Montana dam blocked again over threat to endangered fish
HELENA, Mont. — A judge on Wednesday blocked construction of a $59 million irrigation dam because of the potential threat to an ancient fish species in Montana’s Yellowstone River just three months after he lifted a previous injunction on the project.
In his order reinstating the injunction, U.S. District Judge Brian Morris wrote that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ new analysis of the proposed dam and a separate channel to allow pallid sturgeon to swim around the dam likely violated federal environmental laws.
The long-snouted pallid sturgeon, which evolved from fish that were alive in the age of dinosaurs, are cut off from their spawning grounds by a wood-and-rock irrigation dam in eastern Montana. They now number about 125 wild fish, and U.S. government officials have acknowledged that the species could go extinct if action isn’t taken.
Their solution was to propose the new dam and a bypass channel for the fish, a project expected to take between two and three years to build.