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By ADAM LAPIERRE

News staff writer

Monday marks the beginning of one landmark project, and the end of another. When it was built in 1923, Powerdale Dam brought the Hood River Valley into the modern age as “one of the most electrified farming sections in the United States.”

Work starts this week on the decommissioning and removal of the dam, and as similar facilities in the Northwest face the same fate, the destruction of this one is, in itself, a milestone.

After this weekend, access at both the diversion dam and the powerhouse locations on the Hood River will be restricted to the public for the remainder of the decommissioning project, so anyone interested in one last look at the facility should do it over the weekend.

Work from now until around November will consist of removing the dam, fish facility, intake structure, power canal, steel flume and sand settling basin at the project’s upstream location.

A few miles away, just outside downtown Hood River, work will include removing parts of the powerhouse structure and taking down, piece by piece, the 200-foot-high water tower that has overlooked town for almost 80 years.

PacifiCorp chose Weekly Bros. Inc. of Idleyld Park, Ore., as the prime contractor for the project, which is estimated to cost roughly $2.4 million.

In addition to paying the price tag, PacifiCorp has agreed to turn over about 400 acres of land stretching between the diversion dam and the powerhouse known as the Powerdale Lands Corridor, and provide more than $150,000 to a trust fund dedicated to future maintenance of the land.

“PacifiCorp and Weekly Bros. will work together to complete the project and make sure all of the work is done safely,” said Eric Hansen, PacifiCorp senior project manager. “We hope to have as little disruption to local residents as possible.”

Disruption to the public will come largely in the form of restricted access to the river. The powerhouse and dam sites are both popular access points for fishing and recreation along the river, but as of Monday those roads (off Highway. 35 just south of town and uptown off Copper Dam Road) will be closed to the public for the remainder of the project.

“Unfortunately the project will require taking over recreation areas for a period of time,” said Tom Gauntt, Pacific Power spokesman. “But when the project is done it will be something greatly improved.”

With a narrow in-water work period for the Hood River (July 15 to Aug. 31), the project will be on a fairly strict timeline. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife extended that period to allow the project to start in-water on July 1, and as much work as possible will be done ahead of time so that once in-water work is allowed things can go as quickly.

“It’s a very tight timeline to get work done and meet all the deadlines involved with in-water work, so starting in April is inevitable,” Guantt said. “We realize this is a good fishing month on the river and we don’t want to disrupt it any more than we have to, but we must ensure safety.

“It’s more than a construction zone; it’s a deconstruction zone. There’s going to be lot going on, and for the public’s safety we need people to stay clear.”

Although people may not be able to access the river from either the dam or the powerhouse roads, the river itself, except for areas immediately surrounding both facilities, will still be open to the public.

At the powerhouse site, the first work to be done will be dismantling the steel garage structure directly under the water tank and removing the inside of the powerhouse.

Once that is done later this month, work will begin on the challenging task of taking apart and removing the tall green water tower from the top down.

Up at the dam, the first things to be done will include removing the steel flume, creating a bypass channel, removing the setting basin and building sections of the coffer dam so they will be ready when the in-water work period begins.