Well, there you have it–the coffer dam has been completely removed. Last month, crews cut a steep road down to the river and, with brute force, pulverized it. Pretty wild how well preserved and structurally sound it was after 100 years under Northwestern Lake.
And now for a few items of BIG NEWS…
– The current prediction for the river being fully open for recreation is Labor Day 2012. Mark your calendars and get your raft/kayak ready because this is going to be really fun. Obviously, this whole dam removal process is a big experiment so things could still happen to delay or advance this date.
– Steve and I were recently awarded a grant to help us continue documenting this project. We’re not getting rich yet, but we may have recouped our costs to this point!
– I’ve been tapped by Oregon Public Broadcasting to produce a half-hour episode for a program called “Field Guide” about the removal of Condit. I’ll shoot through September or October and the show will likely premiere in February. It will be available online after the premiere.
Stay tuned for more updates…
White Salmon Restored: A Timelapse Project 
Sweet!! That’s great!! You guys rock!! John and Gail McCarthy
I’m surprized how quickly the water has cleared on both sides of the dam . Hopefully the Negetive Nellies or the Trolls will now see that the river is not dead from the sediment release down stream . Wish some of them would do research on how the dam was at the end of it’s life expectancy and filled to the brim with the above . As far as cheep electricity , wind farms in the state are being paid not to produce power as we have more than can be used .
Too bad that the blast and scower it out fast technech was not able to be used on the Elwha . It was a shock how well that worked !
How will rafting and kayaking effect migrating salmon and will the river be closed to those activities during the salmon migration windows ? Has anyone seen any salmon come up to the dam and thru the hole to spawn upstream yet ? I think that the first fish to go farther than the dam will be awesome and the champians of dam removals can have the last word against the Naysayers and Trolls .
When will we see the next picture update? I have enjoyed monitoring the Elwha dams coming down over the webcams but updates are sparse on the Condit dam. Please help us office-bound environmentalists!
This is indeed exciting news and great images. Will there be a steady flow of pictures of the river? Why not make the images available directly from the camera’s
Hi
I work on the Columbia maintaining navigation channels and several of the tugboat skippers have asked about the impacts the dam removal will have on the shipping traffic up and down the river. Could you include this impact in your project? You should know that a significant portion of the grain exported by the US uses the Columbia River.