Debates about the merits and costs of removing dams have been in and out of the national spotlight for years. While most dam removal efforts have been bogged down in logistics and opposition, on Goldsborough Creek in south Puget Sound, a tribe and a timber company have teamed up with state and federal agencies to take out an old dam and bring salmon back upriver.

Goldsborough Creek drains 80 square miles of forestland on the Olympic Peninsula. The creek had been dammed since 1885 when a railroad company built a log storage pond on the site. In 1921, the dam was used to generate power for the growing community of Shelton. After a flood wiped out the dam, it was rebuilt in 1932 to provide power and to divert water for a forest products operation. Simpson Timber Company acquired the dam in the 1950s, but ceased drawing power from it in 1986.

When it was rebuilt in 1932, the dam was 100 feet long and just 14 feet high. But with water flowing over it at an average rate of 400 cubic feet per second, the streambed below the dam was soon scoured out, adding another 20 feet to the dam’s height and rendering the dam’s fish ladder impassable. The dam became utterly useless to Simpson in 1996 when flooding destroyed the water diversion pipeline.

The Squaxin Island Tribe – also known as People of the Water – have long been stewards of southern Puget Sound’s salmon. They had advocated for the removal of Goldsborough Dam for over 20 years, knowing that upstream there is over 25 miles of main stem and tributary habitat. According to Jeff Dickison, a tribal biologist, “I’ve worked on this project for 15 years, and it was already a file when I was hired.”

Jeff remembers when the tone of discussion about dam removal changed. “The one meeting I’ll never forget was with a Simpson accountant,” Jeff recalls. “We were having this whole discussion about the dam and the costs of repairing some damage and the risks associated with it. The accountant was busily writing down numbers and taking notes, and at the end of the meeting he said, ‘It appears to me that this facility is probably more of a liability than an asset.’ That changed the whole picture then and there.”

Not that dam removal was a done deal once Simpson Timber Company and the Tribe were in agreement. The next step was to gather the five million dollars needed to fund the project. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and Simpson both put $1.1 million toward the project, and the state also agreed to take ownership of the dam, assuming liability for its removal. The Tribe played the role of matchmaker, which meant a lot of lobbying in Washington DC.

Then came the lucky part. A law passed in 1996 authorized federal funding for fish restoration projects. Jeff explains, “The way it works in Congress is that they pass lots of laws with authorizations and very few appropriations to back them up. We realized the law was there, the authorization was there, and we needed to get the appropriation.” With the joint effort of Simpson, the Squaxin Island Tribe, and Congressman Norm Dicks, the federal dollars were appropriated through the Army Corps of Engineers. The Goldsborough project was one of the first to take advantage of the new funding source.

Removing the dam and reestablishing the streambed was a significant piece of engineering. “Because of erosion of the channel downstream, it was past the point of just taking out the dam,” explains Jeff. “If you had blown the dam up and let it try to restore itself, there would still have been an impassable barrier and the fish still wouldn’t have been able to get upstream.”

Work began early in the summer of 2001, when stream flows were low. First the stream was diverted into 2000 feet of four-foot diameter pipe. Removing the old wooden dam was relatively easy; the more difficult work lay in creating a gently sloped streambed to replace the 35-foot drop the dam had created. The sediment that had collected behind the dam was used to build up the downstream stretch. Thirty-one concrete weirs were installed across the streambed, creating a series of low steps that stabilized the rebuilt slope. Then, numerous boulders and large tree stumps were scattered between the concrete weirs to improve fish habitat. Jeff explains, “The large woody debris creates more turbulence, particularly at higher flows, which scours underneath the logs leading to deeper pools and shaded cover for fish.”

Jeff acknowledges that the work of rebuilding the streambed didn’t always look like people’s idea of restoration. “At times it looked like a highway project,” he recalls. “It was this dewatered stream that they were running big equipment up and down, moving all kinds of earth.” Typically large equipment is not allowed anywhere near salmon-bearing streams, and vegetative buffers are required, but for this project, many streamside trees had to be removed. Once reconstruction was complete, alders and willows were planted along the stream and slowly they are beginning to restore the shade canopy.

Water was returned to the restored streambed in November of 2001 and chum salmon were spotted above the old dam site that fall. The next year, the Tribe counted more than 15,000 chum migrating down through the newly restored habitat. There is a lot of potential for coho production in the creek, which is the species the partnership is hoping to significantly improve. “It is definitely highly engineered,” says Jeff. Some people still express concern about that as well as about the nature of the habitat conditions in this reach. Whenever you do something like this there are always trade-offs, and the real trade-off here was 25 miles of habitat upstream.” Jeff continues, “To me this is about fish passage – look at it as a fish ladder, as whatever you want – it’s about getting the fish past this point, and there is great habitat upstream.”

Part of Jeff’s optimism is due to the commitment Simpson Timber Company made to protect the upstream habitat now accessible to salmon. Simpson has since split into two companies, and one of those, the Green Diamond Resource Company, now manages the upstream forestland. In a move that put them in front of the industry in terms of environmental stewardship, the company developed a Habitat Conservation Plan designed to prevent future endangered species listings and degradation of the Goldsborough Creek ecosystem.  Jeff explains, “The Plan provides really stable land management strategies well out into the future. So for this vast watershed and 25 miles of stream, you have a pretty good idea of what it’s going to look like for quite some time.”