ENLOE DAM, Wash. — It has no license to produce electricity, hasn't generated a kilowatt since 1958, and provides no benefits for irrigation or flood control.
But one thing Enloe Dam, built 100 years ago, still does very, very well: block fish from reaching more than 340 miles of high-quality, cold-water habitat upstream in the Similkameen River.
The dam is of no use to anyone, not the small rural public utility district (PUD) that owns it, and not to tribes longing to bring salmon back to this river. Obstacles of cost, liability and a quest by the PUD to revive the dam for more than a decade stood in the way of removal.
But now new efforts are underway to take down Enloe Dam.
"It's got to go," said Rodney Cawston, chairman of the business council of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, as he watched the river crash in a 53-foot white cascade over the spillway of the dam. "Our people have lived off salmon for thousands of years. This is of just huge importance to us."
Taking down Enloe Dam is crucial for rebuilding steelhead, lamprey and chinook salmon in this river, said Cody Desautel, natural resources director for the tribes. The question isn't whether this dam in their traditional territory should come down. But how, and at what cost, and who pays.
"This is a mathematic and engineering question, and a question of where the sediment (behind the dam) goes," Desautel said. "But the question of whether to remove it or not, that is a no-brainer."
Tribal business council member Andrew Johnson's Indian name is badger — an animal whose ferocious determination well matches the tribes' efforts to restore salmon where dams have long been a barrier.
In 2019, the tribes even began reintroducing salmon above Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams.
Here, on the Similkameen River, a tributary of the Okanogan, which flows into the Upper Columbia, the tribes see a chance for restoration that is one of a kind.
"There is nothing else like it in the entire upper Columbia," said Chris Fisher, principal fish biologist for the Colville tribes.
Estimates in a 1983 report to the Bonneville Power Administration compiled by snorkel surveys of the Similkameen system reported 1.2 million square yards of spawnable habitat for steelhead trout and 439,000 square yards for chinook that could accommodate 98,000 spawning steelhead and 55,000 chinook.
Estimates are just that. But there is no question that taking down the dam, built just west of Oroville, would open passage to an entire system of wilderness tributaries in upstream, precious, high-elevation, cold-water habitat. Dam removal could add decades to the survival of upper Columbia chinook and steelhead, Fisher said, cold-water species listed for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act.
As climate warming heats both air and water temperatures downstream, cold-water refugia such as the Similkameen are more important than ever for salmon survival.
Dam removal could help the Okanogan Public Utility District too.
The utility already is battling $40 million in costs from wildfires that since 2014 have burned down utility poles and destroyed other critical power-supply infrastructure. Now the dam just keeps piling on costs — and likely will never produce power again.
It's not for lack of trying. The PUD for more than a decade pursued reelectrification of the dam, pouring money into engineering designs and schematics, relicensing costs and litigation. Only to discover it would cost at least $87 million to reenergize the plant, delivering power at about $150 per megawatt hour. That's more than 10 times the cost of power from the local mid-Columbia PUD.
Given the cost, the Okanogan PUD in 2019 voted to cease any further effort to rejuice the plant, after 13 years of study at a cost of about $15 million.
"That money was just wasted on lawyers and bureaucracy, every little study you had to do," said Scott Vejraska, a rancher, utility lineman and secretary of the three-person board of the Okanogan PUD.
Now the utility has to pay for a dam-safety study demanded by the state Department of Ecology — at an estimated cost of $7 million.
By now, the utility is happy to part ways with the dam, if someone — anyone — would assume the cost and liability for dam removal.
"I used to say we'd sell it for a dollar," Vejraska said. "But now I'd say 50 cents. And I'd take payment plans. Somebody, sign on the dotted line. Just take it from us. Do whatever you want — we will be fine with that."
