It took years of work to remove a dam owned by the city of Bellingham in Washington State, but for wildlife in the area, the project is definitely worth the effort.
Crews began the work of removing a dam on the Middle Fork Nooksack River, located east of Bellingham in Washington began on July 14 reports Tara Lohan, but the work of breaching the removing dam might be the easy part of years of work leading up to this moment and years of work to come to rehabilitate the watershed.
"Over the next couple of weeks, crews will fully remove the 125-foot-wide, 25-foot-tall dam, allowing the Middle Fork Nooksack to run free for the first time in 60 years," according to Lohan. "With the dam's removal, 16 miles of river and tributary habitat will open up to help boost populations of three threatened Puget Sound fish species: Chinook salmon, steelhead and bull trout."
Two local tribes, the Nooksack and Lummi Nation have worked for years to achieve the removal of the dam owned by the city of Bellingham. The dam removal is considered one of the most significant environmental remediation projects in the region. A lot more detail of the environmental benefits of the project is included in the article.
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