Condit Dam Blown today.

[Huntbear]

Well, I hope you have all your memories of fishing the White Salmon well filed and put away. 

Condit Dam was blown today, and with all the sediment released, and the inter tribal fishing taking "their share" of future salmon runs, not going to be much available for us working folks to have memory making excursions there anymore.

I fished at the mouth there many times, caught some good fish, lost some better fish...

A link to the live video feed.

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2011/10/condit_dam_breached_by_pacific.html

[beagledog]

Caught my first steelhead there in 1987 . I was a seven year old kid at the time.

[pianoman9701]

Here's a video:

http://blip.tv/yakimaherald/video-from-the-condit-dam-breach-5679941

[WAcoyotehunter]

That should open up some nice river miles to salmon returns. 

[pianoman9701]

Well, I hope you have all your memories of fishing the White Salmon well filed and put away. 

Condit Dam was blown today, and with all the sediment released, and the inter tribal fishing taking "their share" of future salmon runs, not going to be much available for us working folks to have memory making excursions there anymore.

I fished at the mouth there many times, caught some good fish, lost some better fish...

A link to the live video feed.

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2011/10/condit_dam_breached_by_pacific.html

All due respects, I'm not sure about your post being correct, Hunbear. The whole purpose of this is to improve salmon runs down the road. The power has been replaced by Bonneville, so there's no loss there. I don't see a negative here.

[runamuk]

the people promoting this had no good answers to how much damage the silt would do how many fish would be lost, how long it would take to recover, were any recovery efforts suck as tree falling etc...all they had was the rhetoric about returning the river to its natural state and they were gonna move a few salmon above the dam 

I am all for more natural rivers we really need to restore the columbia .....and returning them but not without having some idea of the impact both immediate and future 

[quadrafire]

I'm sure that muddied the water downstream for a ways. How far was this dam from the mouth?
What do you think it will do for the fishing in the next few days until the debris stream settles out?

[WAcoyotehunter]

The federal licensing process is pretty tough.  I am 100% sure the utility went through the ringer in this planning process and blew the dam at the right time of year, right flows, and with fish loss in mind.  The silt will settle out pretty quickly and the White Salmon has the hydraulic capacity to cut a natural channel and look pretty good in a hurry.  I think it will be quicker than most people would expect. 

[predatorpro]

its all a waste of tax payers money...

[runamuk]

The federal licensing process is pretty tough.  I am 100% sure the utility went through the ringer in this planning process and blew the dam at the right time of year, right flows, and with fish loss in mind.  The silt will settle out pretty quickly and the White Salmon has the hydraulic capacity to cut a natural channel and look pretty good in a hurry.  I think it will be quicker than most people would expect.

thats all good and well but why couldnt they answer those simple questions?  that bothers me when all they seemed to know was it was environmentally friendly 

My stepmom writes EIS she does studies and I was exposed to this process while growing up I am not naive to what is involved ....I realize many think I am just an ignorant blonde sometimes....but I wanted to hear how this would impact the area and they did not have any answers.....much like the people supporting grizzly recovery in the cascades who stand fast to their 20 grizzlies in the state...and how we need more hate to tell them we have more lots more...its this stuff that bothers me...people see the glossy flyer with a pretty picture and a happy fish and buy the whole thing hook line and sinker....wild salmon and steelhead runs are great for the people allowed to catch them she didnt have any answers for that line of questioning either....

[Wazukie]

I'm sure that there was a lot of thought that went into this.  There was a lot of silt that went down stream.  I'm sure that if there were spawning salmon in the lower river, there will be loss.  Before the blast they transferred 600 adults above the dam.  Only time will tell what will happen to the fishery.  Nature has a nack at recovery sometimes if we just get out of the way.  I know that all access to the river is closed until further notice.

[BigGoonTuna]

i wouldn't worry too much about temporary silt flows.  just look at the toutle river after st. helens blew.  the south fork eventually cleared up(and it runs gin clear now), the north fork is muddy because the corps of engineers built a retention dam that prevents the silt from getting washed downstream.

[runamuk]

i wouldn't worry too much about temporary silt flows.  just look at the toutle river after st. helens blew.  the south fork eventually cleared up(and it runs gin clear now), the north fork is muddy because the corps of engineers built a retention dam that prevents the silt from getting washed downstream.

just curious how long did it take to clear the silt in that instance does anyone know? 

[WAcoyotehunter]

I don't have any idea about that system Muk.  I know that the dams (silt collectors) are really bad for fish and inverts.  Streams have amazing sediment movement ability.  I would hazard a guess (not knowing much about that particular system) that the sediment would be moved in matter of weeks.  There are some complex models that would be really accurate.  They involve sediment size and amount, slope, flow....I bet someone has ran them and has an idea.  I'll look into it more and get back. 

[pianoman9701]

its all a waste of tax payers money...

Apparently, building the dam in the first place was the waste. We didn't need the power.