The dam comes down: more photos and information about the Dawt dam removal
For the first time in 125 years, the North Fork of the White River flowed unimpeded past Dawt Mill Friday after two tracked excavators worked carefully to demolish about two-thirds of the dam originally built to impound water that powered the landmark grist mill on the adjoining property. Work started Friday around 9 a.m., and by early afternoon, most of the structure was gone.
The dam’s days have been numbered since June 25, 2016, when a 13-year-old Springfield girl, Chloe Butcher, drowned after becoming entangled underwater in debris near the center of the dam where a breach had opened during 2013 floods. Since then, Dawt Mill staffers who rented equipment to canoers and other river floaters routinely warned customers to stay away from the break in the dam.
Witnesses said that on that Saturday afternoon Chloe had worked her way along the dam that extended from the east side of the river, and at some point she moved to the breach in the dam, where a friend had been calling for help after being caught in the strong current there. The friend managed to pass through the breach unharmed, but Chloe got caught in the current, which apparently pulled her underwater, where she became ensnared on rebar or other debris that extended from the stub of the dam.
Since that tragedy, Dawt Mill Resort owner Ed Henegar has been working through the demolition-permitting process with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has authority to enforce provisions of the federal Clean Water Act, and with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has been involved in relocating an endangered species, the Ozark hellbender salamander, from the area around the dam.
Following the drowning, Congressman Jason Smith convened a meeting of government agency representatives and other involved parties, urging them to work together to quickly remedy the dangerous situation on the Dawt dam. Henegar’s permit application, dated July 20, asked to remove the dam with the “exact end point to be determined where dam is stabilized on existing bedrock.”
The Corps approved the application on Sept. 1. After that, Henegar organized a nonprofit agency, the Dawt Missouri Preservation Society, that could accept private and public funds. Smith’s office then announced, in November, that the Delta Regional Authority had awarded the nonprofit organization a $86,625 grant to help fund the demolition. In January, the Dawt Missouri Preservation Society solicited bids for the project.
Henegar told the Times in an email Monday that Cary Stewart of West Plains got the contract to do the work, and Smith’s office said in a Monday news release that “a 290-foot section of the 420-foot wide dam” had been removed. The remaining portion of the dam extends from the old mill race along the east side of the river.
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Looking for hellbenders</strong></span>
Several people were on hand Friday to observe the work. One of them was USFWS fish and wildlife biologist Trisha Crabill, who told the Times that her agency, working with Missouri Department of Conservation employees, had captured and removed three Ozark hellbenders from the area around the dam during surveys conducted last year on Aug. 31 and again in October.
The two hellbenders that were captured Aug. 31, an adult male and female, were moved to the St. Louis Zoo, Crabill said. The world’s first successful captive breeding of the Ozark hellbender was achieved at the zoo in a program launched in 2004. An announcement about the zoo’s successful breeding program, published in the Times in January 2012, reported that Ozarks rivers once supported up to 8,000 Ozark hellbenders, but only 600 were thought to exist in the wild at the time of publication. The zoo’s breeding program had produced hellbenders that were being reintroduced into Ozarks streams.
A third adult hellbender, captured near the Dawt dam in October, was relocated to another site on the river, Crabill said, adding that hellbenders can live more than 30 years. Since the captured hellbenders were sexually mature, they were at least 5 years old, she said.
Hellbenders usually make their home under large underwater rocks, but flooding and changing river conditions can cause those crevices to fill up with silt, Crabill said. “The way the breach in the dam had redirected water flow had caused the hellbenders’ habitat there to be silted up,” Crabill said. That might explain why only three animals were found before the dam was torn down, she said.
Crabill commended the equipment operators Friday for their careful work. “We asked them to minimize their footprint and keep to a specific path. Multiple times ... they would stop and give us a look, and we would give them a thumbs-up,” she said.
In midafternoon, when most of the demolition was completed, Crabill got in the water “and snorkeled around,” she said. “It looked good. I think now, with more water flow through there, it will clean out the silt. I think the habitat might improve.”
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Holdover concerns</strong></span>
While Crabill was pleased with how the river’s new flow might improve the Ozark hellbenders’ habitat, Eastern Ozark County Commissioner Gary Collins said he can’t help but worry that, with the dam removed, “over time, the river will change and shift over to the west.” If that happens, he said, the current bridge on County Road 318 could end up being in the wrong place and the river might flow over the existing roadway. “We’ll just have to see what happens the next time it floods,” he said.
Collins also said some rebar could be seen sticking up from the water where the dam had stood. Ozark County Clerk Brian Wise, who also works as a fly-fishing guide on the river, shared Collins’ concern about the rebar. “Even though the dam is gone, people floating through there still need to be very careful and watch out for it,” he said.
Henegar, asked about the rebar, said by email that more work remains to be done at the site.
With the dam gone, river floaters can now continue on to Tecumseh, 2 miles downstream. And at the same time, more fish living in Lake Norfork, downstream from Dawt, can move upriver.
That causes concern in those who treasure the wild rainbow trout population that riverside resident Shawn Taylor says “makes the North Fork one of the most unique and amazing fisheries in the lower 48 states.”
Taylor, who with his wife Christina operates a bed and breakfast for fly fishers on the North Fork, said in a Times article published Aug. 17, 2016, that he worries the dam’s removal will negatively impact the two stretches of river well above Dawt that have been designated as blue ribbon and red ribbon wild trout management areas. Trout Unlimited has ranked this area as one of America’s 100 top trout streams, and Taylor worries that now more predator fish such as striped bass will move upriver and destroy the trout.
MDC biologist A. J. Pratt told the Times in August that he and other biologists don’t expect that to happen, and Crabill, from U.S. Fish and Wildlife, agrees. Taylor, who says he has “tremendous respect” for MDC, hopes these scientists are right in predicting the trout will survive the increased threat from predator fish. But Taylor has also suggested that those involved with the river and its wildlife consider – and help find ways to fund – a rebuilding of the dam at Dawt.
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>An historic place</strong></span>
The dam that was removed Friday had stood at Dawt since 1892, according to dawtmill.com, the website of Dawt Mill Resort, which is owned by Henegar and his wife, Mary. The resort includes restaurants, a general store, and lodging and camping facilities centered around the rebuilt mill, which houses Henegar’s Grist Mill Restaurant. It also offers river-floating equipment and shuttle service.
Some parts of the demolished dam were remnants of earlier, mid-1800s construction on the site, which used sycamore timbers fill with rocks, according to the website. As the excavators worked Friday, what looked like logs were pulled up from the river bottom.
<p>An operator with Cary Stewart Construction of West Plains works Friday to demolish the century-old dam on the North Fork of the White River at Dawt.</p>
<p>Times photographer Bruce Roberts took these photographs Friday as Cary Stewart Construction’s tracked excavators reduced the century-old dam at Dawt Mill to a short stub that extends from the mill race on the east side of the North Fork of the White River. The demolition comes eight months after a 13-year-old Springfield girl, Chloe Butcher, drowned when she apparently became entangled underwater in debris at a breach that had opened near the center of the dam during 2013 flooding. Some of the rubble pulled from the river bed Friday may have included sycamore logs and rocks that formed the foundation of the first dam on this site in the mid-1800s.</p>
<p>Times photographer Bruce Roberts took these photographs Friday as Cary Stewart Construction’s tracked excavators reduced the century-old dam at Dawt Mill to a short stub that extends from the mill race on the east side of the North Fork of the White River. The demolition comes eight months after a 13-year-old Springfield girl, Chloe Butcher, drowned when she apparently became entangled underwater in debris at a breach that had opened near the center of the dam during 2013 flooding. Some of the rubble pulled from the river bed Friday may have included sycamore logs and rocks that formed the foundation of the first dam on this site in the mid-1800s.</p>
<p>Times photographer Bruce Roberts took these photographs Friday as Cary Stewart Construction’s tracked excavators reduced the century-old dam at Dawt Mill to a short stub that extends from the mill race on the east side of the North Fork of the White River. The demolition comes eight months after a 13-year-old Springfield girl, Chloe Butcher, drowned when she apparently became entangled underwater in debris at a breach that had opened near the center of the dam during 2013 flooding. Some of the rubble pulled from the river bed Friday may have included sycamore logs and rocks that formed the foundation of the first dam on this site in the mid-1800s.</p>
<p>Times photographer Bruce Roberts took these photographs Friday as Cary Stewart Construction’s tracked excavators reduced the century-old dam at Dawt Mill to a short stub that extends from the mill race on the east side of the North Fork of the White River. The demolition comes eight months after a 13-year-old Springfield girl, Chloe Butcher, drowned when she apparently became entangled underwater in debris at a breach that had opened near the center of the dam during 2013 flooding. Some of the rubble pulled from the river bed Friday may have included sycamore logs and rocks that formed the foundation of the first dam on this site in the mid-1800s.</p>
<p>These before and after aerial photos, taken by freelance photographer Brent Humphreys, show the Dawt Mill dam in June 2016 (above) and again on Friday, when two-thirds of the 125-year-old structure was removed.</p><p></p>
<p>These before and after aerial photos, taken by freelance photographer Brent Humphreys, show the Dawt Mill dam in June 2016 (above) and again on Friday, when two-thirds of the 125-year-old structure was removed.</p><p></p>
