Reconnecting streams across the U.S.

[Joe D]

We've all seen those poorly designed culverts that cut off spawning habitat, cut off fish movement and eliminate thousands of miles of fishable trout water.

Trout Unlimited is doing something about it with projects presently on Kinne Brook in Massachusetts, the upper Connecticut River in New Hampshire, the Shenandoah valley in Virginia, Big Slough Creek in Wisconsin, the Deschutes River in Oregon, the Bear River in Wyoming, and many more across the country.

Your donation to this cause will be doubled. Check it out: Commitment 2014 - TU 1,000 Miles

 

[Rusty Spinner]

And I've got a couple on the Musky (tribs) that I can hopefully target one day. Those are on the way-back burner for me, but they would move up the list quickly when we get closer to removing the Warren Glen Mill dam as they are on a wild brown trout stream that flows into the river in that area. Thanks for this post, Joe D.

 

[MACFLY]

How long before the next dam goes rusty

 

[Rusty Spinner]

How long before the next dam goes rusty

We were supposed to meet tomorrow to discuss just that, but we are postponing until after this next snowstorm/ice storm later tonight. Hughesville Mill dam is next and we're fully funded. I spent $50,000 on the first part of the feasibility study with the watershed association spending that much again right now. Then we got another $900,000+ to finish the study, design and permit removal, and do the construction work to remove it fully and restore the river in that reach.

I'll know more after we reconvene in the next couple of weeks. We also have momentum on the huge dam upstream in the Musky Gorge, but that will take years and cost many $ millions, so we have a ways to go yet on that one. Plus the Army Corps will eventually remove the dam in Bloomsbury. Like our Partnership, they await some funding from a Delaware River polluter settlement. When we get those funds, we'll use them most likely towards removal of Warren Glen Mill dam.

 

[CTobias]

How do I get into this dam removal process? It seems like there is money to be made. I wont even charge you guys a lot. Just the cost of my explosives.

 

[Rusty Spinner]

How do I get into this dam removal process? It seems like there is money to be made. I wont even charge you guys a lot. Just the cost of my explosives.

I would love to blow one up! But alas, not in NJ. We just use hydro hammers on track machines. It takes about 3 years to plan, fund, and get to removal day and then barely 3 days to fully remove them. Seems a bit anticlimactic in the end. But dynamiting one would change that for sure...

 

[Catskill Mountain Man]

Yeah wouldn't it be cheaper to just blow the thing up rusty? Well I guess it could be dangerous. All of a sudden a big silty lake comes barreling down a river... Prob not the best idea..

 

[Rusty Spinner]

Yeah wouldn't it be cheaper to just blow the thing up rusty? Well I guess it could be dangerous. All of a sudden a big silty lake comes barreling down a river... Prob not the best idea..

That's mainly the reason. That and the fact houses are all around:crap:

But seriously, dams like the ones we're removing on smaller rivers like NJ has come out very easily with a simple hydraulic hammer on a track machine. Most don't even have rebar and those that do have very minimal rebar. We pulverize the concrete so far in every case and it simply becomes gravel in the river or is used to fill portions of the plunge pool below the dam which often becomes a riffle structure when we're done. Dynamite is fun, but for huge dams (and not all huge dams) where flows are big and all that sediment can move quickly downstream. In the case of rivers here in NJ with run of the river dams, there isn't enough head to quickly move all that sediment. As a result, we would wind up killing benthic macro invertebrate life below the dam and make the river's recovery much slower. Again, typical dam removal only lasts a few days and that includes removing the concrete spillway as well as tying up any sediment in the impoundment upstream. Sometimes it includes channel restoration of significance right when we remove the dam and sometimes we may wait a year as we did on Finesville before going back in the restore the river's bed above the removed dam.