Work is progressing smoothly on the Silk Mill Run dam removal and stream restoration project in Jim Thorpe, Borough Council President Connor Rodgers said last week, with the contractor handling the work marking a milestone. The job is Flyway Excavating’s 100th dam removal.

Council is set to vote on a payment application to Flyway of $80,100 tonight, along with a $13,807 invoice to project partner Wildlands Conservancy. Council members reported no issues with the work to date.

“The project is ongoing and continuing in a good direction,” Rodgers said. “One of the professionals that’s part of this participated in over 40 dam removal projects and described the work as very exceptional. They’re saying it’s going very well.”

The project, years in the making, will demolish and remove five dilapidated dams along Silk Mill Run — a Class A brown trout cold-water fishery that runs along the outskirts of the borough before feeding into the Lehigh River. The dams, relics of the borough’s former water supply infrastructure, had long since outlived their purpose, according to officials. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection had put the borough on notice that the structures needed either removal or significant maintenance.

The borough signed a contract with Flyway Excavating for $154,150 for the construction end. The project, officials said, will cost borough taxpayers nothing.

Funding came from multiple sources assembled over several years: a $200,000 Growing Greener Grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection for design work, a $65,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and $165,000 from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation through the Delaware Watershed Conservation Fund.

“This was below half a million dollars for this project and avoided any taxpayer costs,” Rodgers said. “It was all grant-funded; a very significant portion of funds for a project that reduces the borough’s long-term liability with dams that were unnecessary and avoids future expenses associated with repairing or maintaining these dams.”

He acknowledged the project has not been without its skeptics.

“Obviously, there’s some nostalgia with them and I’d agree with that,” Rodgers said. “But at the same time, for the borough’s future and to protect ourselves from any type of liability with them, this was a good project.”

Wildlands Conservancy, a nonprofit that works to preserve land and waterways across the Poconos region, has partnered with the borough on the project since its inception, applying for grants on the borough’s behalf and overseeing design and permitting.

After completion, estimated for the fall, the project is expected to reconnect 1.5 miles of stream habitat, restore 1.5 acres of floodplain and add 40 trees along the creek corridor. The dams have blocked fish passage along the upper stretches of the run for decades. With them gone, trout and other species would be able to move freely through water that environmental officials say offers ideal cold-water habitat.