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Saturday, September 17, 2011

The Elwha: Travel a river being reborn

Kevin Yancy, the last operator of the Elwha hydroelectric project, throws a final switch shutting down generation at Elwha Dam for good, after the dam had generated electricity for nearly a century. The Elwha and Glines Canyon dams generated an annual average output of 19 megawatts, enough to power 13,870 Northwest homes. In their day, they powered the economic development of the Olympic Peninsula, especially saw and pulp mills that put paychecks in generations of workers' pockets.