restoration is hard and it it takes a long time it shouldn't technically the work is usually not that complex but the politics is one thing we know about preparing for climate change that we need to build resilience into communities into economies into ecosystems and restoration efforts like the Elwha River restoration are key examples of resilience building and their positive stories the stories like this that we can tell where all these different interests come together and realize that this is a good for all of us in a variety of ways [Music] you [Music] it's a truly unique story it's a region and body of water that are of great importance to a wide variety of Washingtonians dams came down the waters moved forward and now Nature has taken hold for this field report we traveled to Port Angeles home of the LA River Delta at the tip of Washington staring across the Salish Sea from Canada is the Elwha River a robust body of water that originates in the Olympic National Forest and spills out into the mouth of the Pacific Ocean however this scenic waterway only exists as it sits today because of the incredible changes made upstream in previous years the LOA river flowed freely into the Salish Sea until construction of two dams drastically changed the river the two dams were put into place with the charge to generate hydroelectric power however as time went on it was determined that the dams weren't generating enough electricity and when constructed those dams didn't provide required fish passage the dams were built in 1913 and 1926 and they had devastated the salmon runs so you went from somewhere between 300 to 400 thousand salmon in a year on the during the pink salmon years to roughly 3,000 salmon a year by the 1970s so there was a degradation of the environment both upstream and downstream so downstream you lost there was no sediment flow we were no longer getting woody debris gravels cobble sand that affected both the ability of the river to support salmon reproduction a lower River had also degraded the nearshore environment at the mouth of the river species depend on that of course upstream all those species roughly a hundred lost their access to salmon and of course the benefits of salmon spawning out and contributing nutrients to riparian zones the environment with dams blocking salmon and other fish from freely migrating the Elwha River a large collaborative group effort was set forth to bring down the dams and open up the waterway we've been able to restore not only the river but the relationship of the river with the tribe right and the relationship of native peoples with non-native peoples because that's what's crucial about the restoration the coalition of our environmental groups the National Park local businesses the tribe how they work together over the hundred years that the dams were in the river they blocked fish passage sediment passage and wood passage to a majority of the river it became an issue for the Elwha tribe who has a federal treaty trust relationship with the Olympic National Park they lost their fish and the federal government had a responsibility for making sure that didn't happen in an effort to risa cure the guaranteed fish passage for the Elwood tribe and open up a treasured River a broad coalition pushed forward the first fruits of their collaborative labors came in 1992 as the 102nd Congress passed the Elwha River ecosystem and fisheries restoration act the bill allows a federal government to purchase the two dams on the L WA in decommission them this meant destruction of the dams in 2011 and 2014 as soon as the dams were removed salmon moved upstream to include chinook moving all the way up into the Bailey range at the heart you know the very headwaters of the Elwha River the first year after the Glines Canyon Dam was removed 2014 there were 2000 spawning shook upstream spawning chinook upstream of that site sockeye have established themselves in small numbers all five types of Pacific salmon have migrated into the opened up area as have bull trout and other trout with the dams removed from the LA River there was now room for the water to freely flow into the Salish Sea this open passage allowed free travel for salmon in the creation of habitat for a myriad of other creatures it also meant a massive amount of sediment was able to spring forth bit by bit from behind the dams and towards the sea it took roughly and there was about 21 million cubic meters of sediments stored behind the two dams so they had to flush out and about 90% of that has been flushed downstream now but the first two years were very unstable which they anticipated so a lot of dirt turbidity in the river just about 80 to 85 percent of the sediment that was expected to come to the shoreline it's actually arrived and so what you're seeing behind me is the transformation of the shoreline associated with that the LOA river dam removals and subsequent movement of tons of sediment return of salmon and rejuvenation of the landscape are reasons for Shaffer to have hope for the future restoration when done properly you can see immediate responses immediate it isn't rocket science it has to be well thought out and it has to be done properly but with those two caveats if you do it it it's remarkable so the Elwha is the story of hope particularly for Washington state but for the nation as well you