Salmon River Dam Decommissioning Project

A challenging design-build project that required bypass channeling and pumping of a live river to complete the removal of a 60-year-old diversion dam for BC Hydro in the summer of 2017.  Working under a strict timeline within the Fisheries window, the success of the project was due to an intensely coordinated equipment and labour effort; crews were on-site 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for over 2 months, pushing the limits of manpower and equipment alike.  The creosoted timber crib dam and approximately 20,000 tonnes of the surrounding contaminated soil were safely and responsibly removed to facilitate the river channel being reconstructed to its natural shape after over half a century. Northwin supplied and operated the water treatment system which treated and released over 5 million gallons of Creosote impacted water back into the salmon stream with the use of flocculant, CO2 injection, settlement, sand and carbon filtration. The project concluded just hours prior to the official end of the fish window with 4 Steelhead trout waiting to swim further upstream to spawn.