PORT ANGELES, Wash. (AP) – Tales of
the Elwha River’s legendary 100-pound chinook salmon fueled the
debate over tearing down the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams.
But when the 108-foot Elwha Dam and the 210-foot Glines Canyon Dam
are no more, will the mystical big fish return, riding the same
genetic makeup that pushed them to supposedly grow to such
prodigious proportions so long ago?
And did supersize salmon even exist on the Elwha in the first place?
One thing is for certain: The tear-down debate over the dams is so
1990s.
Those walls of the two dams – bulwarks against salmon survival for
nearly 100 years – will be gone by late 2014, more than two decades
after their removal was mandated by the 1992 federal Elwha Act.
Bids on the project are due June 9, with dismantling slated to begin
in late 2011 with the project estimated to cost $350 million.
By 2039, the river should be replenished to its pre-dam level with
all five species of Pacific salmon – 400,000 spawning annually, up
from the current, comparatively minuscule 3,000, according to the
National Park Service, which is in charge of the project.
Since 1913 the Elwha Dam – built without fish passages, like the
Glines Canyon Dam – has stood just five miles from the Strait of
Juan de Fuca, fortress-like, impenetrable and deadly, blocking 65
miles of the nutrient-rich river to spawn-hungry salmon.
“The fish have been pounding their heads against it for 100 years
trying to get upstream,” said river restoration project manager
Brian Winter, a National Park Service fisheries biologist who has
spent most of his professional life studying the Elwha River dams
and their impact on fish.
There are no photos of the Elwha’s purported 100-pound salmon in the
state historical archives or the records of the Clallam County
Historical Society.
The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, whose members have fished the Elwha
for centuries, could not verify that a photo of an obviously large
salmon being held by tribal member Ernie Sampson was of the
100-pound variety.
Still, salmon that size are more than a fairy tale, Winter said.
“They did indeed exist,” Winter said, pointing to historical
accounts.
In 1790, Spanish explorer Manuel Quimper wrote that he bought
“salmon of 100 pounds” from Native Americans in the Elwha River
area, while the state Department of Fisheries 140 years later, in
1930, found “several males that would weigh 100 pounds each,”
according to Bruce Brown, author of “Mountain in the Clouds: A
Search for the Wild Salmon” (Simon and Schuster, 1981).
Francis Charles, Lower Elwha Klallam tribal chairwoman, was certain
that 100-pounders plied the Elwha.
“I am 100 percent sure.”
The big chinook, as heavy as bags of cement, were pulled from the
Elwha River by tribal members who linked arms to land the fish,
Charles said.
“They would have to hold on to one another to bring them to shore,”
she said.
What made these salmon so prodigious?
For one thing, 100-pound salmon are known to exist in waters off
Alaska, so they can thrive in the right conditions, Winter said.
Research indicates those conditions involve natural selection
combined with the right environment, creating a genetic disposition
toward large size, Winter said.
Before the dams blocked the Elwha, the river “contained many miles
of ideal chinook spawning grounds, especially between Lost River and
Long Creek,” Brown wrote.
“To reach these shady riffles, salmon had to climb through a series
of narrowing canyons, climaxing at the Goblin’s Gate.”
Brown quotes the late Robert Masoulf of Peninsula College: “The
strength of the rapids in this section of the river probably acted
as a mechanism for the natural selection of larger fish.”
When they returned to spawn, they were larger, stronger, laid more
eggs and produced salmon that were inclined, like the fish that
produced them, to being bigger and stronger.
Olympic National Park fisheries biologist Pat Crain said the
comparatively colder, snow-fed waters of the Elwha also produced
stronger chinook and may have contributed to their ability to stay
longer at sea.
Brown said that once the chinook spawned and left the Elwha, they
returned larger because some likely stayed at sea for 12 or more
years, a number that Winter said he trusted.
“We don’t know why they stay out there and feed longer so they
become 100-pounders,” Winter added.
“We can’t pinpoint what it is that caused that life-history trait.”
Salmon retain a genetic memory, or imprint, of the “suite” of odors
from the river, following those odors to spawn where they were
produced, Winter said.
“The genetics that caused the 100-pounders are still there,” he
added.
“The same environment that created the 100-pounders 100 years ago
will be there for them to again become 100-pounders.”
While there are still five miles of unblocked habitat between the
Elwha Dam and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the spawning conditions
are less than ideal.
It consists of what was standing water heated by the sun that flows
from Lake Mills behind Glines Canyon Dam, which is in the Olympic
National Park, and Lake Aldwell behind Elwha Dam.
The water ends up at the five-mile stretch where river ends and the
Strait begins. It is two to four degrees warmer than in the days of
supersized salmon.
In addition, today’s returning salmon don’t go through the natural
selection process that involved what 100 years ago was a difficult
climb upstream in which only the strong survived, Winter said.
Chinook are not the only salmon expected to return to the Elwha in
greater numbers.
Coho, steelhead pink, chum and sockeye also are expected to spawn in
greater numbers in the main stem of the river and 30 miles of
tributaries, Winter said.
Chinook and steelhead are both listed as threatened species, though
the National Marine Fisheries Service is preparing a recovery plan
for the species, Winter said.
By 2019, after an expected five-year moratorium on all fisheries,
including tribal fisheries, ends for the Elwha, the river should
have a fishery worth dropping a line in, Crain predicted.
Winter said the moratorium – which has not been announced yet – is
meant to cover the period of dam removal “and a few years after
that.”
Crain said the state, Olympic National Park and the Lower Elwha were
preparing a joint statement about the moratorium.
After the five years, the group would decide when to lift the
moratorium on each species of fish.
The goal is to have all salmon who return to the Elwha, including
Chinook, be wild stock, not hatchery bred, Winter said.
“At that point, the hatcheries are out of the solution.”
So when can we expect to see 100-pound salmon again?
“No one can say how long it will take for that trait to be exhibited
again,” Winter said.
“All we can say is the conditions for that life history trail should
be available for 100-pounders to return again. As long as we give
them access to the historic habitat, there’s nothing to prevent them
from being hundred-pounders again.”
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved.