Elwha Dam Hydro Plant

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The Dam, approach 100 years old, is close to its life expectancy.

A good history and overview here:

http://www.americanrivers.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AMR_elwharestoration

(excerpt) Removing both dams will open over 70 miles of pristine salmon habitat.  With 83 percent of the Elwha watershed protected within Olympic National Park, salmon have an especially high chance for recovery.  The restored, free-flowing river is estimated to produce approximately 390,000 salmon and steelhead in about 30 years, compared with less than 50,000 fish if the dams were fitted with upstream and downstream fish passage facilities. 

http://www2.nature.nps.gov/YearinReview/03_G.html

This effort will be the largest dam removal ever attempted and one of the largest river restoration projects of all time. This congressionally approved $184 million project will permit five species of salmon to return to waters they have been locked out of for more than 90 years. Because all of the land above the upper dam is within the national park, the opportunities for research in an otherwise pristine ecosystem will be unique. Unfortunately, removing the dams and protecting drinking water for the nearby city of Port Angeles will use nearly all the appropriated funds, so the budget contains little for education or research. 

Enter the Elwha consortium. The two grants received in 2005 will assist the consortium in coordination of research efforts that enable Olympic National Park to be used as a living laboratory. Some of the questions to be explored are how long it will take for natural spawning populations to reestablish themselves in a pristine river that has been blocked for almost a century, and how hatchery fish will interact with wild fish coming up the river.

Other important questions concern the transport of sediments out of the river and their effects on both domestic drinking water and the fishery.

Another good history with photos:

http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=7590

(Unrelated) Coast Guard rescue simulation that day: