Damn: Water Flow Issues on the Upper Madison

by Mark McGlothlin on December 1, 2021

in River - Madison

You’ve probably heard by now that flows on the Upper Madison out of Hebgen dropped suddenly yesterday as per the flow graph above, stranding a large number of fish in dewatered side channels and exposing redds.

There was a bit of confusion yesterday after an initial call for volunteers to bring buckets and rescue stranded fish was rescinded due to concerns that flows could suddenly increase and that walking on the exposed stream beds could damage redds.

The MGTU sent out the message below last night calling for volunteers to attempt a fish rescue this morning, suggesting (not in any way confirmed as of 7 this morning) that the issues might not be easily repaired at the dam(n) outflow.

Flows at the next reporting station downstream (Cameron, the final image below) suggest there are obvious low flow issues – critical ones – below Quake as well.

Git ‘er done today.