SEQUIM — A army of plants is girding for battle.
The foes include Stinky Bob and other nefarious greenery that could invade 750 acres of basin area created when two Elwha River dams are removed.
The warrior defenders are being cultivated at Olympic National Park’s 5-acre Matt Albright Native Plant Center at Robin Hill Farm County Park under the encompassing care of plant propagation specialist Dave Allen, who is 55 but “older than dirt,” he quipped earlier this month during a tour of the facility.
Workers will start removing the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams beginning in September in a $351.4 million river restoration project intended to unblock the waterway to provide passage for, and replenish, 10 stocks of anadromous salmon and trout.
Demolition is expected to be finished in the project, the largest of its kind in the nation’s history, by September 2014.
While the dams are being dismantled and through 2018, Allen and park volunteers will scatter thousands of pounds of seeds and plant 400,000 shrubs and trees from seeds collected from the dam-removal project’s boundaries.
The good-guy greenery will be planted in the bowl-like basins exposed by the draining of Lake Mills behind Glines Canyon Dam and Lake Aldwell behind Elwha Dam once the dams are torn down.
The $4.1 million revegetation project will take place on a grand scale. Lake Mills is 200 feet deep at its deepest point, and Lake Aldwell 100 feet.
The park will produce a revegetation and restoration plan by the end of February that will include a monitoring plan, a list of native plants that will be installed at the site and the expected condition of the more than 18 million cubic yards of sediment that will be exposed once the dams come down.
One goal of revegetation is to prevent erosion by using plants that have strong root systems so remaining sediment doesn’t bleed into the free-flowing river at the bottom of the two basins.
That would threaten the chances of reviving the salmon run by depleting oxygen and clouding the water, Allen said.
“Our primary mission is to help nature reclaim these areas,” Allen said.
To carry out that mission, park workers want to ensure that invasive species such as giant knotweed and Stinky Bob are crowded out by plants native to the area.
Workers began collecting seeds from the Elwha River area in 2008. About 30 volunteers have participated in collecting and propagating work so far.
Only plants native to the Elwha River area will be used for revegetation.
Many of the physical properties of the site will be revealed only when the dams are down.
“We have perceptions of what we think will happen,” Allen said.
“That said, we have to be able to adapt and have to keep an open mind because the site will dictate to us what needs to be done at various times.”
One big unknown is the quality of the sediment and what can grow in it and other areas suddenly exposed after being underwater for almost 100 years.
The effort won’t be like reforesting a clearcut.
“We’ll have denuded areas, areas of bright sunlight, and the [sediment] will have effects on what vegetation will be successful,” Allen said.
“We will identify what plant species do better and which ones aren’t doing well and go with the ones that are doing well.”
As the dams are torn down, the race will be on between the good guys and the bad guys.
Allen and park volunteers will plant 80 species of plants, hearty varieties with strong root systems to prevent erosion and the strength to crowd out Stinky Bob and his cohorts such as Canada thistle.
“We do have a rogue’s list of nasty guys,” said Allen, so immersed in his charges that plant names rolled off his tongue first in their Latinate forms before he struggled just a little with the garden-variety-English version.
Here’s what Allen is up against when battling the likes of Stinky Bob:
According to the state Noxious Weed Control Board, Stinky Bob, or Geranium robertianum, is highly adaptable and can grow in rocky outcrops.
Bob “ballistically” ejects seeds as far as 15 to 20 feet and is considered “a vigorous plant,” according to the weed board’s website, www.nwcb.wa.gov.
The plant is just one reason the basin sites “need to be occupied,” Allen said.
“Once the sites are occupied, invasion by exotics is much tougher,” he explained, adding that the point is not to leave a “blank slate” for invasive plants.
Allen’s goal this year is to produce about 27,000 plants for the Elwha restoration project at the facility, which produces plants for all the park’s vegetation restoration.
At the center, plants in various stages of development are in paper bags, refrigerators, pots and the greenhouse.
Some are lined up in rows in an open area near the greenhouse, looking dry and dead but with tendrils of strong, deep roots plastered against underlying dirt.
Stored in bags in a shed at the plant center, some seeds — such as goatsbeard, a pile of which Allen cupped in his hand and which he initially called Aruncas dioicus — are so dust-like and fine they number 800,000 in one pound.
That seems like a lot, but every seed has a fraction of 1 percent of survival when “broadcast,” or flung, instead of potted, he said.
“For any plant to become mature, they’re winning the lottery,” Allen said.
But goatsbeard is a good match for Stinky Bob.
“It grows quickly, sends out a great root system, which is good for erosion control, and lives in sun or shade,” Allen said.
Actual revegetation will occur by planting plants directly and spreading seeds with what Allen called a “belly grinder” held waist high.
How will people know it’s occurring?
“You’ll see sort of a green fuzz out there,” Allen said.
Allen is hoping volunteers, who are already helping with the revegetation plan and have erected several structures at the plant center, will continue their efforts, grow in number — and be as inspired by the project as he is.
“What drives me and the volunteers is, here we have an opportunity to do something unique,” he said.
“We have an opportunity to do some good.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
