Removal of Cascades Diversion Dam

Now, this is interesting!!!

I watched a show tonight on History Channel all about dams, and while they spent time discussing Grand Coulee and Hoover, they ended the program with what was done with the Cascades Diversion Dam, which was just outside Yosemite Park, on the Merced. This fits in a little bit with the earlier discussion about whether or not the Merced has ever dried up.

So, ears perked up bigger than a jackrabbit at the end of the show, and I did find some archived stuff on the NPS site itself.

Apparently the dam was built about 90 years ago to provide power, 20kw of electricity. Remnants of the dam weren't removed till '86 and last traces gone not until 2003. The note from the NPS below doesn't include the 2003 note so I think it's a little dated, but extremely interesting.

They (meaning government, who I increasingly refer to as "they" nowadays) found that removing the dam didn't damage the ecology that grew to depend on it, namely riparian. Albeit, the dam wasn't very big, only 17 feet high, but that is significant. Ever set up a bird feeder?

Very interesting to research this stuff, I'll give you the NPS release, it has no date on it. Once I started looking at this, I started wondering once again about removing Hetch Hetchy.

http://www.nps.gov/archive/yose/planning/cascades/cascades_ch1.htm