Barnard Construction Co. of Bozeman, Mont., normally builds dams. But the firm is now winning awards for ripping them out. Removing the 108-ft-high Elwha Dam, built in 1913 just five miles from where the mouth of the 45-mile Elwha River runs into the Strait of Juan de Fuca in Washington State’s Olympic National Park, and the 210-ft-high Glines Canyon Dam, built in 1927, eight miles upstream from Elwha, marked the nation’s largest-ever dam removal and river restoration project.
For this, the project team captured the ENR Northwest Project of the Year.