Notes From an Environmentalist; Olympic National Park discovers removing the Elwha Dam caused them to lose their bridge and road.
We understood many of the effects of dams on rivers (such as regulating high flow events and reducing river migration) before the dams were removed. However, being the largest dam removal project in the world, we did not understand the effects of removing such large dams. As a result, Penny Wagner, Olympic National Park Public Information Officer, told us, “The modeling [of the effects of removing the dams] did not tell us that the road would absolutely wash out. It was only one potential scenario.”