Rewrite these paragraphs: Over the past three years, the sediment trapped behind the dams has washed downstream, rebuilding riverbanks and gravel bars and, in and around the river's mouth, creating at least 70 acres of new beach and riverside estuary habitat for all kinds of species. The Elwha Klallam tribe even hopes that eventually, its members will once again be able to harvest shellfish near the mouth of the Elwha.
As salmon populations recover, researchers expect the whole food web—from invertebrates to birds to otters and bears—to benefit. Analysis of nitrogen isotopes in dipper blood, feathers, and toenail clippings suggests that the birds are indeed benefiting from the nutrients salmon provide. Other animals have been slower to adapt to the changes on the Elwha. The reservoirs behind the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams have been drained and revegetated, and the young trees and shrubs are attractive food for deer, elk and other species. But the area's Roosevelt elk, known to be creatures of habit, have yet to discover the tasty vegetation growing behind the Elwha dam site
When the dams came down it marked the end of more than four decades of debate, aimed at restoring the river and the salmon runs. At the outset, the Elwha dams and power plants were simply a means to an end. The power companies, cities, and investors involved in building the dams wanted personal financial gain, regional industrial growth, local job creation, civic recognition, and other benefits from the Elwha power projects. Likewise, Elwha dam removal is not an end in itself. It is a means to begin restoration of a river ecosystem, reestablishment of threatened anadromous fish species, and return of certain tribal rights and claims. Dam removal may seem to be the end of one story, but it is really just the beginning of another. A new lease on life for salmon and steelhead, a new window for scientists to study ecological restoration on a giant scale, and a return to beginnings for the Elwha Klallam people, who will see their creation site and former village sites re-emerge from the reservoir silt and their livelihoods once based on salmon fishing restored to them.