The excavator has left and the dams are gone. The only work remaining along Silk Mill Run is the kind done by hand; planting native trees and shrubs along a restored streambank.

Borough Secretary and Assistant Manager Brooke Klotz told Jim Thorpe Borough council Thursday that Flyway Excavating has finished all dam removal and construction work on the Silk Mill Run Dam Removal and Restoration Project, packed up its equipment and moved on to its next job.

“They finished last week and have officially demobilized,” Klotz said.

The final payment application from Flyway — $74,050, representing 100% project completion including the release of prior retainage — will go before council for approval at Thursday’s regular meeting. A $13,807 invoice from project partner Wildlands Conservancy remains outstanding, with more to follow.

“We will still get at least one more invoice from Wildlands,” Klotz said. “They still have to do plantings in October. They’re going to get (school students) involved to help out with the plantings that are going to be done.”

The project, more than four years in the making from the borough’s first agreement with Wildlands Conservancy in 2021, removed 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 had once been part of Jim Thorpe’s water supply infrastructure but had long outlived their purpose, filling with silt and blocking fish passage for decades. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection had told the borough to either maintain or remove them. Wildlands Conservancy helped pursue four grants on the borough’s behalf that covered the entire construction cost.

With the dams gone, an estimated 1.5 miles of stream habitat will be reconnected, allowing trout and other species to move freely through water that Wildlands officials have long described as ideal cold-water habitat. Kristie Fach, Wildlands Conservancy’s director of ecological restoration, said in prior interviews that the riparian buffer plantings scheduled for October will serve multiple purposes beyond aesthetics — stabilizing streambanks, filtering runoff, providing shade to keep water temperatures cold, and creating habitat for pollinators and other wildlife.

The work was Flyway Excavating’s 100th dam removal project, as council learned at its August meeting when the first payment application was approved.

“Are we releasing all the funds before we do a walkthrough?” Council Vice President Mike Yeastedt asked Thursday.

Borough Manager Maureen Sterner offered two options; make the payment conditional on a favorable inspection, or conduct the walkthrough before Thursday’s vote.

Klotz told council she has dam breach completion certificates to sign documenting that the project is finished. The forms go to the DEP and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, one of the project’s grant funders.

“National Fish and Wildlife is coming out in October to view everything through the site visit,” Klotz said.