In 1992, Congress passed an Act of law that few outside Washington State took much notice of at the time, yet it would go on to reshape one of the Pacific Northwest's great rivers. According to the Elwha River Ecosystem and Fisheries Restoration Act, the federal government was to buy up two hydroelectric dams that had blocked salmon from reaching their spawning grounds for the best part of a century, and to tear them down once and for all. They had to balance the ecological case for removal against the needs of a local paper mill, a city water supply, and the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, all of whom depended on the river in different ways. It took until 2011 for demolition crews to finally arrive on site. Three years later, in 2014, the job was done, and for the first time in a hundred years the Elwha ran free from the mountains to the sea.
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