities are built on. There were no scientists telling them that they were putting fill dirt on several seismic faults.
 @Grumpa The dams built on the Elwha were built by private corporate interests without any scientific or legal review. Scientists were starting at the time to experiment with hatcheries, but the men behind the Elwha dams had no interest in anything but their own profit.Â
 @C T  @Grumpa And they did make a profit, but someone decided that catching a salmon was more important than the economy.
 @Grumpa Dams are fine. We just need engineers smart enough to build in workable fish ladders. I don't think there is a decent fish ladder built in the whole state. And all existing dams should be retro fitted with hydro power.
 @Blindman  @Grumpa "And all existing dams should be retro fitted with hydro power."
Many of the Columbia River dams are primarily intended to provide irrigation, not power. Adding turbines would take water away from that use.