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Pigeon River Dam To Come Down

http://ipraudio.interlochen.org/Pigeon_Dam.mp3

North of Gaylord, near Vanderbilt, a "Blue Ribbon" trout stream is recovering from the faulty operation of a dam which colored a stretch of the river black, back in 2008, and Pigeon River fishermen are celebrating a court settlement that'll remove the dam and restore the river to its natural flow.

Happy Fishermen
Trout like cold, fast-moving waters, so trout fishermen aren't big fans of dams in the first place, because they create more stagnant, warmer, pond waters. Add to that an incident in June of 2008, and Pigeon River Fisherman Dave Smethurst wanted to see that dam gone. After a rainstorm, sentiment was released, polluting the waters so much that the river looked black.

"And so in the initial year there just weren't many fish in miles below the dam and it also killed the insects and the other things the trout eat. It was, in my estimation, a near total - but not complete - kill of everything," Smethurst says.

Today, the river is starting to come back to life. The natural current is clearing out that muck, insects are re-establishing, and trout are spawning.

"The river is naturally healing itself but it will take several years to get back to the fish populations that were there prior to the release," he says.

Smethurst is with Michigan Trout Unlimited, which helped negotiate the settlement between the state, and the yoga retreat center that owns the dam.

Golden Lotus, also known as Song of the Morning retreat center, has 30 days to come up with a conceptual plan for removing the dam. It will also pay the state a $150,000 dollar fine for costs associated with investigation and cleanup. 

What's Lost 
The retreat center could not be immediately reached, but its lawyer, Bill Schlecte, told the Grand Rapids Press back in December that the retreat center had then been hoping to keep the dam in place. The 45-acre pond behind the dam has been an ideal setting for retreaters, he said, and the dam also generates hydroelectric power for the retreat center. 

Finding The Money
Now Golden Lotus has agreed to remove the dam. Cost estimates are not yet available, but both Trout Unlimited and Michigan Natural Resources officials have agreed to help Golden Lotus to find grants, and other funding sources to help pay for the project. There will be no state money paying for it, though.

"It's nice that now we can really sit down and work with Golden Lotus, says DNRE Fisheries Supervisor Dave Borgeson of the settlement. He says a fish kill like the one that happened in 2008 is not common. It's also not the first time this dam has polluted the river.

"I think this is really a good start to making sure this doesn't happen again, and getting the Pigeon River back to more of a natural system," he says.

Removing the dam will be another lengthy process, though. The pond will need to be drawn down slowly, to make sure the river is not once again polluted with the years-worth of sediment that's still stopped up behind that dam.