Scotts Mills Dam Removal

The Scotts Mills dam removal project partially addresses the decline in Willamette Basin native salmonid fish populations due to lack of access to high quality habitat. Both ESA-listed Upper Willamette Winter Steelhead and Spring Chinook Salmon are affected. The project site is in the Molalla-Pudding River Watershed on Butte Creek in the City of Scotts Mills at USGS RM 12.9. The project will improve the current degraded physical habitat by allowing the natural annual transport of gravel downstream; a river reach currently scoured to bedrock. Removal of the dam will also allow more natural fish passage to high quality spawning and rearing habitat upstream of the dam. A portion of the gravel that has accumulated behind the dam will be hauled to a quarry, but the remainder will naturally move over the basalt falls in the following high flow seasons and will help replenish depleted gravel supply downstream. Funding for this project has been updated to include additional PCSRF FY 2019 and 2020 funds received via the ODFW Fish Screening and Passage Program. Funding for this project has been updated to include additional PCSRF FY 2019 and 2020 funds received via the ODFW Fish Screening and Passage Program. These are reported as PCSRF funding with ODFW and Fish Passage and Screen Program project numbers indicated under funding notes.

Removal of the dam will improve habitat connectivity. It will increase access to over 13 miles of spawning habitat in stream reaches which have more complexity. Greater access to more appropriate spawning habitat will result in juvenile rearing in cooler water than lower Butte Creek. Survival of juveniles will improve overall survival leading to an increase in native, wild salmon and steelhead.