In Hanover County, Virginia, officials have announced that a dam formerly used by a flour mill is in the process of being removed, allowing several fish species — including hickory shad, American shad, blueback herring, alewife herring, striped bass, sea lamprey, and American eels — to return to their native spawning habitat, ABC 8News reported.
The Ashland Mill Dam, which is 13 feet tall and spans 210 feet across the South Anna River, was built in 1916. Though the dam once served an important purpose, allowing the mill to harness the power of the river in the process of grinding grains into flour, the mill has not been operational for decades. That means that the dam has outlived its usefulness and is now simply blocking fish from going where they need to go.
Hanover County officials also announced recently that the dam was structurally failing because of its old age, creating a dangerous situation.
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Roughly a third of the dam has already been removed by a private ecological restoration service, Davey Mitigation. The process is expected to take six to eight weeks to complete.
The removal of the dam was spurred by a public-private partnership between the nearby Randolph-Macon College's Environmental Studies Program and Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources.
"This is the first time a dam removal project of this type has been implemented in Virginia using this business model, which offers a way to protect the environment at no cost to taxpayers," Randolph-Macon College wrote on its website, referring to Davey Mitigation's practice of selling mitigation credits (similar to the controversial practice of selling carbon credits) to real estate developers.
The removal of obsolete dams has been common in recent years, as many dams have outlived their purposes and localities are seeking to restore their natural environments. These projects have almost uniformly reported great results, as the rivers and the species that depend on them rebound in a big way after the dams are removed.
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