Lake Mills was a

reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...

Olympic National Park Olympic National Park is a national park of the United States located in Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula. The park has four regions: the Pacific coastline, alpine areas, the west-side temperate rainforest, and the forests of the drier e ...

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

, United States, that existed from 1927 to 2012. It was formed by the Glines Canyon Dam on the

Elwha River The Elwha River is a river on the Olympic Peninsula in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. From its source at Elwha snowfinger in the Olympic Mountains, it flows generally north to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Most of the river's co ...

and was located about 13 miles from the mouth of the river on the

Olympic Peninsula The Olympic Peninsula is a large peninsula in Western Washington that lies across Puget Sound from Seattle, and contains Olympic National Park. It is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, the north by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the ...

. The lake was formed in 1927 with the completion of the dam and after the lowland forest that occupied the river bottom was

clear-cut Clearcutting, clearfelling or clearcut logging is a forestry/logging practice in which most or all trees in an area are uniformly cut down. Along with shelterwood and seed tree harvests, it is used by foresters to create certain types of for ...

. With no fish passage facilities, the dam blocked passage of

anadromous Fish migration is mass relocation by fish from one area or body of water to another. Many types of fish migrate on a regular basis, on time scales ranging from daily to annually or longer, and over distances ranging from a few metres to thousa ...

Pacific Salmon ''Oncorhynchus'', from Ancient Greek ὄγκος (''ónkos''), meaning "bend", and ῥύγχος (''rhúnkhos''), meaning "snout", is a genus of ray-finned fish in the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae, native to coldwater tributarie ...

from the upper 50+ miles of the Elwha watershed located within Olympic National Park. The Elwha Ecosystem Restoration project included the removal of the Glines Canyon Dam in 2014. The lake was fully drained by October 2012, leaving only sediment upstream of the former dam site. Olympic National Park crews are revegetating the area to speed up

ecological restoration Ecological restoration, or ecosystem restoration, is the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, destroyed or transformed. It is distinct from conservation in that it attempts to retroactively repair ...

and improve the habitat for the return of the salmon. Lake Mills was a habitat for

rainbow trout The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributary, tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in North America and Asia. The steelhead (sometimes called steelhead trout) is an Fish migration#Classification, ...

bull trout The bull trout (''Salvelinus confluentus'') is a char of the family Salmonidae native to northwestern North America. Historically, ''S. confluentus'' has been known as the " Dolly Varden" (''S. malma''), but was reclassified as a separate speci ...

, and

Dolly Varden trout The Dolly Varden trout (''Salvelinus malma'') is a species of salmonid ray-finned fish native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. Despite the name "trout" (which typically refers to freshwater species from ...

which used the lake as their adult habitat because the dam blocked access to the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

. It is expected that, following removal of the dam, these fish will return to their natural anadromous lifestyle.

External links

* {{authority control

Mills Mills is the plural form of mill, but may also refer to: As a name * Mills (surname), a common family name of English or Gaelic origin * Mills (given name) *Mills, a fictional British secret agent in a trilogy by writer Manning O'Brine Places U ...

Landforms of Olympic National Park Protected areas of Clallam County, Washington

See also

External links