But if the Elwha dams come out, and that successfully restores salmon runs, it could open the floodgates for similar projects.

ECONOMIST: Water in the West (2)

Mere chat about the Elwha project already seems to have emboldened foes of dams on the Snake river in Washington state and Idaho.

ECONOMIST: Water in the West (2)

Yet noble intentions do not, of themselves, move concrete, even rotting concrete like the cement-and-pine-cone slurry used to make the Elwha Dam, the first of the two structures to be built.

ECONOMIST: Water in the West (2)

Undamming the Elwha River is expected to boost its salmon population from 3, 000 to 400, 000, which will attract bears, eagles and other wildlife that thrived before the river was dammed in 1914.

ECONOMIST: American waterways

The puny Elwha dams, which produce a mere 28.6 megawatts of electricity compared with the 7, 000 megawatts generated by the Columbia's Grand Coulee Dam alone, would not seem to have much relevance to a discussion of Columbia dams.

ECONOMIST: Water in the West (2)