Extravaganza Update: Long Awaited Clark Fork Diversion to Start Tomorrow!

Extravagant Ones: For the past two years, the Army Corps of Engineers, in conjunction with a host of private, federal and state agencies, has been working on the largest Super Fund site in the country, based right here 5 miles east of Missoula: The Milltown Dam. Built in 1908, for the last century, this dam has served as the collection host of arsenic-laced runoff from upstream Anaconda mines, so much so that the river's base is polluted as well as the underground aquifers that supply drinking water to the adjacent town of Bonner.

As further described in The Missoulian (our one and only local paper) article linked here and below, as part of one of the most massive clean ups in U.S. history, tomorrow (right on time—a year late) the Clark Fork of the Columbia River (one of the three rivers that we fish) will see the release of over 300,000 tons of sediment into its flow as the Milltown Dam is breached and the river diverted into a huge diversion channel that has been the subject of construction for the past two years. So massive is this project that a railroad spur has been built to the dam site and, after the diversion, a full daily trainload of spoilage will be trekked, appropriately, upriver to the town of Anaconda where a toxic storage dump has already been built.

As to the Extravaganza status of the Clark Fork, this being only the second time in U.S. history that a diversion of this magnitude has occurred, simply stated, we just don't know—no one does.

What we do know is that, when there was a partial release of the dam's pent up waters a year and a half ago, the lower Clark Fork (the areas that we fish) silted up terribly such that the bug life became non-existent during the Fall Fling of 2006, with the fishing falling to the same state of disrepair—a shadow if its former self: It was as if the river had died. That will most likely be the immediate effect this week, with the article below acknowledging that there will be "a large number of fish and other aquatic organisms...expected to die."

We will keep you posted on this event and post relevant developments on (y)our blogsite. Also, I am going onto the rivers this Good Friday to fish the skwala (a local stone fly the emerges just in these waters this time of the year) with head outfitter Drew Miller along with our great friend, realtor John Horton, and will be able to give you a first hand report after that sojourn—yes, I know, duty calls and "war is hell"!

Indeed, this will be an interesting week in Montana, but, then again, what week isn't?!?

Best to all from the scene of it all,

Rock Creek Ron

Story:

Rivers to be redirected

Milltown Superfund workers will start redirecting the Clark Fork and Blackfoot rivers into the project's bypass channel Tuesday, the final step before allowing the rivers to flow freely for the first time in a century.

The next two weeks will be a hectic period during which engineers, construction workers and scientists will undertake the complicated task of unleashing millions of gallons of water while trying to minimize environmental damage and avoid flooding.

For more of this story, click on or type the URL below:

http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2008/03/17/news/local/news02.txt