Free-flowing for real: Demolition of gravel dam at Milltown marks historic step in watershed transformation

That's all it took for Envirocon excavator operator Dallas Connors to tear through a gravel coffer dam and allow the Clark Fork to re-enter its original channel at the base of University Mountain.

For the past century, it had to pass the spillway of Milltown Dam at that point. For the past year, it's been pushed into a new reach where the dam powerhouse used to be, while the spillway was torn out. For the past couple of months, a thin wall of gravel and concrete was all that kept the Clark Fork away from the path it pursued for millennia.
“This is the sight that warms the soul,” Peter Nielsen said as gray-brown river water poured into a greenish pool at the base of the mountain. Despite the March chill, the Missoula City-County Health Department environmental health supervisor was thrilled to watch the history flow.

“We didn't want there to be a big plunge-pool,” Nielsen said of the eddying colors. Powerful pumps had kept the spillway channel dry for months while workers built a boulder field to keep the river from head-cutting backward into its own floodplain. They were turned off a couple weeks ago. Water soon seeped through the coffer dam and made a pool nearly 15 feet deep.

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