The Elwha River’s rebirth happened in dramatic fashion. There were explosions that ripped out dams. There were floods that bled lakes dry. There were new river channels that bit into roads and swallowed forested banks. At the Elwha’s mouth, a dust-colored plume erupted, sending a century’s worth of pent-up river sediment miles into the sea.

U.S. Geological Survey diver and biologist Nancy Elder was under the waves documenting a sudden explosion in new sea life when the current caught the plume and pushed it her way.

“It was like a curtain came over me,” she said. “It was pitch black out there.”

She waited for it to pass, a little impatiently. The real excitement — the Elwha’s real drama — was happening under the settling plume, where acres of new river delta were taking shape. The shoreline — formerly steep and rocky — was now covered in wide drifts of sand that pushed the Elwha’s mouth northward, deeper into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. On top of this softer sub-tidal landscape, a new ecosystem was on the rise, drawing salmon and dozens of other species that had been largely or completely absent since the first of the river’s two dams went up in 1913.

“What we’re seeing is a complete transformation,” Elder said.

A Century of Sediment

The Elwha and Glines Canyon dams were built to supply inexpensive hydroelectric power to Port Angeles lumber mills and the homes of their workers. But the dams also halted one of the region’s richest salmon runs and blocked the downstream flow of sediment and nutrients that are vital for any estuary.

The bold notion of undertaking the world’s largest dam removal project took hold in the 1980s after the U.S. Supreme Court, in the landmark Bolt Decision, ruled that Washington’s tribes were entitled to half of the state’s salmon catch. The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, whose members live at the river’s mouth, pushed for the river’s protection and the revival of its salmon runs. Environmental groups and eventually members of Congress took up the cause. Over the course of two decades, laws were passed, property disputes were settled and more than $325 million in federal funding was secured for the removal project, which began in 2011.

The last bit of concrete was blasted out of Glines Canyon on Aug. 26, 2014, reopening 70 miles of river habitat to steelhead and salmon.

Enlarge Glines Canyon Dam before demolition. Olympic National Park

The intense worldwide interest in the project is fading. But for the many scientists paying close attention to the river, the good part’s only just starting.

“It was a groundbreaking dam removal project, but it was about so much more than dams,” said Ian Miller, a Washington Sea Grant coastal hazards specialist.

The most dramatic changes will be triggered not from fish going upriver but from the tons of sediment heading down.

“The Elwha (restoration) is, by definition, a sediment project,” said Anne Shaffer, a biologist and executive director of Coastal Watershed Institute (CWI), a Port Angles-based nonprofit that conducts research in and around the Elwha estuary.

About 15 million cubic yards of sediment has flowed down the river since dam removal began in 2011.

That’s enough sand, gravel and silt to fill CenturyLink stadium seven times. Load it all into dump trucks and there’d be a bumper-to-bumper line stretching from Seattle to Miami and back.

So Much Sediment About 15 million cubic yards of pent-up sediment has flowed down the Elwha River since its two dams were removed. Here’s what that amount of sediment would fill:

7

Pro Football Stadiums

83,000

Dump Trucks

135,000,000

Wheelbarrows

The sediment flow hit a high point in 2013, when a big chunk of the Glines Canyon Dam was removed and much of Lake Mills was allowed to drain.

Most of the finer sediment went out to sea. About a third of the load accumulated at the river’s mouth, pushing the beach seaward by about 15 feet per year since the dam removal project began. As it stands now, there are about 80 acres of new habitat at the river’s mouth and 2 miles of sand-covered beach stretching from its edges.

Mouth of the Elwha, 2006-2015

On a recent afternoon, CWI nearshore restoration biologist Jamie Michel walked out to the new edge of the river delta.

“A few years ago, we’d be standing in water 20 or 30 feet deep right here,” he said. “And the shoreline back there was steep and cobbly, with rocks the size of dinner plates and basketballs — the kind of stuff you could easily turn an ankle on. Now you don’t have to drive out to the Pacific Coast to see this kind of dynamic sandy beach. Now we have it right here.”

New Landscapes, New Life

Salmon, long walled off from their historic spawning grounds, are again on the move in Elwha.

The chinook salmon run already tops 4,500 fish, and some of them are spawning above the dams.

It’s great news, said Robert Elofson, the Elwha Klallam Tribe’s river restoration director.

“But it’s nowhere near the 30,000 range it should be,” he said.

Last year, young sockeye salmon were spotted in the river’s mouth. It’s the first time they’ve appeared near the Elwha since monthly sampling began nearly a decade ago. It’s a welcome sign, but there’d be more to celebrate if sockeye had been found venturing beyond the dam sites.

Chum are doing OK, but don’t even ask Elofson about coho.

“Just terrible.”

It’s clear it will take time before salmon are swarming the river.

Not so for candlefish. These silver 7-inchers don’t get the attention of salmon, but they’re a key food source for them. Also known as “eulachon,” candlefish are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act and haven’t been seen near the Elwha in at least 60 years.

Enlarge The influx of candlefish has made the Elwha delta a rich source of food for sea birds and other marine predators. Stephen Hart

Shortly after the dams came down, candlefish started appearing by hundreds in the Elwha’s mouth.

“It was jaw-dropping,” Shaffer said.

To reproduce, the fish require fine, loose sediment — the kind that flushes through rivers with snowmelt and winter rains but had been held back by the Elwha’s dams.

Their high fat content make them a valued food source for marine predators. Their appearance has drawn frantic crowds of sea birds to the river’s mouth.

Shaffer’s institute leads regular fish surveys in the estuary. Along with candlefish, CWI has documented increasing numbers of young trout and salmon since the dams came down.

360 degree view of the river delta Use the arrow buttons or click and drag to view the entire river delta

Beyond the mouth, where the river’s freshwater spills into the salty strait, Elder and other USGS scientists are witnessing an ecosystem swap.

Red eye Medusa jellyfish

Over the last hundred years, the sediment-starved terrain encouraged the growth of kelp beds and the sculpins, gunnels and other fish that thrive in a rocky environments.

Down came the sediment, covering the nearshore in 33-foot-deep drifts and dunes.

What happened to all the little rock-dwelling hermit crabs and anemones?

“It’s a no-brainier — they got buried,” Elder said. “But a whole new crew moved in.”

Sand lance, a forage fish that is — like the candlefish — a staple food for salmon, have come back in shimmering schools.

Starry flounder had never been seen since the USGS started their dive surveys nine years ago. “But now they’re everywhere,” Elder said.

Dungeness Crab

Feather duster tube worms proliferated about two years ago, but now their populations have stabilized. Their growth was likely thanks to the sediment plume, which was giving the worms a plentiful supply of fine grit and silt they need to build their tubes.

The new underwater landscape has led to changing tastes in decorator crabs.

“Before, they used to cover their shells with brown or red algae,” Elder said. Now they prefer the orange hydroid, a flowery filter feeder that’s cropping up near the river’s mouth.

“All of a sudden, the crabs are all wearing orange hydroids.”

Spotted Ratfish

Dungeness crab, which like to burrow into sandy substrate, are thriving near the river.

“When we swim by, now we see all these adult Dungies just come boiling out of the sand,” she said. “It’s awesome.”

The Elwha Klallams have noticed. The crab population boom has fostered a bit of a crab fishing boom.

“We’ve already got people making decent money from all the crab,” Elofson said.

Before the dams, the river’s nearshore provided the tribe a rich bounty of clams.

“Now it’s looking like the fine shellfish beach we used to have,” he said.

The tribe plans to reintroduce the giant geoduck clam — now a cash crop that retails for more than $100 per pound in Asia.

Challenges Ahead

About a mile east of the Elwha’s mouth, state Department of Natural Resources hydrogeologist Dave Parks trudges across the beach under the shadow of a steel-reinforced bulkhead topped by a new four-story rock wall.

“It’s a riprap wall to the gods,” he says.

Its purpose: hold back a landfill that’s been tumbling into the strait for decades.

Rather than take on the expense and complexity of removing the trash, the nearby city of Port Angeles decided to armor it.

“It’s basically a fortress, and we have to defend this fortress if we want to prevent garbage from falling on to the beach,” said Kathryn Neal, an engineering manager with the city.

Enlarge Dave Parks, a state Department of Natural Resources hydrogeologist, conducts a sediment survey near the mouth of the Elwha River. Tristan Baurick

For Parks, the wall is one grandly-proportioned part of a largely ignored problem.

“Shoreline armoring makes the area completely unsuitable for fish,” he said. The Elwha’s celebrated salmon will hatch in a restored river but start their lives here, where food will be scarce.

Nearly 70 percent of the shoreline between the Elwha and Port Angeles is covered by bulkhead, boulders and other forms of armoring. The hardened shore slows erosion, and that protects the growing number of high-bluff homes on the city’s outskirts and prevents an old and little-used waterline from tumbling into the surf.

But for fish, the bulkheads and riprap prevent the natural flow of bluff sediment to the beach. When waves hit the walls, the deflected energy scours the beach down to the rocky bottom. The newly freed sediment drifting over from the Elwha quickly washes away.

“In this hard cobble, no forage fish spawning occurs, and that means salmon have nothing to eat,” Parks said.

Another man-made impediment is stifling the delta’s rebirth.

Visit the Elwha Delta You’ve read about the dynamic changes happening at the mouth of the Elwha, and now you want to see the place for yourself. Getting to there is tricky. There are no official public access points or parks at the river’s mouth. The Lower Elwha Klallam Reservation has a park that once offered a glimpse of the estuary but changes in the Elwha’s course have made it a less-than-satisfying spot to appreciate the river. Instead, you’ve got to head over to the river’s west side. From Highway 112, take a right on Place Road. Travel north for almost 2 miles, then turn right at the “T” intersection. Park near the end of the road and follow the short DikeTrail to the beach. The Surfrider Foundation provides and maintains a portable toilet in the parking area. While providing easy access to the beach, the dike is considered one of the last impediments to the mouth’s full restoration, and environmental groups would like to see it removed or reduced to link the river to a lagoon. Access to the beach is granted by the dike’s owners. They could take that away if the area’s overwhelmed with trash, noise and other nuisances, so keep that in mind when you visit.

A 600-foot-long dike extending from Place Road on the river’s west side is cutting the river off from a large tidal lagoon. While the dams were readying for destruction, the dike was actually being built up and widened. Nearby residents feared that the undammed river would unleash a flood that would knock out their waterfront homes. The flood didn’t happen, but the dike remains.

“We’re hearing the same logic that was applied to the dam — that we spent a lot to build it, so we’ve got to leave it,” Michel said.

Removing or at least punching a gap in the dike is CWI’s “No. 1 wish for the estuary,” Shaffer said.

The partly privately owned dike has a tangle of property and government jurisdictional issues, making its removal unlikely any time soon.

Getting the OK to knock out the Elwha’s dams was simple by comparison. In Olympic National Park, the dams had a willing and supportive single owner. But removing bulkheads and dikes involves multiple property owners; county, tribal and city governments and state and federal regulators. The growing delta poses ownership and jurisdictional issues as well. The tribe owns the land on the east side and a bit on the west side, which also has private owners. Official survey work is yet to be completed and may have to wait until the river settles down a bit more.

Buying shoreline properties may be the next big push in the river’s wider restoration.

CWI will use about $1.6 million in grants to purchase a farm to the east of the river’s mouth. CWI plans to remove a failing riprap barrier, restoring a former lagoon and about 850 feet of shoreline.

The amount is a drop in the bucket compared with the millions spent on the river’s inland restoration.

“Everyone wants to hear about the dams,” Shaffer said. “What this project is doing in the nearshore has been an afterthought. Really, though, it should be the poster child of the project.”