I stood on the riverbank in Milltown, Indiana, with Allen Pursell of the Sam Shine Foundation. We watched young people fishing on either side of the low-head dam on Blue River. May 31 is National Dam Safety Awareness Day, and I wanted to learn why the Sam Shine Foundation was committed to dam removal. Milltown's dam is not one that will come out anytime soon, but it is the first one Allen and his colleague Cassie Hauswald considered.
It all started about 10 years ago when the Nature Conservancy, a global environmental nonprofit, received an unrestricted gift for freshwater conservation in Indiana. Typically funds come in earmarked with something specific in mind, but this gift gave conservationists room to dream.
Cassie Hauswald is the Indiana executive director for the Nature Conservancy. At the time she was working as their freshwater ecologist and said, "I always wanted to work on dam removal in Blue River."
Blue River was, and is, tough to talk about. The town's name is Milltown, and the dam is a part of the town's identity. It's the only dam left on Blue River and many people want it to stay. It's impressive to watch the water cascading over a dam and anglers like to fish there because fish can't move beyond the barrier. But low-head dams are dangerous and fickle. Some days they're more dangerous than others, depending on the weather and river flow.
Low-head dams have earned their nickname: "drowning machines." There are more than 13,000 low-head dams in the United States, and on average, 50 people die every year because of them. Violent recirculating currents can pull a person down and trap them underwater. More than 90% of drownings at low-head dams happen between April and August, during peak water recreation season.
These tragedies don't have to happen. Most low-head dams are obsolete and should be removed. They were installed in the late 1800s and early 1900s for water supply or industry. Once the dams were no longer used for their original purpose, they just sat. Now, they remain a danger to both humans and the environment, blocking the natural flow of the river, disrupting fish migration and creating environmental problems, such as significant methane emissions.
The Milltown Dam is not in great shape, and it might very well fall apart on its own — which, due to the town's resistance, could be the faster, more productive way for it to come out. Alan and Cassie steered their efforts elsewhere, hoping they might demonstrate how removal was good for everyone.
Around this same time, scientists presented data showing streams in the Ohio River watershed where the eastern hellbender, America's largest salamander, might thrive if given a chance to be reintroduced. Indiana lists hellbenders as an endangered species, and they are excellent indicators of healthy waterways. Big Indian Creek is an underground tributary to Blue River and runs through the city of Corydon, Indiana. Turned out, it was one of the most promising habitats for the eastern hellbender.
The only problem? Big Indian Creek had four low-head dams and researchers would not reintroduce hellbenders to a waterway with built-in barriers to their success. Cassie and Allen found their dam removal target.
Big Indian Creek dams were built for water supply and two of them were larger than the others. When the city outgrew the smaller dams, they just built two more larger ones upstream, which the city of Corydon still owned.
Cassie met with the town manager. There was a history of young people dying at these dams, and Cassie said the town manager was ready to prevent that from ever happening again. Together they organized public meetings and discussed plans to remove them. They also gained additional funding for the project from the Indiana Fish and Wildlife Service Lakes and River Enhancement Program, since removal would also help the eastern hellbender.
The two big dams came out in fall 2019. Publicity from that effort prompted the private landowner who owned one of the smaller dams to contact them for help removing their dam.
There are liability issues with owning a dam, and if you own the land that touches the dam, you own the dam. What's more, the Indiana Legislature passed a law that requires property owners to carry at least $1 million in general liability insurance if they own a dam. Owners are also legally responsible for installing signage to warn people about the dam (that it's dangerous and they should stay away).
All of this helps demonstrate risk to the public and helps move the water safety conversation forward.
Someone in Florida owned the last remaining dam on Big Indian Creek. Luckily, they were open to selling. The land was 7 acres total, and the Sam Shine Foundation bought it outright. That dam came down in the fall 2024 and then the Sam Shine Foundation donated the land to the city of Corydon.
It takes years for dam removal to be complete between the planning and permitting processes, but the demolition part is quick. The change in the environment is literally evident one day to the next, and as Cassie said, "That is permanent conservation."
Low-head dams change the complexion of a stream, and Allen said, "We have the ability to change it back." It's what's best for everyone.
On my drive with Allen, we stopped at the spot of the final low-head dam removal on Big Indian Creek. You could still see the remnants of rock and concrete that anchored the dam to the riverbank. As we stood there and watched the water flow, Allen smiled and said, "The day that this dam came out, they released hellbenders upstream here."
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