June 14, 2011 in News, Outdoors, Region

Dam in southwest Washington slated for removal

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VANCOUVER, Wash. — Nearly a century after it was built, the Condit Dam on the White Salmon River is about to be removed, reopening the Columbia River tributary for the passage of salmon and steelhead.

An Oregon utility said it has received federal regulatory approval and plans to begin demolishing the dam in late October, the Columbian newspaper reported.

PacifiCorp, based in Portland, Ore., originally planned to remove the dam in 2006 but demolition was repeatedly delayed. The estimated $32 million price tag for the project is nearly double the $17 million the utility expected to pay when PacifiCorp first announced plans to breach the dam in 1999.

On Monday, the company notified the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that it had accepted the terms of its “surrender order,” a document that sets forth the conditions the company must meet to surrender its federal dam license.

“Decommissioning the hydroelectric project is now on a fast track,” PacifiCorp spokesman Tom Gauntt said.

The utility has also received a critical sediment management permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, one of the project’s last major hurdles, Gauntt said.

Completed in 1913 and standing 125 feet tall, Condit will be the second-highest dam ever removed in the United States. Glines Canyon Dam on Washington’s Elwha River, at 210 feet, will be the highest U.S. dam ever removed if it comes down on schedule in September.

The plans were welcomed by environmental groups and tribal leaders.

“This fall we will see two of the biggest river restoration projects in history, and they’re both in Washington,” said Amy Kober, spokeswoman for the conservation group American Rivers. “It’s an exciting river renaissance.”

In a statement, Virgil Lewis of the Yakama Nation Tribal Council called the announcement of the dam’s decommissioning “a momentous and long-awaited day.”

“This is an essential step in restoring the ecosystem’s resources and rebuilding the natural balance that supported the Yakama people and a significant tribal fishery for millennia,” Lewis said.

Prior to breaching, workers will dynamite a 12-foot by 18-foot tunnel through 80 feet of the dam’s 90-foot-thick base. On demolition day, they’ll blast through the final 10 feet. The impounded waters of Northwestern Lake behind the dam will flow through the tunnel at an initial rate of 10,000 cubic feet per second.

“It will be a controlled high-water event,” Gauntt said. “The flow that will be coming down will be more than what normally comes down, but it won’t cause any flooding.”

The 92-acre reservoir is expected to empty in about six hours while some 2.3 million cubic yards of sediment built up over nearly a century will be flushed downstream, killing virtually all life in the lower 3.3 miles of the river. The sediment will enter the Columbia River, which will carry it downstream all the way to Bonneville Dam.

Officials say the payoff will be that lower Columbia River chinook salmon will regain free and unrestrained access to 14 miles of habitat on the White Salmon and its tributaries, and mid-Columbia River steelhead will regain access to 33 miles of habitat in the watershed. The free-flowing river also is expected to protect critical bull trout habitat and benefit bears and other wildlife that feed on salmon.

The dam’s removal also will open a stretch of white water to rafters upstream.

© Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Seven comments on this story so far. Add yours!

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  Oly on June 14 at 5:31 p.m.

  So, “Save the Gorge & Save the Salmon” folks think it’s ok to kill virtually everything for last 3.3 miles of the White Salmon River? Wow, I hope they know what they are doing…sounds like it has to effect the Columbia too…Few people who have actually lived in the area for more than 40 years agree with this action. It’s the folks who have moved in to “save” the area for tourists…

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  Ninch on June 14 at 6:17 p.m.

  This dam removal is for salmon and other fisheries… not tourists. READ the article again and if not convinced GOOGLE for more info.

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  Oly on June 14 at 7:09 p.m.

  @ninch-yes, that is what they say, but who is ‘they”-is it the pro or con view??? there is a fishery right now and there is little evidence that salmon were ever above the falls/location of the current dam. What about the folks who live on Northwestern Lake? What about the water supply for the city of White Salmon-all these things could be in jeopardy… Read the White Salmon Enterprise-I do….. The ‘remove the dam folks’ aren’t really sure what the removal will do-they are destroying an ecosystem that has been in place for almost 100 years, they don’t know how much sediment will stay or how it will affect the Columbia River. The Native in-lieu site at the mouth of the river will not see many fish(everything dead for 3.3 miles, remember) and the current salmon non-native fishery at the mouth will disappear… just saying

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  nitro71 on June 14 at 10:43 p.m.

  Tearing down functional dams to save fish is stupid. We need power and dams create clean power along with controling the river. On the other hand I’ve seen some pics of this dam and it looks ancient. I would recomend they build another dam to replace this aging one some how and keep the sediment from going downstream.

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  mdriftmeyer on June 15 at 2:30 a.m.

  The Power generated from this Dam is a joke.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condit_Hydroelectric_Project

  The Annual Value of the Hydroelectric Power Generated at Consumer Rates: $4.8 million ($0.06/kWh)

  US Fishing Industry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing_industry_in_the_United_States

  Fisheries GDP: US$ 31.5 billion (2003)
  Export value: US$ 12.0 billion (2003)
  Imported value: US$ 21.3 billion (2003)

  Please, stop talking about the impact of Hydroelectric Power regarding Dams that never should have been made and stick to what you know—it’s certainly not Economics, Engineering, etc.

  The estimate cost of Salmon restoration to the Pacific Northwest is in the Billions of restored Revenues.

  Do some research.

  The Power generated from Puget Sound Energy with their Wind Project dwarfs any power these pissant dams of old. We aren’t talking Bonneville and Grand Coulee or even the damn along the Snake River b

  Puget Sound Energy Wind Projects:

  http://pse.com/inyourcommunity/sewashington/Pages/Hopkins-Ridge.aspx

  Power: “PSE has owned and operated our first wind facility — Hopkins Ridge — since 2005. The facility covers 11,000 acres of land northeast of Dayton in Columbia County.

  With a capacity of 156 megawatts, the 87 turbines at Hopkins Ridge produce an average annual output of about 456,000 megawatt hours, sufficient to power 40,000 households.”

  http://pse.com/inyourcommunity/kittitas/Pages/Wild-Horse.aspx

  Power: “Wild Horse Wind and Solar Facility
  Located near Ellensburg in Kittitas County, PSE’s second wind facility — Wild Horse Wind and Solar Facility – has 149 turbines spanning across 10,000 acres. The facility can generate up to 273 megawatts of electricity, enough to serve more than 80,000 homes. Wild Horse came on line in December 2006, and was expanded in 2009.

  Wild Horse benefits the surrounding community by creating jobs and providing leasing income for landowners. The facility also produces significant local tax revenue.

  Wild Horse also contains the Pacific Northwest’s largest solar-power array.”

  Welcome to the 21st century folks.

  As a Mechanical Engineer I’ve discovered the ignorance of non-Engineers I thought rampant in the late 80s is nothing compared to today’s ignorance spread rampant by the GOP.

  Its never too late to educate yourself, even as a layman to what Applied Sciences are all about.

• 

  Byrdie714 on June 15 at 6:49 a.m.

  Well I’ll be damned!

  Damn if you do, damned if you don’t!

• 

  Coffee on June 15 at 9:08 a.m.

  With out government subsidies how long will the wind turbines keep running and were does the electricity come from when the wind does not blow?