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Mike Horse Mine Cleanup

In the 1940s, miners used metals-laced tailings to build the Mike Horse Dam at the origins of the Blackfoot River on Beartrap Creek near the Continental Divide. In 1975, the tailings dam blew out, dumping deadly levels of lead, copper and zinc into the Blackfoot. The mine’s corporate owner, ASARCO, rebuilt…
Dry Cottonwood Creek Ranch

Cattle and Clean Water at Dry Cottonwood Creek Ranch From 2005 to 2021, Clark Fork Coalition and partners ran Dry Cottonwood Creek Ranch (DCCR), a 2,300-acre working cattle ranch in Montana’s Deer Lodge Valley, to be a living classroom for the largest river repair job in the West, located in…
Cottonwood-Baggs Fish Passage

In the late fall of 2019, the Coalition finished a stream reconnection project on Baggs Creek and Cottonwood Creek in the upper Clark Fork. Eight miles of stream was opened to fish passage for the first time in many decades. Cottonwood Creek also benefited from a large fish screen project…
Broken Circle Diversion Upgrade

Historically, Broken Circle Ranch rebuilt their irrigation diversion every summer using broken concrete and streambed material, which resulted in passage issues for fish and recreationists. In 2023, the ranch worked with the Coalition to install an innovative floating fish screen and river pump that requires minimal structure in the river…
Helen-Johnson Ditch Project

The Helen Johnson project reduced irrigation withdrawals from the mainstem of the Upper Clark Fork by over 15 cfs on three ranches. It removed a fish barrier and eliminated entrainment issues. The project replaced a portion of the ditch on the Lampert Ranch with a 2-mile stock water pipeline that…
In-stream Sediment Sampling 2022

In partnership with Fish, Wildlife & Parks, Natural Resources Damage Program, and the University of Montana – Western, we measured the amount of sediment in streams along several reaches of the Upper Clark Fork River. Students collected over 70 in-stream sediment samples to see if sediment levels affect trout…
Slickens Assessments in the Upper Clark Fork

The CFC coordinated with Fish, Wildlife & Parks to complete a hazard assessment of the remaining slickens in Reach A of the Upper Clark Fork Superfund Operable Unit. In the summer of 2019, over 170 individual slickens were assessed and mapped for hazards related to surface runoff and channel avulsion…
West Fork Lee Creek Road Decommissioning and Fish Passage
East Fork Lolo Creek Restoration

On the East Fork Lolo Creek, we installed wood jams into the stream to create complex aquatic habitat and help filter and trap sediment. We also re-naturalized unused forest roads to decrease sources of sediment washing into the stream. Clark Fork Coalition has worked in the Upper Lolo watershed since…
Lolo Ditch Fish Screen

In 2020, CFC completed installation of a fish screen on Lolo Ditch, which, before this project, had trapped 10,000 fish each year, greatly impacting native and wild fish populations.
Milltown Dam Removal

For 100 years, Milltown Dam blocked the confluence of the Clark Fork and Blackfoot rivers near Missoula, trapping toxic sediments that washed down from mines in Butte and contaminating local drinking water wells. Now, the dam is out, the mining waste is gone, fish can swim back upstream, and two mighty…