Elwha River dam removal a priority for House subcommittee chair

Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., has two priorities with his powerful posting as chairman of the House Interior and Environmental Appropriations subcommittee, which controls the purse strings of the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and Environmental Protection Agency.

One is Puget Sound.

The other is removal of two dams on the Elwha River, built without fish passage facilities in the 1920s, that destroyed the Olympic Peninsula's mightiest chinook salmon runs. The subcommittee-passed budget contains $20 million in the National Park Service budget for the dam removal project. Read the full article »