RIVERS -- The author of “Elwha: A River Reborn,” will be in Spokane on Tuesday for a free presentation on the people, places, fish and history behind the world's largest dam removal effort.

Lynda Mapes, a Seattle Times reporter, will speak at 7 p.m. in the Community Building Lobby, 35 W. Main Ave.

The program is sponsored by Save Our Wild Salmon and the Spokane Falls Chapter of Trout Unlimited.

Mapes joined Times photographer Steve Ringman to document what’s led to this monumental $325 million environmental restoration project.

Two antiquated dams are being removed to allow the Elwha to run freely for 45 miles from its headwaters in Olympic National Park to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The effort is opening more than 70 miles of spawning habitat to steelhead and all five species of Pacific salmon

Scientists, tribes, elected officials, local communities, agency officials and anglers are putting stock in the power of nature to turn back the clock on an Olympic Peninsula river once known for hosting runs of 100-pound chinook.

• For more info on the Tuesday program, contact Sam Mace at sam@wildsalmon.org, (509) 747-2030.  

BUMPY ROAD TO RECOVERY: Fish hatchery losses

A pump failure at the Elwha Klallam fish hatcher last weekend led to the deaths of at least 200,000 coho salmon, spawned last fall, and roughly 2,000 year-old steelhead trout -- about 50 percent of this year's crop of the fish destined for restoring runs in the Elwha River.  See the story.