Crews are chipping away this week at concrete on a derelict dam that鈥檚 been sitting on a tributary of the Deerfield River for more than a century.
Trout Unlimited and the Connecticut River Conservancy are overseeing the project, which also had support from the Nature Conservancy and Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Erin Rodgers, with the Vermont chapter of Trout Unlimited, said the project will restore fish passage and access to critical spawning habitat.
鈥淭hese smaller, cold-water tributaries that run off of the mountains and are very heavily forested are really key contributors to keeping our larger streams cold and providing thermal refugia for cold-water fish that are residents of our streams,鈥� she said.
The 6-foot-high concrete dam was built in 1913 to create a water source for a nearby home. Now, it鈥檚 crumbling and no longer serving its purpose, and Vermont鈥檚 Department of Environmental Conservation listed it as a priority for removal during a recent water quality planning process for the area.
Removing the dam will restore the stream features eastern brook trout need to lay their eggs, but it will also provide some flood resiliency downstream.
鈥淏rook trout need small gravels that get sorted into bars 鈥� that鈥檚 where they鈥檒l preferentially spawn during the fall,鈥� she said. 鈥淒ams disrupt how soil and sediment and rock move down through a system.鈥�
Vermont DEC approached the Connecticut River Conservancy about finding funding for the project in 2021.
鈥淢ost people don鈥檛 have $20,000 to contribute to removing a dam that isn鈥檛 otherwise a priority for them personally,鈥� said Ron Rhodes, with the river conservancy. He said grant funding is key to making this work possible.
Rhodes said the roughly $60,000 project was funded through Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife鈥檚 Watershed Grant program, which Vermont residents pay into when they purchase a wildlife-themed license plate.
The Nature Conservancy also contributed funding, and Trout Unlimited donated staff time.
To remove the dam, Trout Unlimited staff will work slowly over the next two weeks to disassemble the structure from the top to the bottom.
The crew has already felled a few logs and placed them downstream, to help prevent sediment that鈥檚 been stored above the dam from rapidly dispersing into the stream.
From there the crew will disassemble the concrete and rebar and haul it offsite.
Rodgers, with Trout Unlimited, said this project will improve overall stream health and help macroinvertebrates 鈥� tiny crustacean-like insect larvae that live underwater and are good indicators of a stream鈥檚 health 鈥� move up the river.
This Dover dam is one of more than 1,000 such structures around the state, many of which are overdue for repairs or dilapidated 鈥� something that鈥檚 drawn more attention and concern as human-caused climate change brings more extreme rain and flood risk to Vermont.
