Demolition of Milltown Dam underway
It's a sound that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Clark Fork River cleanup advocates have wanted to hear for a long time: heavy equipment beginning the process of removing the Milltown Dam.
In just the last year there have been several big moments and important milestones in the Milltown Reservoir project.
“This is the first step in the dam removal process. And this is really the first structural removal on the dam. But it's going to take until about mid-March to completely remove the right abutment and the powerhouse. And at that point in time, of course, we plan to lower the river in what we call our stage two drawdown."
The powerhouse itself will be removed in March, but this week Keith Large with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality says workers are already getting ready to move out the generators.
"We've got to build a bigger door so that the generators can come out. So they're tacking some iron work up there around the bricks than they'll open, they'll tear those bricks out and open up that door a little bit bigger. The door should be done in about two days and then it'll take about three or four days to pull out the generators."
Upstream on the Blackfoot River workers have begun ripping out the decking on both the pedestrian bridge between Milltown and West Riverside, and the original Highway 200 bridge.
Meanwhile, Forba says work is almost complete on the Interstate 90 bridges, and workers will be removing the construction barges in the coming weeks.
The EPA canceled a community health and safety meeting that had been set for This week. Those meetings had been held at regular intervals but Forba and Large both say that they had become less productive. The pair adds that the agencies can communicate just as effectively with law enforcement, emergency services and schools on an individual basis.
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