Just back from the Elwha, having negotiated the drive home in a monsoon night before last...
It was an inspiring weekend. The fun began on Thursday night, when Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard gave the keynote address to conclude the Elwha Science symposium. (Chouinard wondered aloud why scientists would want to hear about the science of dam removal from a business guy with a high school education who spent most of his schooling learning to fix cars...but in his usual self-depreciating way, opened the door for a flood of intelligent questions and comments from the audience.)
Tomorrow I'm headed up to Port Angeles for the Park Service sponsored shin-dig, celebrating the tear-down of Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams. It's a historic day for the nascent dam removal movement, worthy of the attention of every fisherman, water baby and river rat in the country.These two outdated and unsafe structures block hundreds of miles of spawning and rearing habitat for five species of Pacific salmon.
