New pictures of the free-flowing Sandy River

Posted on November 14, 2007 | Filed Under Dam Removal, Northwest, River Renewal 

Amy Kober
Northwest Outreach & Communications Director

Marmot Dam is no more, and the Sandy River is flowing free. Here are some pictures Brett Swift, deputy director of our Northwest office, took on November 7 at the former dam site. According to all  reports, the river restoration process is going very well — even better than expected.

Here’s a side-by-side before/after picture:

Marmot Dam removal, before and after

And here are images of the newly free-flowing river: 

Sandy River free-flowing, 11-7-07 

Sandy River free-flowing, 11-7-07 

For comparison, check out pics of the July 24 demolition blast, and pics of the deconstruction process.

About this Post
Permalink | Trackback | | Print This Article |
Like it?   digg | hugg | del.icio.us | furl | reddit


Comments

3 Responses to “New pictures of the free-flowing Sandy River”

  1. Men may dam it — Wendell Berry : American Rivers Blog on November 28th, 2007 6:01 am

    [...] Dam began with a resounding boom. Nearly four months later and the Sandy River is running free. More River Quotes are posted weekday mornings. Want to see your favorite river quote here? Email it to [...]

  2. Benjamin Bogardus on December 4th, 2007 11:45 pm

    Free flowing, river restoration: somehow I believe that there is more to this project than meets the eye. With all the positive language I have seen presented online that seeks to emphasize the good turn removing the dam has made for the river, the ecological and technical effects of dam removal have been lost.

    Although I am new to the study of dams, the time lapse video at:
    http://or.water.usgs.gov/projs_dir/marmot/index.html
    seems to suggest that an awful lot of sediment traveled down the river in a very short time. This has HUGE and devastating consequences, some permanent, for downstream reaches of the river. Historically, chemicals or contaminants produced within this watershed may have built up, with this seemingly careless release of sediment letting them all ‘flow freely’ down the river at once.

    Even in the pictures, there still seems to be a large lack of riparian vegetation, possibly due to the fact that the river could still be shifting back and forth in this corridor. Where is the monitoring? What happened upstream and downstream? Although fish passage can be a big concern with these rivers, it is still unclear whether the removal increases their populations.

    Basically, there is a lot more to it than simply removing the dam, and behind all the fancy language and often pretty pictures of families paddling in a stream, there is more going on.

  3. Amy Kober on December 5th, 2007 10:35 am

    Benjamin,
    Maybe I’ve tried to simplify the way I talk about this river restoration effort because our blog speaks to a very broad audience, including people who don’t have an ecological/technical background.

    Yes, sediment was an issue that was intensively studied and modeled before any construction equipment started moving. PGE, the agencies, the conservation groups — everyone at the table — looked at all the ways the dam could be removed, and all the ways to manage sediment, and they arrived at the option that would cause least harm to the river.

    Ask anyone involved with this project and they’ll tell you that the long-term benefits of dam removal far outweigh any short-term impacts from the sediment.

    As for monitoring — that is extremely important and it is happening. If you’d like to learn more (sediment monitoring, vegetation monitoring, etc) Brett Swift in our Portland office can give you those details and contacts. I’m sure she’d be happy to talk with you and answer any questions you have. Her number is 503-827-8648.

    Thanks for your interest,

    Amy

Leave a Reply