At 10:07 in the morning the river hit 20,000 CFS and had risen to 17 feet. For perspective, before the flood the river was at about 400 CFS and at 4 feet. The dam in Gates Mills could no longer hold back the mighty river and gave way after over 100 years. When the dam came down, it sent a surge of water downstream causing even greater flooding.
This dam had been the upstream barrier that prevented steelhead from migrating further up river. Now that the dam has come down, there has already been at least one report of steelhead up river from dam. This is a major game changer. Steelhead will likely be able to migrate all the way up river until the next impassable barrier, a waterfall in the South Chagrin Reservation.
This is good and bad. There is some concern for the native fish species that were protected from invasive species by this dam before it fell. Mike Durkalec (Aquatic Biologist for the Cleveland Metroparks) said he and ODNR biologists did not think that the smallmouth bass population would be harmed pointing to the very healthy smallmouth population in the portion of Rocky River where steelhead have been migrating for years. Their concerns are for the native Ohio brook trout, a threatened species, which only exists in the head waters of the Chagrin River. The Biologists are concerned that steelhead smolts will displace the fragile brook trout population. There is also concern about the lamprey eel moving up river now as well. The good news is that there will be much greater access for steelhead fishing as the river runs through large tracks of Metropark land above where the dam used to be. About 8.5 miles of additional water has been opened up to steelhead migration and about half of that is in the Metroparks. For me personally, the newly open water is much closer to home. Now I'll hopefully have steelhead in the "back yard".
We will have to wait and see how all these things shake out to determine if the failure of this dam was a good or a bad thing for the Chagrin River, its fish, and for anglers.
Dam before the flood
Dam during the flood, before it fell
