Elwha River Dam Removal Site

The Elwha ran wild for millennia — eleven varieties of salmon and trout moving between the Olympic Mountains and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, feeding the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and every creature downstream. Two dams built in the early 1900s broke that chain, flooding tribal homelands and reducing fish returns from an estimated 392,000 annually to fewer than 3,000. The largest dam removal in U.S. history began here in September 2011. By 2014, both dams were gone. The river flows free again.