Weir removal set for August

In August, there will be turbidity increase along the East Fork Encampment River and Coon Creek for the removal of two weirs.

An advertisement ran in the Saratoga Sun last week for the notice of the turbidity increase as an Application for Temporary Turbidity Increase has to be issued for the project to proceed.

According to Bill Bear, Biologist for the U.S. Forest Service, the project is a segment of an extended progress of weir removals in the area. One weir was removed in 2011.

“The permit is needed for any type of increase in sediment along the river,” Baer said.

“The state will go ahead and review the project and if it’s appropriate they will issue us a permit and there are some requirements to the permit such as monitoring sediment.”

Bear explains that the U.S. Forest Service, Trout Unlimited and Wyoming Game and Fish have been involved in this specific project.

The Forest Service originally constructed the weirs set for removal in the 80s for research purposes.

“It was a paired watershed study that the Forest Service and our regions research branch initiated in 1983,” Baer stated, “the point of the project was to see the effects of timber harvests on water yield and sediment production.”

This project ran until 1996, and then started up again for a short stint in the early 2000s; however, due to a lack of funds, monitoring of the project seized.

The main reason, Baer says, that the planned removal is happening now, is because the weirs inhibit fish from passing into other parts of the river. Removing these weirs will give a total of 10 miles of additional fish passage.

In addition to the weir removal, a culvert will be removed and the access road to the weirs will be decommissioned, after some time is spent to monitor post fish distribution.

The approximate cost of the project will be $90,000, said Baer.