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Explosive breach of Condit Dam, White Salmon River, WA

Cerpin Taxt

Cerpin Taxt

Lifer
On October 26th, 2012 a hole was blasted in the base of 125' tall Condit Dam on the White Salmon River in Washington. In less than 2 hours, the reservoir behind the dam drained completely and the White Salmon flowed unimpeded by a dam for the first time in 100 years.

This short clip is a combination of video and timelapse photography captured throughout the day.

https://vimeo.com/31305629
 
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Pretty cool. There is an awesome documentary on dam removal on Netflix. It's called Damnation. Definitely worth a watch
 
The government has taken out several dams here in western WA over the past few years.

As much as I hate to see the good lake fishing disappear...it's still a net win...for the planet, for the fish...and ultimately, for the fishermen.
 
Very cool. I'll have to check out the documentary mentioned above. I find that I enjoy documentaries more than movies.
 
So what happens to the remaining dam structure? Seems to me that relatively small drain hole might clog in short order from the massive amount of sludge in the drained lake.
 
Captante said:
So what happens to the remaining dam structure? Seems to me that relatively small drain hole might clog in short order from the massive amount of sludge in the drained lake.
Click to expand...
Condit_before_after_Maser_Stampfi1.jpg
 
crashtech said:
Bye bye, clean power. Let's burn us some hydrocarbons and save some fish.
Click to expand...
It is a legitimate question. In the case of these dams, all of them produced very little power for the damage they did to the fishery. They were all old dams from an era where a few megawatts was a huge amount of power.
 
skyking said:
It is a legitimate question. In the case of these dams, all of them produced very little power for the damage they did to the fishery. They were all old dams from an era where a few megawatts was a huge amount of power.
Click to expand...

Good to know. I've heard that many dams in this country don't produce power at all; but I don't know about any of the individual dams mentioned in this thread.
 
skyking said:
It is a legitimate question. In the case of these dams, all of them produced very little power for the damage they did to the fishery. They were all old dams from an era where a few megawatts was a huge amount of power.
Click to expand...

Pretty much this.

They have been messing up the salmon from spawning in many areas for years.

They did not blow up a functional damn for no reason of course.
 
skyking said:
It is a legitimate question. In the case of these dams, all of them produced very little power for the damage they did to the fishery. They were all old dams from an era where a few megawatts was a huge amount of power.
Click to expand...

Correct.

Most all dams like these are licensed for fifty years by FERC. At the end of the license, the owner/operator can either remove the dam or apply for a new fifty-year license.

In order to receive a new license, the owner/operator must make a convincing case that they are still the "best" ones to operate the dam. While I'm not sure what all goes into being "best", I do know that FERC can also mandate costly improvement (such as new fish passage facilities) and/or operating restrictions (such as tighter reservoir elevation limits or flow restrictions) that reduce the value of the power generated. Given that fifty years has passed, it's understandable that these mandated improvements/restrictions can be extensive and costly.

This means that dam owner/operators have to weight the value of the power produced and the costs of FERC-mandated improvements against the cost of dam removal. (Yes, there are instances where dams get relicensed simply to avoid their high removal costs.) In the case of many century-old small dams (coming up on their second renewal), removal is the economic choice.
 
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