The Department of Interior announced this week that the project to remove the Elwha Dams will receive $54 million in stimulus funding. This mass increase in funding will help speed up the removal process, including possibly starting the removal in 2011, rather than the previously announced 2012.
From Peninsula Daily News:
Federal stimulus money will hasten removal of the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams by about one year after years of delays and will begin providing hundreds of jobs to the North Olympic Peninsula starting this summer, the National Park Service said Wednesday.
The $308 million removal project west of Port Angeles will receive $54 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 for mitigation projects that will begin this summer.
Reported also in: The Seattle Times and Seattlepi.com
