DENVER — The National Park Service's Denver Service Center awarded the contract for construction management services for removal of the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams, scheduled to begin in September 2011. The contract was awarded March 18 to URS Corporation of Seattle, with a total value of $2,563,395.79.

URS will provide construction management services for the duration of the dam removal contract. Construction management services include inspections, monitoring, and construction administration tasks. Dam removal work will begin this September and take as long as three years to complete. The $26.9 million dam removal contract was awarded in late August 2010 to Barnard Construction, Inc. of Bozeman, Mont.

The $324.7 million Elwha River Restoration project will free the Elwha River after nearly a century. Removing the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams will allow fish to access spawning habitat in more than 70 miles of river and tributary stream, most of which is protected inside Olympic National Park.

The 45-mile long Elwha River is the historic home of all five species of Pacific salmon and has been legendary as one of the Northwest's most productive salmon streams. Because neither dam provided passage for migratory fish, salmon and other fish have been restricted to the lower five miles of river since dam construction.

The National Park Service and the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe are primary partners in Elwha River Restoration. As the largest dam removal in U.S. history and one of the National Park Service's most comprehensive restoration projects, the project is made possible by collaboration among many partners.

For more information on Elwha River Restoration, visit the Olympic National Park's website at www.nps.gov/olym.