Activist Yvan Rochon wants to see two dams, built early in the century on Washington’s Elwha River, demolished (HCN, 9/18/95). “They went up as progress and we want to take them down in the name of progress,” says the 35-year-old medical researcher. Rochon and his group, the Elwha Dams Removal Fund, are trying to raise money to remove Glines Canyon Dam, which lies within Olympic National Park, and Elwha Dam, downstream of the park. Rochon plans to raise $50 million of the $200 million price tag through individual and corporate donors, and hopes Congress will soon fund the rest of the project it authorized in 1992. Punching out the dams will bring salmon back to parts of Olympic National Park, Rochon says, as well as the upper reaches of the Elwha River watershed. Once the dams disappear, he adds, his group will consider its job done and disappear, too.
For more information, contact Elwha Dams Removal Fund, P.O. Box 20519, Seattle, WA 98102 (206/731-8488).
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Dams be damned.
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