PDN
Headline,
Feb 6, 2008 "Elwha Dams project rising to $308 million
The gov't is
starting to get a little more honest - - but still not talking about the
cleanup.
Marv's prediction: $308 million is about half the ultimate cost.
See what happened 14 years ago: AND IT'S STILL RELEVANT TODAY
Big News Spash - May, 2007
Dam removal is delayed until 2012 ~ Twenty years after the bill was
passed to "Restore the Elwha" ~ ~ What's Going on?
Well, one thing
going on is big revenue to the nantional park service for
the
electric power
being produced by the dams. In 1997 the government bought
the dams from
the owners for a paltry $29,500,000. The best information I have
is that the dam
owners made a $9,000,000 profit off the dams during the last
year they owned
them. The NPS is now banking that profit (which is now how
much?)
Perhaps they just don't want to lose that nice chunk of change.
[For those of
you who are mathmatically challenged by education in Washington
state schools-
three years at $9 million proftit is $27 million] - - For once, the
government made
a fantasticly profitable deal (through blackmail, of course.
The dam owners
were unable to get the gov't to relicense the dams and faced the
possibility of
paying $300 million to remove them)
2006 was a dry summer (remember that
through all the rain?) On Sept. 27, 2006
it was announced in a big article with
picture of the lower dam flood gate open
that extra water was released to
provide for migrating salmon on account of
the low flow due to the drought.
What the article does not say is how
low flows will be taken care of once the dams are
removed. Once again, this brings
out the lie that the dams are going out to "restore salmon".
The Elwha Fiasco -
An environmental Disaster in the making - at great $ cost.
In 1992, congress decreed
that the elwha river should be
restored ~ The bill
defined everything else but left what
the word "restoration" meant
would be left to the imagination.
In 1997, it appeared that
the Republican congress would not fund this disaster,
so a group of local folks
(REAL - Rescue Elwha Area Lakes) got together with
all three 24th district
legislators in Jim Hargrove's office and composed a bill
which would have begun the
process of planting salmon egg boxes in the Elwha -
the only effort in the past
20 years to actually do something to assist the salmon.
The environmentalists BITTERLY
OPPOSED IT. Rep. Jim Buck (R) was, at that
time the chairman of the
house natural resources committee, so it was decided
he would lead the charge
to get the bill through.
Came the day of the hearing
on the bill, Buck got up and spoke for it. But, after
the door was closed, he
managed to rewrite the bill, eliminating all reference to
the Elwha. He has
never explained his magical "change of mind" to anybody I
know.
When Al Gore was running
for president, and was scheduled to speak in Tacoma,
Jim Hargrove called and
asked for three copies of the REAL video tape on the
Elwha. Being an elected
democrat, he was on the speaker's platform and handed
those tapes to Gore, Patty
Murray and the governor (who's name I forget). So,
there you have it, folks.
The republicans killed the Elwha - not the Democrats.
In 1994, the Park Service
authorized a survey of birdlife in and around the two lakes
on the Elwha. The
survey was done by Martha Jordan, a well-know bird expert
and secretary of the Trumpeter
Swan Society. Following is a list of birds she
observed during the period:
July
1994 through March 1995: The following was
conveniently left out
of their EIS.
Common name
Scientific Name
Nesting?
Not seen in the survey, but observed by others :
Spotted Owl
Nesting
The
latest: Jan 10, 06, The Park Service now has announced a plan
to import Fishers
onto
the peninsula. The Fisher is named that because they are efficient
fish killers
They
were exterminated in order to save the fish - -so now the enviros in government
have
re-introduced them, apparently to keep down the fish population so that
they
still
have a salmon shortage to fuel their magnificant obsessions.
Early settlers saw the need and potential
for electrical power and an enterprising Port Angeles
Businessman, Tom Aldwell
put together a company to harness the power of the Elwha
River, completing one dam in 1913
and a second one in 1927. Unfortunately, he managed
to get around state law which called for
a fish ladder to be constructed on a salmon bearing
stream that you dammed, be getting the
legislature to accept a small hatchery he built near
the lower dam in lieu of the fish ladder.
An error that
could have been corrected any time in the past 93 years, but Corporate
greed
and "environmentalists"
have combined to prevent it
Now the federal government has purchased
the dams along with about 900 acres of good timber land
associated with them
With the avowed intention of destroying the dams and lakes
Trumpeter Swans on Lake Aldwell
Why do Environmental groups and the NPS want them evicted????
These
gorgeous birds (world's largest waterfowl) feed on plants which grow in
the
bottom
of the shallow upper part of the lake. A government sponsored
survey
(carefully
left out of the NPS's EIS) says they represent 50% of all the swans
found
on
the Olympic Peninsula.
Ed Note: Mary Mapes of Rathergate fame was a Seattle KIRO producer
for 15 years. During that time, I pursuaded KIRO to come over and
tape the
Trumpeters on Lake Aldwell. Reporter, Chris Legeros called
me one morning
and said he was on his way to meet me at the lake with a cameraman.
About
an hour later, he called back to tell me that someone at KIRO had
called the
Sierra Club to see if they should do this shot and were told, "NO!"
So, KIRO
management called him back even though he was on his way. Was Mapes
involved? - don't really know , but it sure figures.
So now you know which way the News media bias runs on this one.
Among the anticipated results of this
folly:
1- Effective elimination of salmon
spawning in the river -
Destroying
salmon habitat to "Save" Salmon ????
The lower five miles
of the river is historically a very productive salmon spawning habitat
and The only spawning
habitat of the magnificent Elwha Chinook. The govern-
ment's EIS (plus
simple observation) tells us the level of particulates in the river when
the 17 million plus
cubic yards of material estimated to reside behind the dams (1992
Gov't survey now 14
years ou to date) is released into the river by destruction of the
dams, that will be
fatal to fish. Their EIS also states that the river bottom
will rise
some six feet (smothering
all salmon eggs) This means the channel will spread out,
probably flooding
the Elwha tribe's reservation and perhaps disabling the City of
Port Angeles ranney
well from which the city gets it's water. ( But, the taxpayers
will
pay for fixing all
that.)
2-Loss of some 19 megawatts of cheap, renewable
electric power which is the only significant
source of power on the peninsula besides
the Bonneville power line which comes from
one substation at Discovery Bay. The current 19 megawatts of power
is produced by 90+
year-old power equipment at the dams which could, no doubt be greatly
increased by
replacement of this antique equipment.
3- Destruction of
the habitat for some 20 species of waterfowl that frequent
the lakes-
including the rare and once endangered Trumpeter Swans, per
a year-long, govern-
ment supported survey by Martha Jordan, biologist, waterfowl expert
and secretary
of the Trumpeter Swan Society, paid for by the NPS and significanltly
left out of the EIS
4- Elimination of
two beautiful lakes which have provided local residents and tourists with
opportunities for fishing, boating and swimming for nearly a century.
5- Possible serious
flooding and other negative results in the lower five miles of the river.
That area is fairly flat and residents have already started negotiations
with the city for
connection to the city's sewer system, since they know their septic systems
are likely to
fail.
6- Possible destruction of home water supplies for some Clallam County
residents. The
upper lake (Mills) is 145 feet deep (enormous pressure)
and has a fault line running
diagonally across it. There is no way of knowing
how much water is being injected into
that fault or where it goes. If someone's
well goes dry when the lake is drained, there
will be no way of proving what caused it.
7- Hundreds of millions
of taxpayer dollars wasted. The real cost is unknown. But,
the 1992
estimate was $329 million. That figure in today's dollars would be
at least half a billion -
and who ever heard of a major government project with indefinite parameters
that was
completed for the first estimate?
Salmon and Steelhead below Elwha dam
trying to find a way up. Don't they deserve a chance?
Their spawning and rearing
habitat will be destroyed - TO SAVE SALMON??
So,
what do they promise for creation of this environmental disaster???
They
claim 400,000 salmon in thirty years. In 30 years the "dam busters"
will
all be comfortably retired on their government pensions and nobody
will
remember what was done or why. The fish they promise will be mostly
pink
and chum salmon - - lesser value fish of which we already have a surplus
Pinks
and Chum salmon don't feed in fresh water. When they hatch out,
they
just get into the current and float to salt water where they feed and
grow.
They can be hatched in any stream that feeds into salt water.
A
few years ago, the state of Alaska chopped up several million pinks and
chum
and dumped them in the ocean because they were glutting the
market.
They sure don't need
the Elwha river to spawn and will compete with the
Coho, Sockeye, Chinook
and Steelhead trout the river is capable of producing
So, the magnificent
Elwha Chinook are to be traded for a bunch of junk
fish of which we
already have a surplus.
In 1996, Rescue Elwha
Area Lakes (REAL) initiated a study by Robert Crittenden,
(Phd from the U of W
school of fisheries) to determine what could be done to
actually save Elwha
salmon. The study (paid for by popular subscription no tax
dollars involved) concluded
that the middle river area should immediately be stocked
with Coho and Chinook
in anticipation of a fish ladder being built at the lower dam
before they began returning.
(or, as an alternate, a trap-and-haul operation)
An estimate by a well
known and well respected Washington State Fisheries
consultant indicated
that could be done for about $Four Million. A far cry
from half a billion.
The Elwha Project is not about salmon!
It is about getting
more
land for the Tribe and for the National Park and
furthering the Wild
Lands Plan to turn half of the US into one huge animal
reserve, a plan which
includes destruction of the snake river and Columbia
dams which are
essential to the prosperity of the Pacific Northwest.
Destroying the Elwha
is the dress rehearsal for that disaster.
This is a major environmental
disaster which was to be done in '07'-or '08' or '09'?
at a huge cost - - nobody
knows how much. It is being sold to the public as "to
save salmon",
But the Elwha salmon will be the big losers in the deal. The big
winners are a team of
bureaucrats who have been "studying" how to take out
the dams for years -
- and don't quite seem able to figure it out - - so your tax
dollars keep supporting
them while they figure.
Canadian Geese (Honkers) with their young
on Lake Aldwell
Wood Ducks on Lake Aldwell
This article appeared in the Peninsula Daily news in 1997 and displays
the fact that
the first estimates of dam removal cost were in fact over $320 million.
When I wrote
a letter to the editor in 2003 which mentioned this fact, the
PDN
held
my letter until
the new park superintendent could respond. His response claimed
that the first
estimate was only $111 million. The PDN then printed his
phony "rebuttal" right
along with my letter.
For additional information, call: Marv at 360
928-3154 I have tons
more information. The Elwha has been
studied to death over a
period of about 25 years. I have a big box
of these "studies".