Dam removal underway on Jack's Brook near Mount Snow

Crews are chipping away this week at concrete on a derelict dam that’s been sitting on a tributary of the Deerfield River for more than a century.

Trout Unlimited and the Connecticut River Conservancy are overseeing the project, which also had support from the Nature Conservancy and Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Erin Rodgers, with the Vermont chapter of Trout Unlimited, said the project will restore fish passage and access to critical spawning habitat.

“These smaller, cold-water tributaries that run off of the mountains and are very heavily forested are really key contributors to keeping our larger streams cold and providing thermal refugia for cold-water fish that are residents of our streams,” she said.

The 6-foot-high concrete dam was built in 1913 to create a water sourc