Well, I guess that’s one way to get a bit more water in the river… During the late afternoon, early evening of Sunday, August 31st, the day before Labor Day, two of the four head-gate structures in the intake towers at Hebgen Dam failed. The outflow level from the dam went from 850 cfs to just under 4000 cfs almost instantaneously. Because of the buffer created by Quake lake and the distance downstream, water levels at the Kirby gauging station started rising about seven or eight hours later. At the moment the outflow from Hebgen stands at just under 3300cfs and the gauge at Kirby reads at a hair less than 3600 cfs (this actually is over their maximum flow rate mandated by the license agreement. Something that has been misreported in most of the articles about the malfunction. Not, by the way, PP&Ls fault.) There are engineers, PP&L reps, people from FERC and lots of assorted law enforcement folks up there right now trying to figure out what to do. They have just finished cutting a hole in the top of the faulty tower and will now enlarge it to possibly accommodate a steel bulkhead, which is being manufactured near Anaconda, MT as you read this. Their plan is to divert the outflow to the spillway on the other side of the dam. They can then dry out the broken tower and hopefully fix the problem with the gate(s). At this point there is no way to tell how long this all may take but it is certainly in PP&Ls best interest to get it done as quickly as possible. They are shoring up the dam and bringing in heavy equipment today and plan to have the bulkhead onsite either today or tomorrow. They will use a well drilling rig to punch a casing down through the bottom of the tower and into the ground below. This will be used to support the huge bulkhead when it’s lowered into place. When they do get the flow diverted to the spillway and regain control, they intend to drop it down to more reasonable levels. Best-case scenario this happens by Sunday and they can drop the flows by Monday. At this point there is no danger of dropping the reservoir too low and no plans to drain it to fix the problem. PP&L was to start drafting the water level down here in the next few weeks anyway and would have dropped it 10 or 11 feet by March first as per their license. At the moment they are losing about 5 inches of water elevation from Hebgen every 24 hours so at that rate it would take about 2 weeks to get down to the level they’ll need to be at by next March. If it takes them that long to figure out how to fix it they have bigger problems than just a bad dam. This could become very interesting in the next few days for several reasons. The dam was signed off on about a week ago by an inspector hired by PP&L and FERC to check the structure. Hebgen was built in 1914 of earth, concrete and timbers. It’s old and it’s made of wood and dirt. Hhmm… For the time being the river is open to fishing and day use recreation but the accesses are closed to overnight use. At this point there is no danger of flooding to either the accesses or to the town of Ennis. Believe it or not we did have a couple boats out on the upper river yesterday. They reported doing fairly well with streamers and big nymphs. The water condition at the moment is variable with more than 2 feet of visibility. It should actually continue to clear over the next few days. Dead drifted bunny fur streamers, sculpin imitations and large stonefly nymph patterns will catch fish. I’m sure there’s a windfall of prey that’s been dislodged by the high flows and the larger fish are also more comfortable with the increased flow rate as well. Hopefully they’ll get the problem resolved within the next few days and we’ll be right back to our fall dry fly fishing. Stay tuned; we’ll keep you updated as we get new information. .

Stay tuned for continuing River updates!

If you are in town, stop by the shop and ask us about the right bugs and stretch of river. We’ll hook you up with the best of both. We guarantee we have the best and most innovative patterns you’ll see anywhere!

Contact us for Madison River Fishing Company's 2008 Fly Fishing Catalog featuring the best fly tackle on the market. Give us a call at 800-227-7127 or email us at mrfc@3rivers.net and we will send you a copy.

We also offer Montana fly fishing schools and Montana guide services.

TOP OF PAGE