Case Study

Mill River Dam Removal

Challenges

Because multiple dams (West Brittania, Whittenton, and Morey’s Bridge) were involved in this project, each had its own set of challenges.

Solutions

In response to the near dam failure, risk posed to the surrounding communities, and an effort to reconnect the area to the Wild and Scenic Taunton River, three dams were removed over a series of years( Hopewell Mills in 2012, Whittenton in 2013, West Britannia in 2018). Morey’s Bridge Dam was left in place, but a fish ladder and eel ramp was installed in 2012 as part of a bridge restoration project through the Department of Transportation.

Successes

With a release of natural sediment held back by the dams, the river has begun to restore its natural channel, with increased biodiversity, and recreational access from the Narragansett Bay to the headwaters of the Mill River. The dam removals and reconstruction restored fish passage to 30 miles of habitat in the Taunton Watershed. River herring and sea lamprey have been reported in the area for the first time in 200 years. The project has also improved recreational access and reduced flooding threat to local communities--and has spurred secondary projects like the Weir Village Riverfront Park, which provides a waterfront walkway, boat ramp, and fishing pier.

Lessons Learned

The near-failure of the Whittendon Dam highlighted the dangers of neglected historic dams. Repairing the Whittenton Dam alone would have cost an estimated $1.9 million. The cost of removing the dams, restoring the river, and reducing dangerous hazards was far less costly and provided more beneficial outcomes for local residents and habitats along this stretch of the Mill River.

The Mill River Dams are a good example of the benefit of taking a “river approach” to addressing dams to improve habitat connectivity. Rather than only repairing or removing the failing Whittenton Dam, the team used the crisis as a catalyst to address multiple decaying dams along the Mill River and as a result were able to improve habitat connectivity along 30 miles of the river.

References and Additional Resources

Nature Conservancy: https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/united-states/massachusetts/stories-in-massachusetts/mill-river-restoration/

MASS DER: https://www.mass.gov/service-details/mill-river-restoration#:~:text=The%20Hopewell%20Mills%20Dam,constructed%20at%20Morey’s%20Bridge%20Dam.

Location
Mill River, Massachusetts
River
Mill River
Year
Hopewell Mills 2012;
Whittenton 2013;
West Britannia 2018
Type
Complete Removal of two dams; Reconstruction of one dam
Cost
$1,574,000 (estimated total)
West Brittania Dam removal: $354,420
Whittenton Dam removal: $650,435
Morey’s Bridge Dam ( dam reconstruction, fish ladder/eel ramp installation): $4.3 million (includes cost of bridge replacement)
Project Partners
The Nature Conservancy, NOAA, American Rivers, the Coastal America Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Massachusetts Division of Ecological Restoration, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District, Save the Bay, USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service, MA Department of Mental Health, MA Department of Transportation, Mass Audubon, Taunton River Watershed Alliance, Corporate Wetlands Restoration Program, Acuity Management and other dam owners

The Dam Atlas is a guide for communities to understand, evaluate, and make decisions about historic dams.

New England is home to more than 14,000 dams, many of which are small, “legacy” structures built over a century ago. Most no longer serve their original industrial purposes and are reaching the end of their useful lives, raising concerns about safety, maintenance, and ecological impacts. These aging dams can threaten downstream communities, especially as climate change brings more frequent and intense storms. While dam removal is often advocated for ecological, economic, and safety reasons—such as restoring fish passage, water quality, and sediment flow—many communities feel a strong attachment to their local dams. Dams and their impoundments have become part of the landscape, local history, and sense of place, sometimes even serving as town landmarks or symbols of cultural identity.

The goal of this website is to share this work and support communities who are making decisions about the future of a dam. Decisions about dams are inherently complex and require the consideration of ecological, social, safety, and economic trade-offs. While there are many great resources and publications for proponents of dam removal, this website aims to provide an unbiased source of information on the ecological and social considerations associated with dam decisions. Rather than advocating solely for removal, the goal of this approach is to bring a community into an open conversation to think creatively about the future of a dam. While this may seem counterintuitive if your role is to advocate for dam removal, engaging communities in an open but structured discussion about the future of a dam has the potential to lead to better environmental outcomes and a community that has more ownership, connection, and sense of stewardship over their river. In addition, this approach has the potential to address what are often perceived as unequal power dynamics between dam removal proponents and the local community, which has led to projects stalling or failing in the past.

This website consists of four main sections: The first chapter, “Understanding Dams,” introduces key ecological, social, infrastructural, and economic factors that are important to consider for the management of dams at the individual and watershed scale. The second part, “Scenarios & Case Studies,” looks at various alternatives for the future of a dam and presents a series of case studies of projects throughout the region. The third chapter, “Making Decisions,” shares methods, ideas, and tools for how to engage in conversations about the future of a dam. The last section, the Interactive Dam Atlas, was developed in collaboration with faculty from the University of Rhode Island and helps to visualize and build a geographic understanding of dams in the Narragansett Bay and Rhode Island coastal watersheds.

While this Dam Atlas is focused on dams in the Narragansett Bay and coastal watersheds of Rhode Island, the metrics calculated in the GIS analysis can be applied to other watersheds, and the decision-making tools are not region-specific. By sharing our methods and the open-source decision support toolkit, the aim is to help support practitioners and communities that are looking for ideas, methods, and techniques for having discussions about the future of a dam. We encourage others to use, test, modify, evolve, and share these methods. Ultimately, the goal is for this work to contribute to a “library of approaches” that are openly shared to build knowledge and techniques to support collaborative environmental decision-making around dams.