Black Eagle Dam
Encyclopedia
Black Eagle Dam is a hydroelectric
gravity weir
dam
located on the Missouri River
in the city of Great Falls, Montana
. The first dam on the site, built and opened in 1890, was a timber-and-rock crib dam. This structure was the first hydroelectric dam built in Montana and the first built on the Missouri River. The dam helped give the city of Great Falls the nickname "The Electric City." A second dam, built of concrete in 1926 and opened in 1927, replaced the first dam (which was not removed and lies submerged in the reservoir). Almost unchanged since 1926, the dam is 782 feet (238.4 m) long and 34.5 feet (10.5 m) high, and its powerhouse contains three turbines
capable of generating seven megawatts
(MW) of power each. The maximum power output of the dam is 18 MW. The dam is currently operated by the electric utility
PPL Montana
. The reservoir behind the dam has no official name, but was called the Long Pool for many years. The reservoir is about 2 miles (3.2 km) long, and has a storage capacity of 1710 acre.ft to 1820 acre.ft of water.
The dam is a "run-of-the-river" dam
because it can generate electricity without needing to store additional water supplies behind the dam.
in the United States
. Before being dammed, water dropped 26.42 feet (8.1 m) over the falls.
Black Eagle Falls formed on a fall line
unconformity
in the Great Falls Tectonic Zone
. The Missouri River in this area flows over and through the Kootenai Formation
, a mostly nonmarine sandstone
laid down by rivers, glaciers, and lakes in the past. Some of the Kootenai Formation is marine, however, laid down by shallow seas. The river is eating away at the softer nonmarine sandstone, with the harder rock forming the falls themselves.
The Mandan and the South Piegan Blackfeet
, among other Native Americans
, knew of the falls. On June 13, 1805, Meriwether Lewis
of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
became the first white person to see the Great Falls (the largest of the five waterfalls). On the second day that the expedition camped near the series of falls, Meriwether Lewis
discovered Black Eagle Falls:
It is unclear which member of the expedition named the falls, but the expedition called them "Upper Pitch." The falls were eventually named for the black eagle which Lewis saw on June 14, 1805. In 1872, Thomas P. Roberts, a survey engineer
for the Northern Pacific Railway
, formally named the cataract "Black Eagle Falls" after the incident recorded in Lewis' journal.
magnate
James J. Hill organized the investors, who were primary owners of large amounts of stock in the Great Northern Railway. It was capitalized at $5 million. Hill sold stock to many of his friends, including Philip Danforth Armour
, Charles Arthur Broadwater
, Marshall Field
, John Murray Forbes
, Daniel Willis James
, John Stewart Kennedy
, Leonard Lewisohn
, and Charles Elliott Perkins
. One of the stockholders in the Great Falls Water Power & Townsite Co. (GFWPTC) was Paris Gibson
, a friend of Hill's and the driving force behind the founding of the city of Great Falls. Gibson realized that the Great Falls of the Missouri could provide abundant, cheap electricity for industry, and proceeded to promote the town on this basis. But Gibson's plan meant actually building one or more dams to supply the dreamt-of power. The company immediately began purchasing riverside land and water right
s along the Missouri River from Black Eagle Falls down to Sheep Creek (a distance of about 12 miles (19.3 km)). In time, it owned almost all the land set aside for the city of Great Falls as well as an additional 5000 acres (2,023.4 ha) of waterside property. GFWPTC employed J.T. Fanning, a hydraulic engineer
, to survey Black Eagle Falls in the summer of 1887 to determine the suitability of the falls and the best location for a dam. Plans for a dam were drawn up, but no action was taken at that time.
Black Eagle Dam was built in order to supply power to a copper smelter. The Boston and Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company
was organized on July 22, 1887, by the merger of Leonard Lewisohn's Lewisohn Brothers (a copper trading company), the Montana Company (a mine holding company), and C. X. Larrabee (owner of the highly productive and famous Larrabee and Mountain View mines). On September 12, 1889, the Boston and Montana signed an agreement with GFWPTC in which the power company agreed to build a dam that would supply the mining firm with at least 1,000 horsepower (or 0.75 MW) of power by September 1, 1890, and 5,000 horsepower (or 3.73 MW) of power by January 1, 1891. In exchange, Boston and Montana agreed to build a $300,000 copper smelter near the dam.
Construction began on Black Eagle Dam in 1890. GFWPTC engineers designed a rock-and-timber crib weir overflow dam, in which dressed and shaped heavy timbers formed a closed structure filled with rock or rubble. The dam was not a large one. The goal was to merely create a pond behind the dam, which would create enough water pressure (or "head
") to turn turbines and generate electricity. The dam was built at a cost of about $515,000 (roughly $12,335,000 in inflation-adjusted 2010 dollars) on the upstream brink of the falls (to create the deepest reservoir possible). Construction bids were opened on February 5, 1890, with the request for bids specifying that all work must be finished by December 1, 1890. All the bids were rejected, and mechanical engineer
Maurice Parker was employed to design and construct the dam. Coffer dams were constructed in April 1890 to divert the river from the work areas. Work on the dam itself began on April 15. A shanty town named "River Bank" was constructed just upstream of the construction site on the north bank for the river to house the Croat
, Scandinavia
n, Slovak
, and Welsh
workers who helped construct the dam. (Most of these workers helped found the town of Black Eagle
, and earthen foundations for the shanty town can still be seen.) The red sandstone
riverbed was leveled as much as possible, and large timbers bolted and cemented (perpendicular to the river's flow) to the rock. Each timber was 8 feet (2.4 m) from the next one downstream, and six cribs were built to form a dam 56.66 feet (17.3 m) deep at its base. The dam's downstream face had a pitch of 1.05:1. From the crest of the dam, a face (at a pitch of 1:08:1) extended for about 8 feet (2.4 m) before it became vertical. A 30 feet (9.1 m) high masonry wall was built on the south end of the dam to form the foundation of and to protect the powerhouse, and the construction worked inward from either end of the dam. Every 48 feet (14.6 m) across the face of the dam, a 14 feet (4.3 m) wide floodwater spillway made of concrete was created (for a total of eight spillways). Flashboards 1 foot (0.3048 m) in height were installed along the entire top of the dam to add water storage capacity. The dam was 15 feet (4.6 m) high and 1100 feet (335.3 m) long.
The dam began generating electricity in December 1890. Water was permitted to flow over the crest of the dam on January 6, 1891, and the dam was considered complete on March 15, 1891.
A two-story brick powerhouse, 40 by, was built on the south side of the river. It contained three twin, horizontal "Victor" reaction turbines (to which up to six generators could be mounted), each of which generated 1.27 MW of power. The south bank and a masonry wall some distance offshore created a forebay (or short headrace) which fed the iron-enclosed penstock
s, and water flow into the penstocks was partially controlled by a gate at the upstream end of the forebay. The main penstock was 400 feet (121.9 m) long and 9 feet (2.7 m) in diameter, and fed water to the turbines. (Three other penstocks were built but not put into use immediately.)
On the north side of the river was another powerhouse (completed in 1892), which contained seven more Victor turbines, capable of generating a total of 1.94 MW of power. Rock and debris carved from the river bottom was piled near the north bank to create a small island (Tailrace Island), and the powerhouse was built on this manmade shore. The island and the north bank of the Missouri River formed the tailrace (or channel for water leaving the powerhouse) of Black Eagle Dam. Tailrace Island was jointly owned by the power company and the Boston and Montana. A wooden pedestrian bridge was built to the island to connect the powerhouse with the smelter above. The north bank and a masonry wall offshore formed a long, concrete-lined forebay (100 feet (30.5 m) across at its widest part) for the northern powerhouse. The flow of water into this forebay was also controlled by gates. Three iron-enclosed penstocks were built to feed the northern powerhouse. The mechanical power generated by the turbines in the north powerhouse was not converted into electricity, however. Most of the power was transferred mechanically to the smelter's equipment via a system of ropes and pulleys.
Thomson-Houston
generators were used to transform some of the mechanical energy generated by the two powerhouses into electricity. A single person could operate the powerhouse during an eight-hour shift. A secondary powerhouse, which contained an Armington & Sims
steam-powered turbine and generator, was built next to the south powerhouse and used to provide electricity to clients whenever the main turbines were shut off. A 200 feet (61 m) long funicular
(or inclined railway) provided access to the south powerhouse from the bluff above. An 200 feet (61 m) long, 10 feet (3 m) wide pedestrian suspension bridge
ran from the bluffs above each powerhouse over the river. The dam's life expectancy was estimated at 50 years.
s in April 1892; converters
in August 1892; refining furnaces in January 1893; an electrolytic refinery
in February 1893; and blast furnace
s in April 1893. The cost of the original plant was $2 million, and by 1892 more than 1,000 workers were employed at the smelter. On April 7, 1908, construction began on the "Big Stack," a chimney for dispersal of fumes 506 feet (154.2 m) high, with an interior measurement of 78.5 feet (23.9 m) in diameter at the base and 50 feet (15.2 m) in diameter at the top. Built by the Alphonse Custodis Construction Co. of New York, it was completed on October 23, 1908, and was the tallest chimney in the world when finished.
In 1893-1894, GFWPTC constructed a second powerhouse just downstream of its existing south bank powerhouse. This powerhouse mechanically transferred power to the Royal Milling Company flour mill on the bluff above. In 1897, GFWPTC built yet another powerhouse (this time next to its north bank powerhouse) to supply even more power to the smelter above.
On April 14, 1908, at about 2:30 PM, Hauser Dam
—a steel dam
about 90 miles upstream from Great Falls— failed. A surge of water 25 feet (7.6 m) to 30 feet (9.1 m) high swept downstream. A Great Northern Railway locomotive was dispatched to the city of Great Falls, warning stations along the way about the dam break. Workers at the Boston and Montana Smelter in Great Falls improvised a wing dam
to deflect the floodwaters away from the smelter site and dynamited a portion of Black Eagle Dam to allow the floodwaters to go downstream. Their efforts were not needed, as the Missouri River only rose 7 feet (2.1 m) by the time it reached that city. Two deaths occurred while the dynamiting attempt was made, however: One man drowned while trying to remove flashboards from the dam, and another drowned when his boat capsized.
Just two months later, on June 6, Black Eagle Dam suffered damage in yet another flood. Almost 3 inches (7.6 cm) of rain fell in 24 hours, and the Missouri River rose by almost 16 inches (40.6 cm) in eight hours. The Missouri River rose 8.1 feet (2.5 m) above flood stage (which itself was 15 feet (4.6 m) above the median water level). Five people in the city drowned. The Boston and Montana smelter toppled four fully loaded railroad car
s into the Missouri just north of Black Eagle Dam in an attempt to divert the floodwaters from the plant. The worst flood in the city's history at the time, several buildings in town were also washed away. They smashed against Black Eagle Dam, and some went over the dam to break up on the waterfalls below. The pedestrian suspension bridge over the dam also washed out. (A plaque was placed on the 6th Street underpass to mark the extent of the high water. It can be seen there today.) The dam itself suffered some damage as well. This damage was repaired, and the old wooden bridge to Tailrace Island replaced with a single-span steel Warren truss bridge capable of handling automobiles. The island now began to also serve as a parking lot
for powerhouse and smelter workers.
Ownership of the dam changed twice in the second decade of the 20th century. In 1908, John D. Ryan
(president of the Daly Bank and Trust Co.
in Butte
and the Anaconda Copper Company
, and a future Assistant Secretary of War) purchased most of the shares in the GFWPTC. In 1910, GFWPTC organized a subsidiary, the Great Falls Power Co., to take over ownership and operation of Black Eagle Dam and its other hydroelectric properties (then being built). A second ownership change occurred in 1912. Cost overruns on Holter Dam
, waning investor enthusiasm for dam-building, and the liability associated with the collapse of Hauser Dam nearly drove Samuel Thomas Hauser
, the largest shareholder in the United Missouri River Power Company (owner of Hauser and Holter) into bankruptcy. Hauser sold his interest in United Missouri River Power to John D. Ryan, who on October 25, 1912, merged United Missouri River Power with the Great Falls Power Co., Butte Electric and Power Company, Billings and Eastern Montana Power Company, and Madison River Power Company to form the Montana Power Company
. That same year, most of Black Eagle Dam's power (3.9 MW to 5.7 MW) was delivered to the new smelter. In comparison, only about 0.7 MW was delivered to the nearby city. Another 300 horsepower
of mechanical energy was created by a water wheel
and delivered physically, through a rope and pulley system, to the Royal Milling Co.
In 1913, Montana Power upgraded Black Eagle Dam to generate more electrical (rather than mechanical) power. It abandoned its second powerhouse on the south bank, and installed two Leffel turbines
. The old generators in the first powerhouse were replaced with two new ones capable of generating 1.5 MW each. Two surge chambers
were built in the powerhouse as well, and a penstock connected to each chamber. The refurbished south powerhouse now provided power to the smelter, as well as to the flour mill (which had been converted to electricity).
(Rainbow Dam
) and the Great Falls (Ryan Dam
), and a third dam (Cochrane Dam
) between the other two in a canyon of the Missouri River. In 1914, Montana Power considered raising the height of Black Eagle Dam to increase its power generation capacity. In 1916, much of the Boston and Montana smelter plant was replaced by a modern copper and zinc
smelter, and a wire and cable manufacturing plant was added. But Black Eagle Dam, even with upgrades to its turbines and other power generation equipment, still only generated about three MW of electricity. More power was required. By the early 1920s, the needs of the city of Great Falls had outstripped Black Eagle Dam's ability to generate electricity, and the smelter was planning a new electrolytic zinc manufacturing plant that would require 10 MW of power. By 1925, the north powerhouses were seriously outdated.
The Montana Power Company began planning for a new dam and powerhouse in late 1925. The Charles T. Main Company
oversaw the redevelopment of the dam. Harry Cochrane, Montana Power's chief consulting engineer, supervised the dam's redesign (nearby Cochrane Dam is named after him). On April 1, 1926, the company announced it would spend $1 million to build a new powerhouse at Black Eagle Dam. But as work progressed, the engineers realized that the dam and its four powerhouses were too outdated to meet power generation needs. The company adjusted its plans, and planned for an entirely new dam to be built 50 feet (15.2 m) downstream from the first dam. The south forebay would be abandoned, while the north forebay would be retained (and significantly rehabilitated). The 1897 north bank powerhouse was demolished, and a new, concrete powerhouse built on the same location. The design and location of the new powerhouse was influenced by the company's experiences during the June 1908 flood (during which its south bank powerhouses had been flooded and damaged).
Work began that summer with the removal of the south bank powerhouses. The existing dam was used as a coffer dam while workers poured concrete for the new dam. The new dam was finished on August 1, 1927, and began generating electricity in September. The new dam's reservoir completely drowned the old dam behind it.
The new dam was 782 feet (238.4 m) long and 34.5 feet (10.5 m) high, with a spillway 646 feet (196.9 m) long. Its height was limited by the city's freshwater and sewage facilities, which were just upstream from the dam and would be inundated if the dam were any higher. The dam had an ogee
-shaped crest to permit improved water flow over the top.
The new dam also had eight floodgates, and a pedestrian walkaway with railing was along the dam's crest to give maintenance workers access to the flashboards and dam.
The dam's new powerhouse was concrete. The company had planned to build a brick powerhouse. But local bricklayers demanded that they be paid the salary offered by the city rather than the lower rate offered by Montana Power. The company refuse to hire the workers, and built the structure of concrete instead. Concrete and masonry retaining walls north and south of the powerhouse were also built to help prevent erosion of the riverbank into the forebay and tailrace. The new forebay was 421 feet (128.3 m) long and 96 feet (29.3 m) wide. The forebay was slightly extended downstream to the new powerhouse, and brick arches of the old powerhouse incorporated into the forebay's walls. The new powerhouse contained three vertical Kaplan turbine
s (supplied by the S. Morgan Smith Company) capable of generating 18 MW of power, which gave Black Eagle the smallest generating capacity of any of Montana Power's five dams in the Great Falls area. The Smith company also made the oil-pressure governors
(which regulated each turbine's speed) and draft tubes (which slowed the water down as it left the turbine, allowing the faster-moving water above to keep imparting energy to the turbine's propellers). The scroll-shaped inlets and wicket gates around the turbines were cemented into the powerhouse's basement, and each turbine installed in its own pit. Each turbine connected through the first floor roof to an Allis-Chalmers generator rated at 7,000 kVA
. DC
generators acted as exciters
for the Allis-Chalmers generators. Six 6,600/2,200 volt transformer
s stepped down the power for usage.
Black Eagle Dam suffered four major floods after its 1926 reconstruction, but survived them all. The first major flood occurred on June 4, 1953, when early spring rains and sudden snowmelt caused the Missouri River to rise 4.1 feet (1.2 m) above flood stage. No damage to the dam was reported. On June 10, 1964, heavy rains in the Rocky Mountains caused the Missouri River to rise 9.6 feet (2.9 m) above flood stage—1.5 foot (0.4572 m) higher than the 1908 flood. Swift Dam on Birch Creek collapsed, killing 19 people. Lower Two Medicine Lake Dam
also collapsed, killing nine. Although 3,000 people were forced out of their homes in Great Falls due to heavy flooding, the 1964 event did no damage to Black Eagle Dam. (Mel Ruder was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting
for his coverage of the flood.) A third major flood occurred on June 21, 1975. More than 2 inches (5.1 cm) of rain fell in the Rocky Mountains in a 24-hour period. More than 5,000 people were evacuated from their homes in Great Falls after the Sun River rose to 21 feet (6.4 m) (6 feet (1.8 m) above flood stage). More than $17 million in damage occurred, and 21000 acres (8,498.4 ha) were submerged. Floodwaters almost overwhelmed Black Eagle Dam, but no damage to the structure occurred. A fourth major flood hit on June 17, 1997. Heavy, swift snowmelt caused the Missouri River to rise 3 foot (0.9144 m) above flood stage. But no damage to the dam was reported. Black Eagle Dam is also equipped with an emergency "trip face" that releases all the flashboards on the dam so that up to 100000 cubic feet (2,831.7 m³) per second of water can pass over the dam.
The reservoir formed behind Black Eagle Dam has no official name. However, due to the slow current, stillness of the water, and low incline of the water from the upriver town of Cascade
to Black Eagle Falls (a distance of about 55 miles (88.5 km) along the winding Missouri River), this body of water has long been known as the "Long Pool." Thomas P. Roberts, who named Black Eagle Falls, gave this body of water its name in 1872. The United States Army Corps of Engineers
referred to it by this name beginning at least as early as 1883, and as recently as 1910. The Montana Legislature has used the name, and the name was in popular use as early as 1891 and as late as 1917. Modern historians have referred to it as such, and it was in use by power industry publications as late as 1949. Today, the area from the 1st Avenue North Bridge to the confluence of the Missouri with the Sun River
(a distance of about 1 miles (1.6 km)) is known as Broadwater Bay (after Charles Arthur Broadwater, the noted Montana railroad executive, real estate investor, and banker).
Montana Power was forced to license Black Eagle Dam and most of its other hydroelectric dams under the Federal Power Act
in 1950. The controversy arose in December 1937 when the Federal Power Commission
(FPC) began a proceeding (FPC Docket #IT-5840) to license all dams built prior to 1935 (the year the Federal Power Act became law). The act gave the Federal Power Commission the authority to license all dams on navigable waters in the United States. After almost a decade of extensive research and data collection as well as unfruitful negotiations, a hearing began before an FPC trial examiner on November 18, 1946, to determine whether the rivers where Montana Power had constructed dams prior to 1935 were navigable and therefore should be licensed under the act. In Opinion No. 170, issued on September 30, 1947, the trial examiner found that the rivers in question were navigable and the dams (including Black Eagle Dam) should be licensed. The company appealed to the full FPC, which began holding hearings on February 16, 1948. When the full FPC found against Montana Power, the company appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
. On October 4, 1950, Judge David L. Bazelon
, writing for a 2-to-1 majority, held in Montana Power Co. v. Federal Power Commission that "the 263 mile stretch of the Missouri River from Fort Benton to Three Forks is a 'navigable water of the United States,' and hence subject to the licensing requirements of the Federal Power Act." The court of appeals held that Black Eagle, Morony, Rainbow, and Ryan dams were on navigable waters and occupied public land without any authority. Hauser Dam was on navigable waters and held an invalid license to occupy public land. Holter Dam had a valid license, but that license did not extend to the navigable waters which it used. Hebgen and Madison dams were on non-navigable waters, but occupied public land without a valid license. The court of appeals remanded the issue of Canyon Ferry Dam back to the district court, as that dam had recently been sold to the federal government. Montana Power appealed the decision to the Supreme Court of the United States
, which denied certiorari
(refused to hear the case) in March 1951. Montana Power subsequently sought and won licenses for Black Eagle Dam and the seven others required to do so by the court's ruling. (Black Eagle dam was relicensed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
, the successor agency to the FPC, on September 27, 2000 for 40 years. The license, number P-2188, is for PPL's entire Upper Missouri-Madison project.)
The three Allis-Chalmers generators were rewound in 1978, and again in 1982. In 1997, Montana Power repainted and renovated the Tailrace Island bridge.
On November 2, 1999, Montana Power announced it was selling all of its dams and other electric power generating plants to PPL, Inc. for $1.6 billion. The sale, which included Black Eagle Dam, was expected to generate $30 million in taxes for the state of Montana (although MPC said the total would be lower). In November 2001, citizens of Montana—upset with energy price increases announced by PPL—sought passage of a ballot initiative that would have required the state to buy all of PPL's hydroelectric dams in Montana, including Black Eagle Dam. Montana voters rejected the initiative in November 2002.
At the time Montana Power sold Black Eagle Dam to PPL, Montana Power was installing controls that would allow the dam to be remotely operated from Rainbow Dam. At that time, PPL Montana said it had no plans to expand electrical generation capacity at Black Eagle Dam. Also in 1999, Montana Power turned most of Tailrace Island over to the city of Great Falls for use as a recreation area. In addition, Montana Power and ARCO
(the successor company to the Boston and Montana) laid 18 inches (45.7 cm) of topsoil on the island, spent $500,000 to landscape it and enhance the safety perimeter around the powerhouse, and agreed to fund a portion of the island's annual upkeep.
In the late 1990s, historian Stephen Ambrose
suggested removing Black Eagle Dam to restore the falls to their original condition.
Refurbishment of power generation and transmission systems at Black Eagle Dam began in 2010. In June of that year, PPL Montana initiated a $55 million effort to replace overhead power line
s connecting the dam to the area's electric grid. The new power lines (which replaced equipment more than 80 years old) were more widely spaced apart, to permit large birds to pass safely through or perch on the power lines. PPL also said it was replacing the electrical substation
next to the dam's powerhouse. Both projects are expected to be complete in 2012.
joins the Missouri River just a few miles upstream from Black Eagle Dam. The Sun River has long been derisively referred to as the "Scum River" due to the heavy load of sediment, nutrients, and unhealthy aquatic plant growth (such as algae) it contains. The Sun River is the color of chocolate milk
where it enters the relatively blue waters of the Missouri, and it leaves the Missouri noticeably muddier. Silt has reduced the reservoir's capacity, filled up the forebay, and caused damage to the powerplant. In 1988, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) listed the Missouri River from the Sun River to Rainbow Dam
(just downstream from Black Eagle Dam) as "impaired" under Section 303(d) of the 1972 Clean Water Act
due to sediment and suspended solids in the river. Black Eagle Dam (which slows the water and allows sediment to fall to the bottom of the reservoir) has been listed as one of the contributing sources of this problem. To combat this problem, in 1994 seven federal agencies, eight state agencies, 10 local Montana governments, four environmental organizations, and several Montana landowners began working together to reduce nutrient and sediment flows into the Sun River and its primary tributaries (Muddy Creek and Careless Creek). About $623,500 of Clean Water Act funds, $2 million in other federal funds, and $2.5 million in state and local funds were used to restore streambank vegetation, improve streamside grazing practices, restore sloping to streambanks, and improve irrigation practices. The program has seen success: By 2010, after just four years of abatement, sediment load dropped by 75 percent in Muddy Creek and 25 percent in Careless Creek.
Black Eagle Falls are not always flowing due to the needs of Black Eagle Dam. Typical median water flows of 11200 cubic feet (317.1 m³) per second occur in the Missouri River in May of each year. In October 2000, water levels behind the dam were drawn down and the falls shut off for about four weeks while PPL Montana made repairs to the forebay, gates, forebay, and penstock screens. PPL Montana's license for the dam requires it to send at least 200 cubic feet (5.7 m³) per second of water over Black Eagle Dam between 9 A.M. and 8 P.M. on weekends and holidays between Memorial Day
and Labor Day
, although water may flow (and flow at higher rates) if the dam's power generation requirements and water levels permit it. In May 2001, PPL Montana said it would shut down Black Eagle Falls after July 4 because of water flows only about 40 percent of normal. Reservoir levels were lowered again in September 2004 to repair flashboards. The lack of water exposed the Missouri's original channel near Giant Springs
. The reservoir was drawn down again and the falls turned off in June and July 2008. Flashboards on the dam were removed after a heavy rain to allow runoff to pass over the dam. Once the runoff passed, the flashboards were replaced. But little water remained in the reservoir and river, and the falls ran dry for several days until the reservoir filled again.
Because Black Eagle Dam is an overflow dam, it is common for debris to jam against the dam or obstruct the penstock intakes. Driftwood and logs are the most common forms of debris, but unusual objects such as boat dock
s, bowling ball
s, canoe
s, hot tub
s, and small wooden and steel sheds and buildings also sometimes become lodged against the dam. Removing hollow items can be dangerous, because the water pressure against them can cause them to implode. In addition to large amounts of driftwood, about 100 animal carcasses (cattle, deer, dogs, and various small animals) become lodged against the dam or the penstock intake screens each year. Floating screens at the entrance to the forebay catch many items, as do the penstock intake screens. Workers use a crane to remove items from these screens, and bury the items retrieved at a landfill. Dam operators also use a yellow civilian version of the Alvis Stalwart
amphibious vehicle to remove objects, and to maintain the dam. (This vehicle caused a stir in Great Falls in June 2006, when local residents driving on a nearby road mistook the vehicle for a sport utility vehicle
which had fallen into the water.) Ice is another form of dangerous debris for the dam. In December 2010, blocks of floating ice overwhelmed the top of the dam, tearing the handrails off the maintenance walkway.
For many years, Black Eagle Dam's owners were required to hold simulations every five years to plan for various kinds of emergencies (flood, sabotage, mechanical breakdown, etc.) which might affect the dam and public safety. After the September 11 attacks, these exercises were required to happen every year. PPL Montana works with local and state government and law enforcement, other companies, and the news media to plan for various contingencies and improve how it might respond in a disaster or emergency.
. In February 2005, the Montana State Tax Appeal Board gave the state a partial victory, reducing the state's assessments by 10 percent but otherwise upholding the assessment method. However, the tax board did not address PPL Montana's primary claim that the state was assessing its plants differently solely because they were unregulated. PPL Montana appealed the ruling to the Montana Supreme Court
in 2007. On December 4, 2007, the Montana Supreme Court unanimously ruled in State Dept. of Revenue v. PPL Montana that the tax appeal board had properly assessed PPL Montana's dams. However, PPL Montana had continued to dispute its tax assessments from 2003 to 2007, and the ruling did not directly address those challenges. But on December 14, 2007, PPL Montana offered to pay its 2003-to-2007 tax assessments at the slightly lower rate established by the tax appeal board.
Another tax issue arose in 2007. The parents of several Montana schoolchildren filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Montana
against PPL Montana. The parents argued that all riverbeds in Montana are owned by the state, are held in trust for the benefit of all the people, and that such riverbeds constitute a portion of state lands which must be taxed or leased to provide support for public schools. The plaintiffs argued that PPL Montana and its predecessor, Montana Power, only leased these riverbeds from the state and did not own them. The parents sued to force PPL to pay rent due. (At no time in the past had the state sought rental income from Montana Power, and no payments by Montana Power or PPL Montana had ever been made.) Although the federal suit was dismissed for lack of a federal issue, PPL Montana filed suit in Montana's First Judicial District Court seeking a declaratory judgment
in its favor, arguing that the Federal Power Act preempts
the parents' suit and denies states the power to make companies pay for the use of riverbeds. The state district court held against PPL's request for summary judgment on all counts. The two parties then went to trial, which lasted from October 22 to October 30, 2007. On June 13, 2008, the state district court ruled in favor of the state (although it denied the state's request for interest on the rent due). PPL Montana appealed to the Montana State Supreme Court. On March 30, 2010, the Montana State Supreme Court held (5-to-2) that the state district court had not erred in its rulings on various issues of summary judgment, that riverbeds were state public trust lands (but not school trust lands) under the Montana Constitution
, and that the district court's calculation of payments due was appropriate. PPL Montana, appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States
, and in November 2010 the Supreme Court asked the United States Solicitor General
for the views of the federal government.
Flashboards on the dam were slightly damaged during flooding in the spring and early summer of 2011. Water behind the dam was lowered until it barely crested the dam so repair crews could replace the flashboards.
The river above and below Black Eagle Dam is used for fishing. Westslope cutthroat trout
were first identified at Black Eagle Falls by Lewis and Clark in 1805, and the fish still are plentiful in the area. Rainbow trout
are also plentiful upstream from the dam. The area below Black Eagle Falls has been rated by one guide as a good area for fly fishing
smallmouth bass
and walleye
. For many years, the state of Montana managed the Long Pool reservoir as part of one fishing management area, and the river below the dam as part of another. This was changed in 1999, so that the two are now managed together. The change also instituted a new limit on trout
caught and killed below the dam of five fish per day (only one of which could be over 18 inches (45.7 cm)). Limits on the number of walleye caught per day were lifted in 2010 to protect the rainbow and brown trout populations (they had been five daily and 10 in possession). According to dam officials, there are no screens to prevent fish from going over the dam or through the penstocks and turbines. Fish "go right through the turbines, it doesn't seem to bother them," dam operators say.
Since 1988, the Long Pool and the Missouri River in and around the city of Great Falls have been listed as an "impaired" waterway under the 1972 Clean Water Act. This area was first listed as impaired due to sedimentation, siltation, and suspended solids in 1988. High levels of chromium
, mercury
, and selenium
were listed as impairing factors in 1992. High turbidity
(haziness of water due to suspended particles) was added as an impairing factor in 2000. Sources of these impairments include Black Eagle Dam, upstream abandoned mines, irrigation runoff, industrial sources, and stormwater runoff. The MDEQ has given the area a quality ranking of B-2 (fourth out of 18), declaring it suitable for human consumption and recreation (after treatment) but only marginal for salmonid
fish, other aquatic animals, waterfowl and fur-bearing animals. MDEQ has scheduled the Long Pool and Missouri River watershed in this area for future improvement.
In 2011, the former smelter next to Black Eagle Dam was listed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) as a Superfund
hazardous and toxic waste site. The EPA also said it would begin sampling for the riverbed above and below Black Eagle Dam, as well as residential areas in the town of Black Eagle, for heavy metals contamination. Historic records show that plant wastes were routinely dumped into the Missouri River below Black Eagle dam. MDEQ estimated in 2002 that between 27500000 cubic yards (21,025,258.6 m³) and 31000000 cubic yards (23,701,200.6 m³) of waste were dumped into the river between 1892 and 1915. EPA samples indicated that the contamination could extend as far downstream as Fort Benton
, 34 miles (54.7 km) away. Toxins present in the water and riverbed, according to the EPA, include antimony
, arsenic
, cadmium
, chromium, cobalt
, copper
, iron, lead
, manganese
, mercury, nickel
, silver
, sodium
, and zinc.
s, California gull
s, Canada geese
, cliff swallow
s, eared grebes, egret
s, golden eagle
s, American goldfinch
es, gray catbird
s, house wren
s, ibis
es, osprey
s, red-necked grebe
s, sandhill crane
s, snow geese
, tundra swans, turkey vulture
s, western grebe
s, western meadowlark
s, white pelican
s, and numerous species of duck
, owl
, and warbler
. Common animal species in the area include beaver
s, mule deer
, muskrat
s, river otters, and white-tailed deer
. Beavers are so common in the area that officials consider them pests, and trees in city parks have had to be protected against them. (At one point, beavers were chewing down two trees nightly on Black Eagle Memorial Island. These included two red oak
trees found growing on the hill above the dam—the only two red oak trees in northcentral Montana). As of 2006, most of the north shore of the Missouri River below Black Eagle Dam was undeveloped as far down a Sulphur Spring (a distance of about 18 kilometres (11.2 mi)). Known as the Lewis and Clark Greenway, this area is under a permanent conservation easement
.
Although the area below Black Eagle Dam is open for bird hunting, the reservoir and river upstream from Black Eagle Dam to Sand Coulee Creek is a no-hunting area.
Wildlife hunting is also available on the north shore of the Missouri River from below Black Eagle Dam to Morony Dam
. Most of this land is owned by PPL Montana, but there is some private land here which is not open to hunting. The PPL Montana lands are open to hunting due to a conservation easement, but the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks
requires hunters to obtain a map of these lands before using them for hunting. There are also restrictions on the type of weapons which may be used in this area, and where hunters may park.
ing, inner-tube floating, and kayak
ing. Hiking and bicycling also occur in the area. Beginning in 2006, the Black Eagle Dam Run (a 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) run/walk and 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) run) has been held at Black Eagle Dam in mid-July. The annual Lewis and Clark Festival, celebrated in late June (the anniversary of the discovery of the Great Falls), focuses on events held around Black Eagle and other dams on the Great Falls of the Missouri. In mid-July, the River's Edge Trail Luminaria
Walk occurs around Black Eagle Dam and the falls, and the falls are illuminated with colored spotlights during the event. On May 5, 1998, the United States Forest Service
opened the 25000 square feet (2,322.6 m²) Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, a $6 million museum and education center (which includes an exhibit hall, theater, store, and classrooms) which tells the story of Lewis and Clark's passage through central Montana and their discovery of the Great Falls of the Missouri.
Much work has been done in the past two decades to create public access to and public viewing areas of the dam and falls. For decades, two gravel spaces existed on River Drive North near the Bob Speck Municipal Golf Course where drivers could stop, get out, and view Black Eagle Falls and the dam. In 1991, the River's Edge Trail, a paved and gravel pedestrian recreational trail
, opened along tracks of the former Burlington Northern Railroad
on the south bank of the Missouri River at Black Eagle Dam. In 2001, Tailrace Island was renamed Black Eagle Memorial Island (in honor of those workers who lost their lives while working on or at the dam) and turned over to the River's Edge Trail. A new 10 miles (16.1 km) long section of the trail linking the existing 14 miles (22.5 km) long trail was also opened that year. The same year, a public boathouse
was constructed on Black Eagle Memorial Island for use by canoeists, kayakers, and other watercraft; observation decks; public restrooms; and parking lot. The boat landing was completed in October 2001. Construction also began on a 0.5 mile (0.80467 km) long section of trail designed to link Art Higgins Memorial Park (on the north bank of the Missouri River just behind the dam) with the island. Most of the construction costs were paid for by PPL Montana. In 2001, another segment of the trail was added, leading from the Black Eagle Memorial Island spur up Smelter Hill. The 2950 feet (899.2 m) long trail was paid for by a Community Transportation Enhancement Project grant. There is no fee to enter Black Eagle Memorial Island, which is open daily to the public from 9 A.M. to 8 P.M. and is maintained by the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. In 2004, the River's Edge Trail was extended along the north bank of the Missouri River from the Black Eagle Dam powerhouse westward about 1.3 miles (2.1 km) to the 15th Street Bridge. About $175,000 of the $204,500 cost of the extension was paid for by the Community Transportation Enhancement Program, and the remainder by the Montana Air Congestion Initiative (a state program), the American Public Land Exchange (a nonprofit organization), and Recreational Trails (a nonprofit which manages the trail). Black Eagle Memorial Island opened to the public on June 2, 2005.
The development of the River's Edge Trail and the growing importance of riverside parks and attractions around Black Eagle Dam and along the banks of the Missouri River led the city of Great Falls to develop its first Missouri River Urban Corridor Plan in 2003. The master plan, which covered both banks of the Missouri River from White Bear Island to Black Eagle Dam, inventoried the entire shoreline and assessed the riverbanks for condition, rehabilitation and refurbishment, and improvement opportunities. The plan laid out a number of options above and below Black Eagle Dam for improvements to public access, recreation, and beautification.
Black Eagle Dam has changed very little between its construction in 1926 and 2010. The ruins of the powerhouses from the 1890 dam and the 1913 reconstruction were still visible as of 2005. The large cast-iron sheets which formed the south bank penstocks can also still be seen.
Hydroelectricity
Hydroelectricity is the term referring to electricity generated by hydropower; the production of electrical power through the use of the gravitational force of falling or flowing water. It is the most widely used form of renewable energy...
gravity weir
Weir
A weir is a small overflow dam used to alter the flow characteristics of a river or stream. In most cases weirs take the form of a barrier across the river that causes water to pool behind the structure , but allows water to flow over the top...
dam
Dam
A dam is a barrier that impounds water or underground streams. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions. Hydropower and pumped-storage hydroelectricity are...
located on the Missouri River
Missouri River
The Missouri River flows through the central United States, and is a tributary of the Mississippi River. It is the longest river in North America and drains the third largest area, though only the thirteenth largest by discharge. The Missouri's watershed encompasses most of the American Great...
in the city of Great Falls, Montana
Great Falls, Montana
Great Falls is a city in and the county seat of Cascade County, Montana, United States. The population was 58,505 at the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Great Falls, Montana Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Cascade County...
. The first dam on the site, built and opened in 1890, was a timber-and-rock crib dam. This structure was the first hydroelectric dam built in Montana and the first built on the Missouri River. The dam helped give the city of Great Falls the nickname "The Electric City." A second dam, built of concrete in 1926 and opened in 1927, replaced the first dam (which was not removed and lies submerged in the reservoir). Almost unchanged since 1926, the dam is 782 feet (238.4 m) long and 34.5 feet (10.5 m) high, and its powerhouse contains three turbines
Water turbine
A water turbine is a rotary engine that takes energy from moving water.Water turbines were developed in the 19th century and were widely used for industrial power prior to electrical grids. Now they are mostly used for electric power generation. They harness a clean and renewable energy...
capable of generating seven megawatts
Watt
The watt is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units , named after the Scottish engineer James Watt . The unit, defined as one joule per second, measures the rate of energy conversion.-Definition:...
(MW) of power each. The maximum power output of the dam is 18 MW. The dam is currently operated by the electric utility
Electric utility
An electric utility is a company that engages in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity for sale generally in a regulated market. The electrical utility industry is a major provider of energy in most countries. It is indispensable to factories, commercial establishments,...
PPL Montana
PPL (utility)
PPL, formerly known as PP&L or Pennsylvania Power and Light, is an energy company headquartered in Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA. It currently controls about 19,000 megawatts of electrical generating capacity in the United States, primarily in Pennsylvania and Montana, and delivers electricity to...
. The reservoir behind the dam has no official name, but was called the Long Pool for many years. The reservoir is about 2 miles (3.2 km) long, and has a storage capacity of 1710 acre.ft to 1820 acre.ft of water.
The dam is a "run-of-the-river" dam
Run-of-the-river hydroelectricity
Run-of-the-river hydroelectricity is a type of hydroelectric generation whereby a considerably smaller water storage called pondage or none is used to supply a power station. Run-of-the-river power plants are classified as with or without pondage...
because it can generate electricity without needing to store additional water supplies behind the dam.
Black Eagle Falls
Black Eagle Falls is the first in a series of five waterfalls which constitute the Great Falls of the Missouri River in the state of MontanaMontana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Before being dammed, water dropped 26.42 feet (8.1 m) over the falls.
Black Eagle Falls formed on a fall line
Fall line
A fall line is a geomorphologic unconformity between an upland region of relatively hard crystalline basement rock and a coastal plain of softer sedimentary rock. A fall line is typically prominent when crossed by a river, for there will often be rapids or waterfalls...
unconformity
Unconformity
An unconformity is a buried erosion surface separating two rock masses or strata of different ages, indicating that sediment deposition was not continuous. In general, the older layer was exposed to erosion for an interval of time before deposition of the younger, but the term is used to describe...
in the Great Falls Tectonic Zone
Great Falls Tectonic Zone
The Great Falls Tectonic Zone is a major intracontinental shear zone between the Hearne craton and Wyoming craton, basement rock of the Archean Eon which form part of the North American continent. The zone is an area about 100 miles wide extending from the southwestern Idaho-Montana border across...
. The Missouri River in this area flows over and through the Kootenai Formation
Kootenai Formation
The Kootenai Formation is a Mesozoic geologic formation. Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation, although none have yet been referred to a specific genus.-See also:* List of dinosaur-bearing rock formations...
, a mostly nonmarine sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
laid down by rivers, glaciers, and lakes in the past. Some of the Kootenai Formation is marine, however, laid down by shallow seas. The river is eating away at the softer nonmarine sandstone, with the harder rock forming the falls themselves.
The Mandan and the South Piegan Blackfeet
Blackfeet
The Piegan Blackfeet are a tribe of Native Americans of the Algonquian language family based in Montana, having lived in this area since around 6,500 BC. Many members of the tribe live as part of the Blackfeet Nation in northwestern Montana, with population centered in Browning...
, among other Native Americans
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
, knew of the falls. On June 13, 1805, Meriwether Lewis
Meriwether Lewis
Meriwether Lewis was an American explorer, soldier, and public administrator, best known for his role as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition also known as the Corps of Discovery, with William Clark...
of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
Lewis and Clark Expedition
The Lewis and Clark Expedition, or ″Corps of Discovery Expedition" was the first transcontinental expedition to the Pacific Coast by the United States. Commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson and led by two Virginia-born veterans of Indian wars in the Ohio Valley, Meriwether Lewis and William...
became the first white person to see the Great Falls (the largest of the five waterfalls). On the second day that the expedition camped near the series of falls, Meriwether Lewis
Meriwether Lewis
Meriwether Lewis was an American explorer, soldier, and public administrator, best known for his role as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition also known as the Corps of Discovery, with William Clark...
discovered Black Eagle Falls:
- I arrived at another cataract of 26 feet. ... below this fall at a little distance a beatifull little Island well timbered is situated about the middle of the river. in this Island on a Cottonwood tree an Eagle has placed her nest; a more inaccessible spot I believe she could not have found; for neither man nor beast dare pass those gulphs which separate her little domain from the shores. the water is also broken in such manner as it decends over this pitch that the mist or sprey rises to a considerable hight. this fall is certainly much the greatest I ever behald except those two which I have mentioned below. it is incomparably a geater cataract and a more noble interesting object than the celibrated falls of Potomac or SoolkilnSchuylkill RiverThe Schuylkill River is a river in Pennsylvania. It is a designated Pennsylvania Scenic River.The river is about long. Its watershed of about lies entirely within the state of Pennsylvania. The source of its eastern branch is in the Appalachian Mountains at Tuscarora Springs, near Tamaqua in...
&c.
It is unclear which member of the expedition named the falls, but the expedition called them "Upper Pitch." The falls were eventually named for the black eagle which Lewis saw on June 14, 1805. In 1872, Thomas P. Roberts, a survey engineer
Locating engineer
A locating engineer is a civil engineer that surveys the best course for a road, or rail line, through the available terrain....
for the Northern Pacific Railway
Northern Pacific Railway
The Northern Pacific Railway was a railway that operated in the west along the Canadian border of the United States. Construction began in 1870 and the main line opened all the way from the Great Lakes to the Pacific when former president Ulysses S. Grant drove in the final "golden spike" in...
, formally named the cataract "Black Eagle Falls" after the incident recorded in Lewis' journal.
1890 dam
The Great Falls Water Power & Townsite Company was formed in 1887, with the goal of developing the town of Great Falls; providing it with power, sewage, and water; and attracting commerce and industry to the city. RailroadRail transport
Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods by way of wheeled vehicles running on rail tracks. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles merely run on a prepared surface, rail vehicles are also directionally guided by the tracks they run on...
magnate
Business magnate
A business magnate, sometimes referred to as a capitalist, czar, mogul, tycoon, baron, oligarch, or industrialist, is an informal term used to refer to an entrepreneur who has reached prominence and derived a notable amount of wealth from a particular industry .-Etymology:The word magnate itself...
James J. Hill organized the investors, who were primary owners of large amounts of stock in the Great Northern Railway. It was capitalized at $5 million. Hill sold stock to many of his friends, including Philip Danforth Armour
Philip Danforth Armour
Philip Danforth Armour, Sr. was an American businessman who founded Armour and Company, an American meatpacking firm.-Biography:...
, Charles Arthur Broadwater
Charles Arthur Broadwater
Charles Arthur Broadwater was a wealthy and influential Montana railroad, real estate, and banking magnate.Broadwater was born in St. Charles, Missouri. He was president of the Montana Central Railway, a spur line which ran between Great Falls, Montana Helena and Butte, Montana...
, Marshall Field
Marshall Field
Marshall Field was founder of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago-based department stores.-Life and career:...
, John Murray Forbes
John Murray Forbes
John Murray Forbes was an American railroad magnate, merchant, philanthropist and abolitionist. He was president of both the Michigan Central railroad and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad in the 1850s....
, Daniel Willis James
Daniel Willis James
Daniel Willis James was born in Liverpool, England, the son of a merchant who moved from Liverpool to Baltimore, Maryland, and eventually settled in New York City. His maternal grandfather was Anson Greene Phelps, of Phelps, Dodge, and Company. James attended Amherst College and wed Ellen S...
, John Stewart Kennedy
John Stewart Kennedy
John Stewart Kennedy was an American capitalist and philanthropist.-Biography:He was born near Glasgow in Scotland, received a scant education in school, studied in his spare moments as a clerk, and at 20 was sent to America by a London iron firm, in whose branch house in Glasgow he worked for...
, Leonard Lewisohn
Leonard Lewisohn
Leonard Lewisohn was an American merchant and philanthropist.-Biography:He was born in Hamburg, Germany, to Jewish parents, Julie and Samuel Lewisohn...
, and Charles Elliott Perkins
Charles Elliott Perkins
Charles Elliott Perkins was an American businessman and president of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. He was so well respected that historian Richard Overton wrote, "From the time that Charles Elliott Perkins became vice president of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy [1876] .....
. One of the stockholders in the Great Falls Water Power & Townsite Co. (GFWPTC) was Paris Gibson
Paris Gibson
Paris Gibson was an American entrepreneur and politician.Gibson was born in Brownfield, Maine. An 1851 graduate of Bowdoin College, he served as a member of the Montana State Senate and as a Democratic member of the United States Senate between 1901 and 1905.-Career:In 1853 he was elected to the...
, a friend of Hill's and the driving force behind the founding of the city of Great Falls. Gibson realized that the Great Falls of the Missouri could provide abundant, cheap electricity for industry, and proceeded to promote the town on this basis. But Gibson's plan meant actually building one or more dams to supply the dreamt-of power. The company immediately began purchasing riverside land and water right
Water right
Water right in water law refers to the right of a user to use water from a water source, e.g., a river, stream, pond or source of groundwater. In areas with plentiful water and few users, such systems are generally not complicated or contentious...
s along the Missouri River from Black Eagle Falls down to Sheep Creek (a distance of about 12 miles (19.3 km)). In time, it owned almost all the land set aside for the city of Great Falls as well as an additional 5000 acres (2,023.4 ha) of waterside property. GFWPTC employed J.T. Fanning, a hydraulic engineer
Hydraulic engineering
This article is about civil engineering. For the mechanical engineering discipline see Hydraulic machineryHydraulic engineering as a sub-discipline of civil engineering is concerned with the flow and conveyance of fluids, principally water and sewage. One feature of these systems is the extensive...
, to survey Black Eagle Falls in the summer of 1887 to determine the suitability of the falls and the best location for a dam. Plans for a dam were drawn up, but no action was taken at that time.
Black Eagle Dam was built in order to supply power to a copper smelter. The Boston and Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company
Boston and Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company
The Boston and Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company was a mining, smelting, and refining company which operated primarily in the state of Montana in the United States. It was established in 1887 and merged with the Amalgamated Copper Company in 1901...
was organized on July 22, 1887, by the merger of Leonard Lewisohn's Lewisohn Brothers (a copper trading company), the Montana Company (a mine holding company), and C. X. Larrabee (owner of the highly productive and famous Larrabee and Mountain View mines). On September 12, 1889, the Boston and Montana signed an agreement with GFWPTC in which the power company agreed to build a dam that would supply the mining firm with at least 1,000 horsepower (or 0.75 MW) of power by September 1, 1890, and 5,000 horsepower (or 3.73 MW) of power by January 1, 1891. In exchange, Boston and Montana agreed to build a $300,000 copper smelter near the dam.
Construction began on Black Eagle Dam in 1890. GFWPTC engineers designed a rock-and-timber crib weir overflow dam, in which dressed and shaped heavy timbers formed a closed structure filled with rock or rubble. The dam was not a large one. The goal was to merely create a pond behind the dam, which would create enough water pressure (or "head
Hydraulic head
Hydraulic head or piezometric head is a specific measurement of water pressure above a geodetic datum. It is usually measured as a water surface elevation, expressed in units of length, at the entrance of a piezometer...
") to turn turbines and generate electricity. The dam was built at a cost of about $515,000 (roughly $12,335,000 in inflation-adjusted 2010 dollars) on the upstream brink of the falls (to create the deepest reservoir possible). Construction bids were opened on February 5, 1890, with the request for bids specifying that all work must be finished by December 1, 1890. All the bids were rejected, and mechanical engineer
Mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering is a discipline of engineering that applies the principles of physics and materials science for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. It is the branch of engineering that involves the production and usage of heat and mechanical power for the...
Maurice Parker was employed to design and construct the dam. Coffer dams were constructed in April 1890 to divert the river from the work areas. Work on the dam itself began on April 15. A shanty town named "River Bank" was constructed just upstream of the construction site on the north bank for the river to house the Croat
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
, Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
n, Slovak
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
, and Welsh
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
workers who helped construct the dam. (Most of these workers helped found the town of Black Eagle
Black Eagle, Montana
Black Eagle is a census-designated place in Cascade County, Montana, United States. The population was 914 at the 2000 census. It is part of the 'Great Falls, Montana Metropolitan Statistical Area'.-Geography:...
, and earthen foundations for the shanty town can still be seen.) The red sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
riverbed was leveled as much as possible, and large timbers bolted and cemented (perpendicular to the river's flow) to the rock. Each timber was 8 feet (2.4 m) from the next one downstream, and six cribs were built to form a dam 56.66 feet (17.3 m) deep at its base. The dam's downstream face had a pitch of 1.05:1. From the crest of the dam, a face (at a pitch of 1:08:1) extended for about 8 feet (2.4 m) before it became vertical. A 30 feet (9.1 m) high masonry wall was built on the south end of the dam to form the foundation of and to protect the powerhouse, and the construction worked inward from either end of the dam. Every 48 feet (14.6 m) across the face of the dam, a 14 feet (4.3 m) wide floodwater spillway made of concrete was created (for a total of eight spillways). Flashboards 1 foot (0.3048 m) in height were installed along the entire top of the dam to add water storage capacity. The dam was 15 feet (4.6 m) high and 1100 feet (335.3 m) long.
The dam began generating electricity in December 1890. Water was permitted to flow over the crest of the dam on January 6, 1891, and the dam was considered complete on March 15, 1891.
A two-story brick powerhouse, 40 by, was built on the south side of the river. It contained three twin, horizontal "Victor" reaction turbines (to which up to six generators could be mounted), each of which generated 1.27 MW of power. The south bank and a masonry wall some distance offshore created a forebay (or short headrace) which fed the iron-enclosed penstock
Penstock
A penstock is a sluice or gate or intake structure that controls water flow, or an enclosed pipe that delivers water to hydraulic turbines and sewerage systems. It is a term that has been inherited from the technology of wooden watermills....
s, and water flow into the penstocks was partially controlled by a gate at the upstream end of the forebay. The main penstock was 400 feet (121.9 m) long and 9 feet (2.7 m) in diameter, and fed water to the turbines. (Three other penstocks were built but not put into use immediately.)
On the north side of the river was another powerhouse (completed in 1892), which contained seven more Victor turbines, capable of generating a total of 1.94 MW of power. Rock and debris carved from the river bottom was piled near the north bank to create a small island (Tailrace Island), and the powerhouse was built on this manmade shore. The island and the north bank of the Missouri River formed the tailrace (or channel for water leaving the powerhouse) of Black Eagle Dam. Tailrace Island was jointly owned by the power company and the Boston and Montana. A wooden pedestrian bridge was built to the island to connect the powerhouse with the smelter above. The north bank and a masonry wall offshore formed a long, concrete-lined forebay (100 feet (30.5 m) across at its widest part) for the northern powerhouse. The flow of water into this forebay was also controlled by gates. Three iron-enclosed penstocks were built to feed the northern powerhouse. The mechanical power generated by the turbines in the north powerhouse was not converted into electricity, however. Most of the power was transferred mechanically to the smelter's equipment via a system of ropes and pulleys.
Thomson-Houston
Thomson-Houston Electric Company
The Thomson-Houston Electric Company was a manufacturing company which was one of the precursors of the General Electric Company.The Thomson-Houston Electric Company was formed in 1883 in the United States when a group of Lynn, Massachusetts investors led by Charles A...
generators were used to transform some of the mechanical energy generated by the two powerhouses into electricity. A single person could operate the powerhouse during an eight-hour shift. A secondary powerhouse, which contained an Armington & Sims
Armington & Sims Engine Company
Armington & Sims Engine Company was a manufacturer of steam engines located in Providence, Rhode Island. It was established in 1883 by Pardon Armington and Gardner C. Sims...
steam-powered turbine and generator, was built next to the south powerhouse and used to provide electricity to clients whenever the main turbines were shut off. A 200 feet (61 m) long funicular
Funicular
A funicular, also known as an inclined plane or cliff railway, is a cable railway in which a cable attached to a pair of tram-like vehicles on rails moves them up and down a steep slope; the ascending and descending vehicles counterbalance each other.-Operation:The basic principle of funicular...
(or inclined railway) provided access to the south powerhouse from the bluff above. An 200 feet (61 m) long, 10 feet (3 m) wide pedestrian suspension bridge
Suspension bridge
A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck is hung below suspension cables on vertical suspenders. Outside Tibet and Bhutan, where the first examples of this type of bridge were built in the 15th century, this type of bridge dates from the early 19th century...
ran from the bluffs above each powerhouse over the river. The dam's life expectancy was estimated at 50 years.
1890 dam operational history
Ground was broken on the smelter in the spring of 1890. The concentrator opened in March 1891; Brückner cylinders and reverberatory furnaceReverberatory furnace
A reverberatory furnace is a metallurgical or process furnace that isolates the material being processed from contact with the fuel, but not from contact with combustion gases...
s in April 1892; converters
Converting (metallurgy)
Converting is a term used to describe a number of metallurgical smelting processes. The most commercially important use of the term is in the treatment of molten metal sulfides to produce crude metal and slag, as in the case of copper and nickel converting. Another, now uncommon, use of the term...
in August 1892; refining furnaces in January 1893; an electrolytic refinery
Electrolysis
In chemistry and manufacturing, electrolysis is a method of using a direct electric current to drive an otherwise non-spontaneous chemical reaction...
in February 1893; and blast furnace
Blast furnace
A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally iron.In a blast furnace, fuel and ore and flux are continuously supplied through the top of the furnace, while air is blown into the bottom of the chamber, so that the chemical reactions...
s in April 1893. The cost of the original plant was $2 million, and by 1892 more than 1,000 workers were employed at the smelter. On April 7, 1908, construction began on the "Big Stack," a chimney for dispersal of fumes 506 feet (154.2 m) high, with an interior measurement of 78.5 feet (23.9 m) in diameter at the base and 50 feet (15.2 m) in diameter at the top. Built by the Alphonse Custodis Construction Co. of New York, it was completed on October 23, 1908, and was the tallest chimney in the world when finished.
In 1893-1894, GFWPTC constructed a second powerhouse just downstream of its existing south bank powerhouse. This powerhouse mechanically transferred power to the Royal Milling Company flour mill on the bluff above. In 1897, GFWPTC built yet another powerhouse (this time next to its north bank powerhouse) to supply even more power to the smelter above.
On April 14, 1908, at about 2:30 PM, Hauser Dam
Hauser Dam
Hauser Dam is a hydroelectric straight gravity dam on the Missouri River about northeast of Helena, Montana, in the United States. The original dam, built between 1905 and 1907, failed in 1908 and caused severe flooding and damage downstream. A second dam was built on the site in 1908 and opened...
—a steel dam
Steel dam
A steel dam is a type of dam that is made of steel, rather than the more common masonry, earthworks, concrete or timber construction materials.Relatively few examples were ever built...
about 90 miles upstream from Great Falls— failed. A surge of water 25 feet (7.6 m) to 30 feet (9.1 m) high swept downstream. A Great Northern Railway locomotive was dispatched to the city of Great Falls, warning stations along the way about the dam break. Workers at the Boston and Montana Smelter in Great Falls improvised a wing dam
Wing dam
A wing dam is a manmade barrier that, unlike a conventional dam, only extends partway into a river. These structures force water into a fast-moving center channel which reduces the rate of sediment accumulation, while slowing water flow near the riverbanks....
to deflect the floodwaters away from the smelter site and dynamited a portion of Black Eagle Dam to allow the floodwaters to go downstream. Their efforts were not needed, as the Missouri River only rose 7 feet (2.1 m) by the time it reached that city. Two deaths occurred while the dynamiting attempt was made, however: One man drowned while trying to remove flashboards from the dam, and another drowned when his boat capsized.
Just two months later, on June 6, Black Eagle Dam suffered damage in yet another flood. Almost 3 inches (7.6 cm) of rain fell in 24 hours, and the Missouri River rose by almost 16 inches (40.6 cm) in eight hours. The Missouri River rose 8.1 feet (2.5 m) above flood stage (which itself was 15 feet (4.6 m) above the median water level). Five people in the city drowned. The Boston and Montana smelter toppled four fully loaded railroad car
Railroad car
A railroad car or railway vehicle , also known as a bogie in Indian English, is a vehicle on a rail transport system that is used for the carrying of cargo or passengers. Cars can be coupled together into a train and hauled by one or more locomotives...
s into the Missouri just north of Black Eagle Dam in an attempt to divert the floodwaters from the plant. The worst flood in the city's history at the time, several buildings in town were also washed away. They smashed against Black Eagle Dam, and some went over the dam to break up on the waterfalls below. The pedestrian suspension bridge over the dam also washed out. (A plaque was placed on the 6th Street underpass to mark the extent of the high water. It can be seen there today.) The dam itself suffered some damage as well. This damage was repaired, and the old wooden bridge to Tailrace Island replaced with a single-span steel Warren truss bridge capable of handling automobiles. The island now began to also serve as a parking lot
Parking lot
A parking lot , also known as car lot, is a cleared area that is intended for parking vehicles. Usually, the term refers to a dedicated area that has been provided with a durable or semi-durable surface....
for powerhouse and smelter workers.
Ownership of the dam changed twice in the second decade of the 20th century. In 1908, John D. Ryan
John D. Ryan (mining)
John Dennis Ryan was an American industrialist and copper mining magnate. President of Anaconda Copper Mining Company and creator of Montana Power Company.-Biography:...
(president of the Daly Bank and Trust Co.
Marcus Daly
Marcus Daly redirects here, see also Marcus Daly Marcus Daly was an Irish-born American businessman known as one of the three "Copper Kings" of Butte, Montana, United States.- Early life:...
in Butte
Butte, Montana
Butte is a city in Montana and the county seat of Silver Bow County, United States. In 1977, the city and county governments consolidated to form the sole entity of Butte-Silver Bow. As of the 2010 census, Butte's population was 34,200...
and the Anaconda Copper Company
Anaconda Copper
Anaconda Copper Mining Company was one of the largest trusts of the early 20th century. The Anaconda was purchased by Atlantic Richfield Company on January 12, 1977...
, and a future Assistant Secretary of War) purchased most of the shares in the GFWPTC. In 1910, GFWPTC organized a subsidiary, the Great Falls Power Co., to take over ownership and operation of Black Eagle Dam and its other hydroelectric properties (then being built). A second ownership change occurred in 1912. Cost overruns on Holter Dam
Holter Dam
Holter Dam is a hydroelectric straight gravity dam on the Missouri River about northeast of Helena, Montana, in the United States. The dam, which was built between 1908 and 1918, is long and high. The reservoir formed by the dam, Holter Lake is long and has a storage capacity of of water when...
, waning investor enthusiasm for dam-building, and the liability associated with the collapse of Hauser Dam nearly drove Samuel Thomas Hauser
Samuel Thomas Hauser
Samuel Thomas Hauser was an American industrialist and banker who was active in the development of Montana Territory...
, the largest shareholder in the United Missouri River Power Company (owner of Hauser and Holter) into bankruptcy. Hauser sold his interest in United Missouri River Power to John D. Ryan, who on October 25, 1912, merged United Missouri River Power with the Great Falls Power Co., Butte Electric and Power Company, Billings and Eastern Montana Power Company, and Madison River Power Company to form the Montana Power Company
Montana Power Company
The Montana Power Company was an electric utility company based in Butte, Montana which provided electricity to Montana consumers and industry from 1912 to 1997.- History :...
. That same year, most of Black Eagle Dam's power (3.9 MW to 5.7 MW) was delivered to the new smelter. In comparison, only about 0.7 MW was delivered to the nearby city. Another 300 horsepower
Horsepower
Horsepower is the name of several units of measurement of power. The most common definitions equal between 735.5 and 750 watts.Horsepower was originally defined to compare the output of steam engines with the power of draft horses in continuous operation. The unit was widely adopted to measure the...
of mechanical energy was created by a water wheel
Water wheel
A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of free-flowing or falling water into useful forms of power. A water wheel consists of a large wooden or metal wheel, with a number of blades or buckets arranged on the outside rim forming the driving surface...
and delivered physically, through a rope and pulley system, to the Royal Milling Co.
In 1913, Montana Power upgraded Black Eagle Dam to generate more electrical (rather than mechanical) power. It abandoned its second powerhouse on the south bank, and installed two Leffel turbines
Francis turbine
The Francis turbine is a type of water turbine that was developed by James B. Francis in Lowell, Massachusetts. It is an inward-flow reaction turbine that combines radial and axial flow concepts....
. The old generators in the first powerhouse were replaced with two new ones capable of generating 1.5 MW each. Two surge chambers
Surge tank
A surge tank is a standpipe or storage reservoir at the downstream end of a closed aqueduct or feeder pipe to absorb sudden rises of pressure as well as to quickly provide extra water during a brief drop in pressure...
were built in the powerhouse as well, and a penstock connected to each chamber. The refurbished south powerhouse now provided power to the smelter, as well as to the flour mill (which had been converted to electricity).
1926 dam
In 1909, engineers for Great Falls Power Co. proposed building dams at Rainbow FallsRainbow Falls (Missouri River)
Rainbow Falls is a waterfall on the Missouri River in Great Falls, Montana, just upstream from Crooked Falls and downstream from Colter Falls and Rainbow Dam. It is 47 feet high and 1,320 feet wide. The waterfall is part of the five Great Falls of the Missouri...
(Rainbow Dam
Rainbow Dam
Rainbow Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Missouri River, high and long, located six miles northeast of Great Falls in the U.S. state of Montana and just upstream of Rainbow Falls, a 45 ft waterfall that is the third of the five Great Falls of the Missouri. The dam, built in 1910, generates...
) and the Great Falls (Ryan Dam
Ryan dam
Ryan Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Missouri River, ten miles downstream from the city of Great Falls in the U.S. state of Montana. The dam is long and high; its reservoir is long and has a storage capacity of . It is a run-of-river dam. The dam is built on the largest of the five Great...
), and a third dam (Cochrane Dam
Cochrane Dam
Cochrane Dam is a run-of-the river hydroelectric dam on the Missouri River, about northeast of Great Falls in the U.S. state of Montana. The dam has a concrete gravity design and is high and long. Its power station has two generators capable of producing 64 megawatts. Construction of the dam was...
) between the other two in a canyon of the Missouri River. In 1914, Montana Power considered raising the height of Black Eagle Dam to increase its power generation capacity. In 1916, much of the Boston and Montana smelter plant was replaced by a modern copper and zinc
Zinc
Zinc , or spelter , is a metallic chemical element; it has the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is the first element in group 12 of the periodic table. Zinc is, in some respects, chemically similar to magnesium, because its ion is of similar size and its only common oxidation state is +2...
smelter, and a wire and cable manufacturing plant was added. But Black Eagle Dam, even with upgrades to its turbines and other power generation equipment, still only generated about three MW of electricity. More power was required. By the early 1920s, the needs of the city of Great Falls had outstripped Black Eagle Dam's ability to generate electricity, and the smelter was planning a new electrolytic zinc manufacturing plant that would require 10 MW of power. By 1925, the north powerhouses were seriously outdated.
The Montana Power Company began planning for a new dam and powerhouse in late 1925. The Charles T. Main Company
Chas. T. Main
-History:It was founded in 1893 by Charles T. Main, an engineer for the textile mills of New England. It was privately owned by its senior engineers, it being felt that this would leave decision making to those that knew the industry best...
oversaw the redevelopment of the dam. Harry Cochrane, Montana Power's chief consulting engineer, supervised the dam's redesign (nearby Cochrane Dam is named after him). On April 1, 1926, the company announced it would spend $1 million to build a new powerhouse at Black Eagle Dam. But as work progressed, the engineers realized that the dam and its four powerhouses were too outdated to meet power generation needs. The company adjusted its plans, and planned for an entirely new dam to be built 50 feet (15.2 m) downstream from the first dam. The south forebay would be abandoned, while the north forebay would be retained (and significantly rehabilitated). The 1897 north bank powerhouse was demolished, and a new, concrete powerhouse built on the same location. The design and location of the new powerhouse was influenced by the company's experiences during the June 1908 flood (during which its south bank powerhouses had been flooded and damaged).
Work began that summer with the removal of the south bank powerhouses. The existing dam was used as a coffer dam while workers poured concrete for the new dam. The new dam was finished on August 1, 1927, and began generating electricity in September. The new dam's reservoir completely drowned the old dam behind it.
The new dam was 782 feet (238.4 m) long and 34.5 feet (10.5 m) high, with a spillway 646 feet (196.9 m) long. Its height was limited by the city's freshwater and sewage facilities, which were just upstream from the dam and would be inundated if the dam were any higher. The dam had an ogee
Ogee
An ogee is a curve , shaped somewhat like an S, consisting of two arcs that curve in opposite senses, so that the ends are parallel....
-shaped crest to permit improved water flow over the top.
The new dam also had eight floodgates, and a pedestrian walkaway with railing was along the dam's crest to give maintenance workers access to the flashboards and dam.
The dam's new powerhouse was concrete. The company had planned to build a brick powerhouse. But local bricklayers demanded that they be paid the salary offered by the city rather than the lower rate offered by Montana Power. The company refuse to hire the workers, and built the structure of concrete instead. Concrete and masonry retaining walls north and south of the powerhouse were also built to help prevent erosion of the riverbank into the forebay and tailrace. The new forebay was 421 feet (128.3 m) long and 96 feet (29.3 m) wide. The forebay was slightly extended downstream to the new powerhouse, and brick arches of the old powerhouse incorporated into the forebay's walls. The new powerhouse contained three vertical Kaplan turbine
Kaplan turbine
The Kaplan turbine is a propeller-type water turbine which has adjustable blades. It was developed in 1913 by the Austrian professor Viktor Kaplan, who combined automatically adjusted propeller blades with automatically adjusted wicket gates to achieve efficiency over a wide range of flow and...
s (supplied by the S. Morgan Smith Company) capable of generating 18 MW of power, which gave Black Eagle the smallest generating capacity of any of Montana Power's five dams in the Great Falls area. The Smith company also made the oil-pressure governors
Governor (device)
A governor, or speed limiter, is a device used to measure and regulate the speed of a machine, such as an engine. A classic example is the centrifugal governor, also known as the Watt or fly-ball governor, which uses a rotating assembly of weights mounted on arms to determine how fast the engine...
(which regulated each turbine's speed) and draft tubes (which slowed the water down as it left the turbine, allowing the faster-moving water above to keep imparting energy to the turbine's propellers). The scroll-shaped inlets and wicket gates around the turbines were cemented into the powerhouse's basement, and each turbine installed in its own pit. Each turbine connected through the first floor roof to an Allis-Chalmers generator rated at 7,000 kVA
Volt-ampere
A volt-ampere is the unit used for the apparent power in an electrical circuit, equal to the product of root-mean-square voltage and RMS current. In direct current circuits, this product is equal to the real power in watts...
. DC
Direct current
Direct current is the unidirectional flow of electric charge. Direct current is produced by such sources as batteries, thermocouples, solar cells, and commutator-type electric machines of the dynamo type. Direct current may flow in a conductor such as a wire, but can also flow through...
generators acted as exciters
Excitation (magnetic)
An electric generator or electric motor consists of a rotor spinning in a magnetic field. The magnetic field may be produced by permanent magnets or by field coils. In the case of a machine with field coils, a current must flow in the coils to generate the field, otherwise no power is transferred...
for the Allis-Chalmers generators. Six 6,600/2,200 volt transformer
Transformer
A transformer is a device that transfers electrical energy from one circuit to another through inductively coupled conductors—the transformer's coils. A varying current in the first or primary winding creates a varying magnetic flux in the transformer's core and thus a varying magnetic field...
s stepped down the power for usage.
Black Eagle Dam suffered four major floods after its 1926 reconstruction, but survived them all. The first major flood occurred on June 4, 1953, when early spring rains and sudden snowmelt caused the Missouri River to rise 4.1 feet (1.2 m) above flood stage. No damage to the dam was reported. On June 10, 1964, heavy rains in the Rocky Mountains caused the Missouri River to rise 9.6 feet (2.9 m) above flood stage—1.5 foot (0.4572 m) higher than the 1908 flood. Swift Dam on Birch Creek collapsed, killing 19 people. Lower Two Medicine Lake Dam
Lower Two Medicine Lake
Lower Two Medicine Lake is located partly in Glacier National Park as well as on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, in the U. S. state of Montana. The lake is natural but has a small dam which regulates the lake level and reduces the potential for downstream flooding....
also collapsed, killing nine. Although 3,000 people were forced out of their homes in Great Falls due to heavy flooding, the 1964 event did no damage to Black Eagle Dam. (Mel Ruder was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting
Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting
The Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting is a Pulitzer Prize awarded for a distinguished example of breaking news, local reporting on news of the moment...
for his coverage of the flood.) A third major flood occurred on June 21, 1975. More than 2 inches (5.1 cm) of rain fell in the Rocky Mountains in a 24-hour period. More than 5,000 people were evacuated from their homes in Great Falls after the Sun River rose to 21 feet (6.4 m) (6 feet (1.8 m) above flood stage). More than $17 million in damage occurred, and 21000 acres (8,498.4 ha) were submerged. Floodwaters almost overwhelmed Black Eagle Dam, but no damage to the structure occurred. A fourth major flood hit on June 17, 1997. Heavy, swift snowmelt caused the Missouri River to rise 3 foot (0.9144 m) above flood stage. But no damage to the dam was reported. Black Eagle Dam is also equipped with an emergency "trip face" that releases all the flashboards on the dam so that up to 100000 cubic feet (2,831.7 m³) per second of water can pass over the dam.
The Long Pool
Black Eagle Dam created a reservoir about 2 miles (3.2 km) long behind it. The reservoir behind the first dam was about 17 feet (5.2 m) deep immediately behind the dam, and contained 459.1 acre.ft of water behind it. The current dam has a storage capacity of 1710 acre.ft to 1820 acre.ft of water.The reservoir formed behind Black Eagle Dam has no official name. However, due to the slow current, stillness of the water, and low incline of the water from the upriver town of Cascade
Cascade, Montana
Cascade is a town in Cascade County, Montana, United States. The population was 819 at the 2000 census. It is part of the 'Great Falls, Montana Metropolitan Statistical Area'.-Geography:...
to Black Eagle Falls (a distance of about 55 miles (88.5 km) along the winding Missouri River), this body of water has long been known as the "Long Pool." Thomas P. Roberts, who named Black Eagle Falls, gave this body of water its name in 1872. The United States Army Corps of Engineers
United States Army Corps of Engineers
The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency and a major Army command made up of some 38,000 civilian and military personnel, making it the world's largest public engineering, design and construction management agency...
referred to it by this name beginning at least as early as 1883, and as recently as 1910. The Montana Legislature has used the name, and the name was in popular use as early as 1891 and as late as 1917. Modern historians have referred to it as such, and it was in use by power industry publications as late as 1949. Today, the area from the 1st Avenue North Bridge to the confluence of the Missouri with the Sun River
Sun River
The Sun River is a tributary of the Missouri River in the Great Plains, approximately 130 mi long, in Montana in the United States....
(a distance of about 1 miles (1.6 km)) is known as Broadwater Bay (after Charles Arthur Broadwater, the noted Montana railroad executive, real estate investor, and banker).
Operation of the dam
After the dam's reconstruction in 1926, workers and local people were permitted to walk across the top of the dam as a means of getting to work and school. For security reasons, the Montana Power Company closed the dam to such foot traffic during World War II and never allowed it to resume afterward.Montana Power was forced to license Black Eagle Dam and most of its other hydroelectric dams under the Federal Power Act
Federal Power Act
The Federal Power Act is a law appearing in Chapter 12 of Title 16 of the United States Code, entitled "Federal Regulation and Development of Power". Enacted as the Federal Water Power Act on June 10, 1920, and amended many times since, its original purpose was to more effectively coordinate the...
in 1950. The controversy arose in December 1937 when the Federal Power Commission
Federal Power Commission
The Federal Power Commission was an independent commission of the United States government, originally organized on June 23, 1930, with five members nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate...
(FPC) began a proceeding (FPC Docket #IT-5840) to license all dams built prior to 1935 (the year the Federal Power Act became law). The act gave the Federal Power Commission the authority to license all dams on navigable waters in the United States. After almost a decade of extensive research and data collection as well as unfruitful negotiations, a hearing began before an FPC trial examiner on November 18, 1946, to determine whether the rivers where Montana Power had constructed dams prior to 1935 were navigable and therefore should be licensed under the act. In Opinion No. 170, issued on September 30, 1947, the trial examiner found that the rivers in question were navigable and the dams (including Black Eagle Dam) should be licensed. The company appealed to the full FPC, which began holding hearings on February 16, 1948. When the full FPC found against Montana Power, the company appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit known informally as the D.C. Circuit, is the federal appellate court for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Appeals from the D.C. Circuit, as with all the U.S. Courts of Appeals, are heard on a...
. On October 4, 1950, Judge David L. Bazelon
David L. Bazelon
David Lionel Bazelon was a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.-Early life, education, and career:...
, writing for a 2-to-1 majority, held in Montana Power Co. v. Federal Power Commission that "the 263 mile stretch of the Missouri River from Fort Benton to Three Forks is a 'navigable water of the United States,' and hence subject to the licensing requirements of the Federal Power Act." The court of appeals held that Black Eagle, Morony, Rainbow, and Ryan dams were on navigable waters and occupied public land without any authority. Hauser Dam was on navigable waters and held an invalid license to occupy public land. Holter Dam had a valid license, but that license did not extend to the navigable waters which it used. Hebgen and Madison dams were on non-navigable waters, but occupied public land without a valid license. The court of appeals remanded the issue of Canyon Ferry Dam back to the district court, as that dam had recently been sold to the federal government. Montana Power appealed the decision to the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
, which denied certiorari
Certiorari
Certiorari is a type of writ seeking judicial review, recognized in U.S., Roman, English, Philippine, and other law. Certiorari is the present passive infinitive of the Latin certiorare...
(refused to hear the case) in March 1951. Montana Power subsequently sought and won licenses for Black Eagle Dam and the seven others required to do so by the court's ruling. (Black Eagle dam was relicensed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is the United States federal agency with jurisdiction over interstate electricity sales, wholesale electric rates, hydroelectric licensing, natural gas pricing, and oil pipeline rates...
, the successor agency to the FPC, on September 27, 2000 for 40 years. The license, number P-2188, is for PPL's entire Upper Missouri-Madison project.)
The three Allis-Chalmers generators were rewound in 1978, and again in 1982. In 1997, Montana Power repainted and renovated the Tailrace Island bridge.
On November 2, 1999, Montana Power announced it was selling all of its dams and other electric power generating plants to PPL, Inc. for $1.6 billion. The sale, which included Black Eagle Dam, was expected to generate $30 million in taxes for the state of Montana (although MPC said the total would be lower). In November 2001, citizens of Montana—upset with energy price increases announced by PPL—sought passage of a ballot initiative that would have required the state to buy all of PPL's hydroelectric dams in Montana, including Black Eagle Dam. Montana voters rejected the initiative in November 2002.
At the time Montana Power sold Black Eagle Dam to PPL, Montana Power was installing controls that would allow the dam to be remotely operated from Rainbow Dam. At that time, PPL Montana said it had no plans to expand electrical generation capacity at Black Eagle Dam. Also in 1999, Montana Power turned most of Tailrace Island over to the city of Great Falls for use as a recreation area. In addition, Montana Power and ARCO
ARCO
Atlantic Richfield Company is an oil company with operations in the United States as well as in Indonesia, the North Sea, and the South China Sea. It has more than 1,300 gas stations in the western part of the United States. ARCO was originally formed by the merger of East Coast-based Atlantic...
(the successor company to the Boston and Montana) laid 18 inches (45.7 cm) of topsoil on the island, spent $500,000 to landscape it and enhance the safety perimeter around the powerhouse, and agreed to fund a portion of the island's annual upkeep.
In the late 1990s, historian Stephen Ambrose
Stephen Ambrose
Stephen Edward Ambrose was an American historian and biographer of U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. He was a long time professor of history at the University of New Orleans and the author of many best selling volumes of American popular history...
suggested removing Black Eagle Dam to restore the falls to their original condition.
Refurbishment of power generation and transmission systems at Black Eagle Dam began in 2010. In June of that year, PPL Montana initiated a $55 million effort to replace overhead power line
Overhead power line
An overhead power line is an electric power transmission line suspended by towers or utility poles. Since most of the insulation is provided by air, overhead power lines are generally the lowest-cost method of transmission for large quantities of electric energy...
s connecting the dam to the area's electric grid. The new power lines (which replaced equipment more than 80 years old) were more widely spaced apart, to permit large birds to pass safely through or perch on the power lines. PPL also said it was replacing the electrical substation
Electrical substation
A substation is a part of an electrical generation, transmission, and distribution system. Substations transform voltage from high to low, or the reverse, or perform any of several other important functions...
next to the dam's powerhouse. Both projects are expected to be complete in 2012.
Sediment, water flows, debris issues, and emergencies
Sediment load carried by the Missouri River and its tributaries is a problem for Black Eagle Dam. The Sun RiverSun River
The Sun River is a tributary of the Missouri River in the Great Plains, approximately 130 mi long, in Montana in the United States....
joins the Missouri River just a few miles upstream from Black Eagle Dam. The Sun River has long been derisively referred to as the "Scum River" due to the heavy load of sediment, nutrients, and unhealthy aquatic plant growth (such as algae) it contains. The Sun River is the color of chocolate milk
Chocolate milk
Chocolate milk is a sweetened, usually cold, cocoa-flavored milk drink. It is created when chocolate syrup is mixed with milk . It can be purchased pre-mixed or made at home with either cocoa powder and a sweetener , or with melted chocolate, chocolate syrup, or chocolate milk mix...
where it enters the relatively blue waters of the Missouri, and it leaves the Missouri noticeably muddier. Silt has reduced the reservoir's capacity, filled up the forebay, and caused damage to the powerplant. In 1988, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) listed the Missouri River from the Sun River to Rainbow Dam
Rainbow Dam
Rainbow Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Missouri River, high and long, located six miles northeast of Great Falls in the U.S. state of Montana and just upstream of Rainbow Falls, a 45 ft waterfall that is the third of the five Great Falls of the Missouri. The dam, built in 1910, generates...
(just downstream from Black Eagle Dam) as "impaired" under Section 303(d) of the 1972 Clean Water Act
Clean Water Act
The Clean Water Act is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution. Commonly abbreviated as the CWA, the act established the goals of eliminating releases of high amounts of toxic substances into water, eliminating additional water pollution by 1985, and ensuring that...
due to sediment and suspended solids in the river. Black Eagle Dam (which slows the water and allows sediment to fall to the bottom of the reservoir) has been listed as one of the contributing sources of this problem. To combat this problem, in 1994 seven federal agencies, eight state agencies, 10 local Montana governments, four environmental organizations, and several Montana landowners began working together to reduce nutrient and sediment flows into the Sun River and its primary tributaries (Muddy Creek and Careless Creek). About $623,500 of Clean Water Act funds, $2 million in other federal funds, and $2.5 million in state and local funds were used to restore streambank vegetation, improve streamside grazing practices, restore sloping to streambanks, and improve irrigation practices. The program has seen success: By 2010, after just four years of abatement, sediment load dropped by 75 percent in Muddy Creek and 25 percent in Careless Creek.
Black Eagle Falls are not always flowing due to the needs of Black Eagle Dam. Typical median water flows of 11200 cubic feet (317.1 m³) per second occur in the Missouri River in May of each year. In October 2000, water levels behind the dam were drawn down and the falls shut off for about four weeks while PPL Montana made repairs to the forebay, gates, forebay, and penstock screens. PPL Montana's license for the dam requires it to send at least 200 cubic feet (5.7 m³) per second of water over Black Eagle Dam between 9 A.M. and 8 P.M. on weekends and holidays between Memorial Day
Memorial Day
Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May. Formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the fallen Union soldiers of the Civil War...
and Labor Day
Labor Day
Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers.-History:...
, although water may flow (and flow at higher rates) if the dam's power generation requirements and water levels permit it. In May 2001, PPL Montana said it would shut down Black Eagle Falls after July 4 because of water flows only about 40 percent of normal. Reservoir levels were lowered again in September 2004 to repair flashboards. The lack of water exposed the Missouri's original channel near Giant Springs
Giant Springs
Giant Springs is a large first magnitude spring located near Great Falls, Montana. Its water has a temperature of 54o F and originates from snowmelt in the Little Belt Mountains, away...
. The reservoir was drawn down again and the falls turned off in June and July 2008. Flashboards on the dam were removed after a heavy rain to allow runoff to pass over the dam. Once the runoff passed, the flashboards were replaced. But little water remained in the reservoir and river, and the falls ran dry for several days until the reservoir filled again.
Because Black Eagle Dam is an overflow dam, it is common for debris to jam against the dam or obstruct the penstock intakes. Driftwood and logs are the most common forms of debris, but unusual objects such as boat dock
Dock (maritime)
A dock is a human-made structure or group of structures involved in the handling of boats or ships, usually on or close to a shore.However, the exact meaning varies among different variants of the English language...
s, bowling ball
Bowling ball
A bowling ball is a spherical ball made from plastic, reactive resin, urethane or a combination of these materials which is used in the sport of bowling. Ten-pin bowling balls generally have a set of three holes drilled in them, one each for the ring and middle finger, and one for the thumb;...
s, canoe
Canoe
A canoe or Canadian canoe is a small narrow boat, typically human-powered, though it may also be powered by sails or small electric or gas motors. Canoes are usually pointed at both bow and stern and are normally open on top, but can be decked over A canoe (North American English) or Canadian...
s, hot tub
Hot tub
A hot tub is a large tub or small pool full of heated water and used for soaking, relaxation, massage, or hydrotherapy. In most cases, they have jets for massage purposes. Hot tubs are usually located outdoors, and are often sheltered for protection from the elements, as well as for privacy....
s, and small wooden and steel sheds and buildings also sometimes become lodged against the dam. Removing hollow items can be dangerous, because the water pressure against them can cause them to implode. In addition to large amounts of driftwood, about 100 animal carcasses (cattle, deer, dogs, and various small animals) become lodged against the dam or the penstock intake screens each year. Floating screens at the entrance to the forebay catch many items, as do the penstock intake screens. Workers use a crane to remove items from these screens, and bury the items retrieved at a landfill. Dam operators also use a yellow civilian version of the Alvis Stalwart
Alvis Stalwart (FV620)
The FV 620 Stalwart, informally known by servicemen as the 'Stolly', is a highly mobile amphibious military truck built by Alvis that served with the British Army.-History:...
amphibious vehicle to remove objects, and to maintain the dam. (This vehicle caused a stir in Great Falls in June 2006, when local residents driving on a nearby road mistook the vehicle for a sport utility vehicle
Sport utility vehicle
A sport utility vehicle is a generic marketing term for a vehicle similar to a station wagon, but built on a light-truck chassis. It is usually equipped with four-wheel drive for on- or off-road ability, and with some pretension or ability to be used as an off-road vehicle. Not all four-wheel...
which had fallen into the water.) Ice is another form of dangerous debris for the dam. In December 2010, blocks of floating ice overwhelmed the top of the dam, tearing the handrails off the maintenance walkway.
For many years, Black Eagle Dam's owners were required to hold simulations every five years to plan for various kinds of emergencies (flood, sabotage, mechanical breakdown, etc.) which might affect the dam and public safety. After the September 11 attacks, these exercises were required to happen every year. PPL Montana works with local and state government and law enforcement, other companies, and the news media to plan for various contingencies and improve how it might respond in a disaster or emergency.
Tax dispute and Supreme Court riverbed case
Taxation of the dam has been an issue of contention since 2000. During the 2002 ballot initiative fight, PPL Montana said its dams were worth at least $767 million. But in 2003, PPL argued that the dams were worth much less. PPL Montana challenged the amount of property taxes assessed on Black Eagle and its four other dams in the area, protesting 10.87 percent of the $4.48 million 2000 tax assessment, 6.5 percent of the $4.8 million 2001 tax assessment, and 85.65 percent of the $4.96 million tax assessment. This amounted to 30 percent of its total property tax assessment in the state of Montana—with one-third of amount owed payable solely in Cascade CountyCascade County, Montana
-National protected areas:*Benton Lake National Wildlife Refuge*Lewis and Clark National Forest -Economy:Malmstrom Air Force Base is a driving force in the regional economy...
. In February 2005, the Montana State Tax Appeal Board gave the state a partial victory, reducing the state's assessments by 10 percent but otherwise upholding the assessment method. However, the tax board did not address PPL Montana's primary claim that the state was assessing its plants differently solely because they were unregulated. PPL Montana appealed the ruling to the Montana Supreme Court
Montana Supreme Court
The Montana Supreme Court is the highest court of the Montana state court system in the U.S. state of Montana. It is established and its powers defined by Article VII of the 1972 Montana Constitution...
in 2007. On December 4, 2007, the Montana Supreme Court unanimously ruled in State Dept. of Revenue v. PPL Montana that the tax appeal board had properly assessed PPL Montana's dams. However, PPL Montana had continued to dispute its tax assessments from 2003 to 2007, and the ruling did not directly address those challenges. But on December 14, 2007, PPL Montana offered to pay its 2003-to-2007 tax assessments at the slightly lower rate established by the tax appeal board.
Another tax issue arose in 2007. The parents of several Montana schoolchildren filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Montana
United States District Court for the District of Montana
The United States District Court for the District of Montana is the United States District Court whose jurisdiction is the state of Montana...
against PPL Montana. The parents argued that all riverbeds in Montana are owned by the state, are held in trust for the benefit of all the people, and that such riverbeds constitute a portion of state lands which must be taxed or leased to provide support for public schools. The plaintiffs argued that PPL Montana and its predecessor, Montana Power, only leased these riverbeds from the state and did not own them. The parents sued to force PPL to pay rent due. (At no time in the past had the state sought rental income from Montana Power, and no payments by Montana Power or PPL Montana had ever been made.) Although the federal suit was dismissed for lack of a federal issue, PPL Montana filed suit in Montana's First Judicial District Court seeking a declaratory judgment
Declaratory judgment
A declaratory judgment is a judgment of a court in a civil case which declares the rights, duties, or obligations of one or more parties in a dispute. A declaratory judgment is legally binding, but it does not order any action by a party. In this way, the declaratory judgment is like an action to...
in its favor, arguing that the Federal Power Act preempts
Federal preemption
Federal preemption refers to the invalidation of US state law when it conflicts with Federal law.-Constitutional basis:According to the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution,...
the parents' suit and denies states the power to make companies pay for the use of riverbeds. The state district court held against PPL's request for summary judgment on all counts. The two parties then went to trial, which lasted from October 22 to October 30, 2007. On June 13, 2008, the state district court ruled in favor of the state (although it denied the state's request for interest on the rent due). PPL Montana appealed to the Montana State Supreme Court. On March 30, 2010, the Montana State Supreme Court held (5-to-2) that the state district court had not erred in its rulings on various issues of summary judgment, that riverbeds were state public trust lands (but not school trust lands) under the Montana Constitution
Montana Constitution
The Constitution of the State of Montana is the primary legal document providing for the self-governance of the U.S. State of Montana. It establishes and defines the powers of the three branches of the government of Montana, and the rights of its citizens...
, and that the district court's calculation of payments due was appropriate. PPL Montana, appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
, and in November 2010 the Supreme Court asked the United States Solicitor General
United States Solicitor General
The United States Solicitor General is the person appointed to represent the federal government of the United States before the Supreme Court of the United States. The current Solicitor General, Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. was confirmed by the United States Senate on June 6, 2011 and sworn in on June...
for the views of the federal government.
Flashboards on the dam were slightly damaged during flooding in the spring and early summer of 2011. Water behind the dam was lowered until it barely crested the dam so repair crews could replace the flashboards.
Fishing and water quality issues
Westslope cutthroat trout
The westslope cutthroat trout , also known as the blackspotted cutthroat, is a subspecies of the cutthroat trout and is a freshwater fish in the salmon family of order Salmoniformes. The cutthroat is the Montana state fish...
were first identified at Black Eagle Falls by Lewis and Clark in 1805, and the fish still are plentiful in the area. Rainbow trout
Rainbow trout
The rainbow trout is a species of salmonid native to tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. The steelhead is a sea run rainbow trout usually returning to freshwater to spawn after 2 to 3 years at sea. In other words, rainbow trout and steelhead trout are the same species....
are also plentiful upstream from the dam. The area below Black Eagle Falls has been rated by one guide as a good area for fly fishing
Fly fishing
Fly fishing is an angling method in which an artificial 'fly' is used to catch fish. The fly is cast using a fly rod, reel, and specialized weighted line. Casting a nearly weightless fly or 'lure' requires casting techniques significantly different from other forms of casting...
smallmouth bass
Smallmouth bass
The smallmouth bass is a species of freshwater fish in the sunfish family of the order Perciformes. It is the type species of its genus...
and walleye
Walleye
Walleye is a freshwater perciform fish native to most of Canada and to the northern United States. It is a North American close relative of the European pikeperch...
. For many years, the state of Montana managed the Long Pool reservoir as part of one fishing management area, and the river below the dam as part of another. This was changed in 1999, so that the two are now managed together. The change also instituted a new limit on trout
Trout
Trout is the name for a number of species of freshwater and saltwater fish belonging to the Salmoninae subfamily of the family Salmonidae. Salmon belong to the same family as trout. Most salmon species spend almost all their lives in salt water...
caught and killed below the dam of five fish per day (only one of which could be over 18 inches (45.7 cm)). Limits on the number of walleye caught per day were lifted in 2010 to protect the rainbow and brown trout populations (they had been five daily and 10 in possession). According to dam officials, there are no screens to prevent fish from going over the dam or through the penstocks and turbines. Fish "go right through the turbines, it doesn't seem to bother them," dam operators say.
Since 1988, the Long Pool and the Missouri River in and around the city of Great Falls have been listed as an "impaired" waterway under the 1972 Clean Water Act. This area was first listed as impaired due to sedimentation, siltation, and suspended solids in 1988. High levels of chromium
Chromium
Chromium is a chemical element which has the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in Group 6. It is a steely-gray, lustrous, hard metal that takes a high polish and has a high melting point. It is also odorless, tasteless, and malleable...
, mercury
Mercury (element)
Mercury is a chemical element with the symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum...
, and selenium
Selenium
Selenium is a chemical element with atomic number 34, chemical symbol Se, and an atomic mass of 78.96. It is a nonmetal, whose properties are intermediate between those of adjacent chalcogen elements sulfur and tellurium...
were listed as impairing factors in 1992. High turbidity
Turbidity
Turbidity is the cloudiness or haziness of a fluid caused by individual particles that are generally invisible to the naked eye, similar to smoke in air. The measurement of turbidity is a key test of water quality....
(haziness of water due to suspended particles) was added as an impairing factor in 2000. Sources of these impairments include Black Eagle Dam, upstream abandoned mines, irrigation runoff, industrial sources, and stormwater runoff. The MDEQ has given the area a quality ranking of B-2 (fourth out of 18), declaring it suitable for human consumption and recreation (after treatment) but only marginal for salmonid
Salmonidae
Salmonidae is a family of ray-finned fish, the only living family currently placed in the order Salmoniformes. It includes salmon, trout, chars, freshwater whitefishes and graylings...
fish, other aquatic animals, waterfowl and fur-bearing animals. MDEQ has scheduled the Long Pool and Missouri River watershed in this area for future improvement.
In 2011, the former smelter next to Black Eagle Dam was listed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency
United States Environmental Protection Agency
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress...
(EPA) as a Superfund
Superfund
Superfund is the common name for the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 , a United States federal law designed to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances...
hazardous and toxic waste site. The EPA also said it would begin sampling for the riverbed above and below Black Eagle Dam, as well as residential areas in the town of Black Eagle, for heavy metals contamination. Historic records show that plant wastes were routinely dumped into the Missouri River below Black Eagle dam. MDEQ estimated in 2002 that between 27500000 cubic yards (21,025,258.6 m³) and 31000000 cubic yards (23,701,200.6 m³) of waste were dumped into the river between 1892 and 1915. EPA samples indicated that the contamination could extend as far downstream as Fort Benton
Fort Benton, Montana
Fort Benton is a city in and the county seat of Chouteau County, Montana, United States. A portion of the city was designated as a National Historic Landmark District in 1961. Established a full generation beforethe U.S...
, 34 miles (54.7 km) away. Toxins present in the water and riverbed, according to the EPA, include antimony
Antimony
Antimony is a toxic chemical element with the symbol Sb and an atomic number of 51. A lustrous grey metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite...
, arsenic
Arsenic
Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As, atomic number 33 and relative atomic mass 74.92. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in conjunction with sulfur and metals, and also as a pure elemental crystal. It was first documented by Albertus Magnus in 1250.Arsenic is a metalloid...
, cadmium
Cadmium
Cadmium is a chemical element with the symbol Cd and atomic number 48. This soft, bluish-white metal is chemically similar to the two other stable metals in group 12, zinc and mercury. Similar to zinc, it prefers oxidation state +2 in most of its compounds and similar to mercury it shows a low...
, chromium, cobalt
Cobalt
Cobalt is a chemical element with symbol Co and atomic number 27. It is found naturally only in chemically combined form. The free element, produced by reductive smelting, is a hard, lustrous, silver-gray metal....
, copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
, iron, lead
Lead
Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...
, manganese
Manganese
Manganese is a chemical element, designated by the symbol Mn. It has the atomic number 25. It is found as a free element in nature , and in many minerals...
, mercury, nickel
Nickel
Nickel is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel belongs to the transition metals and is hard and ductile...
, silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
, sodium
Sodium
Sodium is a chemical element with the symbol Na and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal and is a member of the alkali metals; its only stable isotope is 23Na. It is an abundant element that exists in numerous minerals, most commonly as sodium chloride...
, and zinc.
Wildlife and hunting
The area around the falls, despite its urban setting, is a habitat for many animal and bird species. Among the birds commonly found in the area are bald eagleBald Eagle
The Bald Eagle is a bird of prey found in North America. It is the national bird and symbol of the United States of America. This sea eagle has two known sub-species and forms a species pair with the White-tailed Eagle...
s, California gull
California Gull
The California Gull Larus californicus is a medium-sized gull, smaller on average than the Herring Gull but larger on average than the Ring-billed Gull, though may overlap in size greatly with both....
s, Canada geese
Canada Goose
The Canada Goose is a wild goose belonging to the genus Branta, which is native to arctic and temperate regions of North America, having a black head and neck, white patches on the face, and a brownish-gray body....
, cliff swallow
Cliff Swallow
The Cliff Swallow is a member of the passerine bird family Hirundinidae — the swallows and martins.It breeds in North America, and is migratory, wintering in western South America from Venezuela southwards to northeast Argentina...
s, eared grebes, egret
Egret
An egret is any of several herons, most of which are white or buff, and several of which develop fine plumes during the breeding season. Many egrets are members of the genera Egretta or Ardea which contain other species named as herons rather than egrets...
s, golden eagle
Golden Eagle
The Golden Eagle is one of the best known birds of prey in the Northern Hemisphere. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. Once widespread across the Holarctic, it has disappeared from many of the more heavily populated areas...
s, American goldfinch
American Goldfinch
The American Goldfinch , also known as the Eastern Goldfinch and Wild Canary, is a small North American bird in the finch family...
es, gray catbird
Gray Catbird
The Gray Catbird , also spelled Grey Catbird, is a medium-sized northern American perching bird of the mimid family. It is the only member of the "catbird" genus Dumetella...
s, house wren
House Wren
The House Wren, Troglodytes aedon, is a very small songbird of the wren family, Troglodytidae. It occurs from Canada to southernmost South America, and is thus the most widely distributed bird in the Americas. It occurs in most suburban areas in its range and it is the single most common wren...
s, ibis
Ibis
The ibises are a group of long-legged wading birds in the family Threskiornithidae....
es, osprey
Osprey
The Osprey , sometimes known as the sea hawk or fish eagle, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey. It is a large raptor, reaching more than in length and across the wings...
s, red-necked grebe
Red-necked Grebe
The Red-necked Grebe is a migratory aquatic bird found in the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere. Its wintering habitat is largely restricted to calm waters just beyond the waves around ocean coasts, although some birds may winter on large lakes...
s, sandhill crane
Sandhill Crane
The Sandhill Crane is a large crane of North America and extreme northeastern Siberia. The common name of this bird references habitat like that at the Platte River, on the edge of Nebraska's Sandhills in the American Midwest...
s, snow geese
Snow Goose
The Snow Goose , also known as the Blue Goose, is a North American species of goose. Its name derives from the typically white plumage. The genus of this bird is disputed...
, tundra swans, turkey vulture
Turkey Vulture
The Turkey Vulture is a bird found throughout most of the Americas. It is also known in some North American regions as the Turkey Buzzard , and in some areas of the Caribbean as the John Crow or Carrion Crow...
s, western grebe
Western Grebe
The Western Grebe, , is a species in the grebe family of water birds. Folk names include "dabchick", "swan grebe" and "swan-necked grebe"....
s, western meadowlark
Western Meadowlark
Not to be confused with Eastern MeadowlarkThe Western Meadowlark is a medium-sized icterid bird, about 8.5 in long. It nests on the ground in open country in western and central North America. It feeds mostly on insects, but also seeds and berries...
s, white pelican
White Pelican
The Great White Pelican, Pelecanus onocrotalus also known as the Eastern White Pelican or White Pelican is a bird in the pelican family...
s, and numerous species of duck
Duck
Duck is the common name for a large number of species in the Anatidae family of birds, which also includes swans and geese. The ducks are divided among several subfamilies in the Anatidae family; they do not represent a monophyletic group but a form taxon, since swans and geese are not considered...
, owl
Owl
Owls are a group of birds that belong to the order Strigiformes, constituting 200 bird of prey species. Most are solitary and nocturnal, with some exceptions . Owls hunt mostly small mammals, insects, and other birds, although a few species specialize in hunting fish...
, and warbler
Warbler
There are a number of Passeriformes called "warblers". They are not particularly closely related, but share some characteristics, such as being fairly small, vocal and insectivorous....
. Common animal species in the area include beaver
Beaver
The beaver is a primarily nocturnal, large, semi-aquatic rodent. Castor includes two extant species, North American Beaver and Eurasian Beaver . Beavers are known for building dams, canals, and lodges . They are the second-largest rodent in the world...
s, mule deer
Mule Deer
The mule deer is a deer indigenous to western North America. The Mule Deer gets its name from its large mule-like ears. There are believed to be several subspecies, including the black-tailed deer...
, muskrat
Muskrat
The muskrat , the only species in genus Ondatra, is a medium-sized semi-aquatic rodent native to North America, and introduced in parts of Europe, Asia, and South America. The muskrat is found in wetlands and is a very successful animal over a wide range of climates and habitats...
s, river otters, and white-tailed deer
White-tailed Deer
The white-tailed deer , also known as the Virginia deer or simply as the whitetail, is a medium-sized deer native to the United States , Canada, Mexico, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru...
. Beavers are so common in the area that officials consider them pests, and trees in city parks have had to be protected against them. (At one point, beavers were chewing down two trees nightly on Black Eagle Memorial Island. These included two red oak
Red oak
Red oak may refer to:*Lobatae, a group of oak trees*Quercus rubra, the northern red oak, a tree native to southeastern Canada and the northeastern United States* Agkistrodon contortrix, a venomous snake species found in North America...
trees found growing on the hill above the dam—the only two red oak trees in northcentral Montana). As of 2006, most of the north shore of the Missouri River below Black Eagle Dam was undeveloped as far down a Sulphur Spring (a distance of about 18 kilometres (11.2 mi)). Known as the Lewis and Clark Greenway, this area is under a permanent conservation easement
Conservation easement
In the United States, a conservation easement is an encumbrance — sometimes including a transfer of usage rights — which creates a legally enforceable land preservation agreement between a landowner and a government agency or a qualified land...
.
Although the area below Black Eagle Dam is open for bird hunting, the reservoir and river upstream from Black Eagle Dam to Sand Coulee Creek is a no-hunting area.
Wildlife hunting is also available on the north shore of the Missouri River from below Black Eagle Dam to Morony Dam
Morony Dam
Morony Dam is a hydroelectric gravity dam located on the Missouri River in Cascade County, Montana. The dam is long and high, and generates 48 megawatts of power.-About the dam:...
. Most of this land is owned by PPL Montana, but there is some private land here which is not open to hunting. The PPL Montana lands are open to hunting due to a conservation easement, but the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks
Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks
The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks is a government agency in the executive branch state of Montana in the United States with responsibility for protecting sustainable fish, wildlife, and state-owned park resources in Montana for the purpose of providing recreational activities...
requires hunters to obtain a map of these lands before using them for hunting. There are also restrictions on the type of weapons which may be used in this area, and where hunters may park.
Recreation area improvements
Black Eagle Dam is also utilized as a recreation area. The whitewater just below the falls is a good place for canoeCanoe
A canoe or Canadian canoe is a small narrow boat, typically human-powered, though it may also be powered by sails or small electric or gas motors. Canoes are usually pointed at both bow and stern and are normally open on top, but can be decked over A canoe (North American English) or Canadian...
ing, inner-tube floating, and kayak
Kayak
A kayak is a small, relatively narrow, human-powered boat primarily designed to be manually propelled by means of a double blade paddle.The traditional kayak has a covered deck and one or more cockpits, each seating one paddler...
ing. Hiking and bicycling also occur in the area. Beginning in 2006, the Black Eagle Dam Run (a 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) run/walk and 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) run) has been held at Black Eagle Dam in mid-July. The annual Lewis and Clark Festival, celebrated in late June (the anniversary of the discovery of the Great Falls), focuses on events held around Black Eagle and other dams on the Great Falls of the Missouri. In mid-July, the River's Edge Trail Luminaria
Luminaria
A luminaria or a farolito is a small paper lantern which is of significance among New World Hispanics at Christmas time...
Walk occurs around Black Eagle Dam and the falls, and the falls are illuminated with colored spotlights during the event. On May 5, 1998, the United States Forest Service
United States Forest Service
The United States Forest Service is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass...
opened the 25000 square feet (2,322.6 m²) Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, a $6 million museum and education center (which includes an exhibit hall, theater, store, and classrooms) which tells the story of Lewis and Clark's passage through central Montana and their discovery of the Great Falls of the Missouri.
Much work has been done in the past two decades to create public access to and public viewing areas of the dam and falls. For decades, two gravel spaces existed on River Drive North near the Bob Speck Municipal Golf Course where drivers could stop, get out, and view Black Eagle Falls and the dam. In 1991, the River's Edge Trail, a paved and gravel pedestrian recreational trail
Trail
A trail is a path with a rough beaten or dirt/stone surface used for travel. Trails may be for use only by walkers and in some places are the main access route to remote settlements...
, opened along tracks of the former Burlington Northern Railroad
Burlington Northern Railroad
The Burlington Northern Railroad was a United States-based railroad company formed from a merger of four major U.S. railroads. Burlington Northern operated between 1970 and 1996....
on the south bank of the Missouri River at Black Eagle Dam. In 2001, Tailrace Island was renamed Black Eagle Memorial Island (in honor of those workers who lost their lives while working on or at the dam) and turned over to the River's Edge Trail. A new 10 miles (16.1 km) long section of the trail linking the existing 14 miles (22.5 km) long trail was also opened that year. The same year, a public boathouse
Boathouse
A boathouse is a building especially designed for the storage of boats, normally smaller craft for sports or leisure use. These are typically located on open water, such as on a river. Often the boats stored are rowing boats...
was constructed on Black Eagle Memorial Island for use by canoeists, kayakers, and other watercraft; observation decks; public restrooms; and parking lot. The boat landing was completed in October 2001. Construction also began on a 0.5 mile (0.80467 km) long section of trail designed to link Art Higgins Memorial Park (on the north bank of the Missouri River just behind the dam) with the island. Most of the construction costs were paid for by PPL Montana. In 2001, another segment of the trail was added, leading from the Black Eagle Memorial Island spur up Smelter Hill. The 2950 feet (899.2 m) long trail was paid for by a Community Transportation Enhancement Project grant. There is no fee to enter Black Eagle Memorial Island, which is open daily to the public from 9 A.M. to 8 P.M. and is maintained by the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. In 2004, the River's Edge Trail was extended along the north bank of the Missouri River from the Black Eagle Dam powerhouse westward about 1.3 miles (2.1 km) to the 15th Street Bridge. About $175,000 of the $204,500 cost of the extension was paid for by the Community Transportation Enhancement Program, and the remainder by the Montana Air Congestion Initiative (a state program), the American Public Land Exchange (a nonprofit organization), and Recreational Trails (a nonprofit which manages the trail). Black Eagle Memorial Island opened to the public on June 2, 2005.
The development of the River's Edge Trail and the growing importance of riverside parks and attractions around Black Eagle Dam and along the banks of the Missouri River led the city of Great Falls to develop its first Missouri River Urban Corridor Plan in 2003. The master plan, which covered both banks of the Missouri River from White Bear Island to Black Eagle Dam, inventoried the entire shoreline and assessed the riverbanks for condition, rehabilitation and refurbishment, and improvement opportunities. The plan laid out a number of options above and below Black Eagle Dam for improvements to public access, recreation, and beautification.
Black Eagle Dam has changed very little between its construction in 1926 and 2010. The ruins of the powerhouses from the 1890 dam and the 1913 reconstruction were still visible as of 2005. The large cast-iron sheets which formed the south bank penstocks can also still be seen.
External links
- Black Eagle Dam at PPL Montana Web site
- Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, located at Giant Springs just below Black Eagle Dam
- Missouri River Urban Corridor Plan, City of Great Falls, Mont. (2004)