Interior Department Backs Plan to Raze Dams : Northwest: Conservationists agree that river systems should be restored to aid struggling salmon species.

From atop the Elwha Dam, the plight of the lone salmon far below was clearly hopeless. The fish, perhaps 40 pounds strong, leaped from the water again and again, hurling itself against the spillway’s base, only to be pummeled back by the thundering current.

Instinct and sheer persistence once propelled salmon toward spawning grounds far up the 45-mile Elwha River. But no more. For 80 years, this dam, just five miles from the ocean, has been the end of the line.

Now, however, there’s a growing chance the salmon may win back their river.

The Interior Department, bucking a century of government zeal to dam the Northwest’s rivers, wants to tear down two privately owned hydroelectric dams and restore the Elwha to what it was: a wild, fertile river that produced some of the world’s biggest salmon.

It’s the first time the federal agency has recommended removing a major dam for environmental concerns, making the Elwha a focal point as conservationists nationwide gear up for a once-in-50-years battle over about 200 hydropower dams due for relicensing by 1993.

Some of the dams were built in the 1800s. Most were last licensed in the 1940s, when federal regulators gained jurisdiction over them.

“When these projects were built, there was little understanding and virtually no protection of the ecology of river systems,” said John Echeverria, conservation director for American Rivers, a river-advocacy group. “Relicensing is an opportunity to restore a lot of important river values that have been lost.”

The dams block rivers nationwide:

* In northeastern Wisconsin, state officials are lobbying to rid the scenic Pine River of a small hydropower dam up for relicensing in 1993.

* River advocates trying to restore Atlantic salmon to Maine’s Kennebec River hope to remove the 154-year-old Edwards Dam, which produces electricity for 1,800 homes. The relicensing process is their last resort; negotiations between the state and owners to raze the dam fell apart last fall.

Removal is proposed for just a handful of dams. Most cases involve less drastic measures. In Massachusetts, for example, white-water rafters want a utility company to increase summertime flows over eight dams so the Deerfield River doesn’t dry to a trickle. Elsewhere, environmentalists are urging fish-saving devices such as fish ladders or screens over turbines.

But even those modifications could cost millions, drawing opposition from hydropower boosters, who say dams don’t deserve a bad environmental rap. They argue that hydropower, which generates 13% of the nation’s electricity, is a clean, renewable energy source preferable to alternatives such as coal or nuclear.

“Every power source has its disadvantages,” said Don Brunell, president of the Assn. of Washington Business. “The question we have to ask is: Which has the least? We’ve got to have a balance between power and environment.”

Conservationists believe the Elwha River may be their best shot for swinging that balance toward dam removal.

Though hydropower is common in the Northwest, the Elwha is unique. Unlike most rivers in the region, it has not been degraded by agriculture or development. The watershed above the two dam reservoirs is pristine, situated completely within the 922,000-acre Olympic National Park.

Also, the undammed Elwha was one of the few Northwest rivers to support all five species of Pacific salmon, including huge chinook that grew to 100 pounds.

No salmon, however, could leap the 110-foot-high Elwha Dam, built in 1911 without a fish ladder. Elders of the Klallam Indian tribe recall the first years after construction, when thousands of salmon battered themselves to death against the dam’s base.

The 210-foot-high Glines Canyon Dam was built seven miles upstream in 1926, also without a fish ladder.

When Olympic National Park was created in 1938, the Glines Canyon Dam remained as a private inholding within the park. The Elwha Dam is located a few miles outside the park. Both are owned by the James River Corp.

Today, spawning salmon are confined to the five miles below the dams. One salmon species has vanished from the river, and the others constitute a total annual run of about 40,000 fish. That’s one-10th of what some biologists believe a free-flowing Elwha could sustain.

In June, the Interior Department announced it supported removing the dams, backing up three Interior agencies--the National Park Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Fish and Wildlife Service--that had urged the dams’ removal.

“It’s an opportunity to take what once was a world-class watershed and restore it,” said Maureen Finnerty, Olympic National Park superintendent. “Years of research convinced us we could get that restoration, but only if the dams come out.”

The dams’ owner disputes that, saying the company could produce almost as many fish--at lower cost and without losing a valuable energy supply--by installing a fish ladder on the lower dam and trapping and hauling salmon around the upper dam. Those measures would cost an estimated $14 million, compared to $65 million for dam removal.

“We can have restoration of fisheries with those dams in place,” said Orville Campbell, hydropower manager for James River.

City officials in nearby Port Angeles fear dam removal would jeopardize the 350 jobs at Daishowa America Ltd.’s pulp mill. The dams generate 40% of the mill’s electricity at less than half the cost of power from the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal power marketing agency for the Northwest.

It’s not clear when--or even by whom--the matter will be resolved.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which licenses all non-federal hydropower dams, is up to a year away from deciding whether to raze the Elwha’s dams or license them for 30 to 50 years.

But the commission’s authority is being challenged by environmentalists, four federal agencies and the Klallam tribe. Their suits, filed this summer in federal appeals court, claim the National Park Service, not the energy agency, has jurisdiction over dams in national parks.

Meanwhile, a deal is brewing in Congress to resolve the Elwha dilemma.

Sens. Brock Adams (D-Wash.) and Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) have started negotiating a settlement to give the dams to the federal government. Under their proposed legislation, the mill would get low-cost replacement electricity from the Bonneville Power Administration, and the federal government would cover Bonneville’s losses.

Whatever approach prevails, there’s no time to lose, said David Ortman, representative of the environmental group Friends of the Earth. If dam removal is approved, it could take five years to raze the structures and up to 20 years for the river to return to its natural state.

Meanwhile, Ortman said: “The salmon are swimming around, wondering why they can’t go upstream.”