Jim Thorpe Borough will receive a $200,000 Growing Greener Grant from the Department of Environmental Protection for design work on the Silk Mill Run creek restoration project.

The project will include the demolition and removal of at least five dams along the nearly 2-mile creek designated as a Class A brown trout cold-water fishery.

“When you have a cool water fishery, there are species like trout reproducing and finding habitat that would be available for them there,” Kristie Fach, director of ecological restoration for the Wildlands Conservancy, one of the partners in the project, said. “With the dams that are in place, they’re preventing all of that habitat from being there. If you’re thinking like a fish, the mile where there’s a series of dams located now, the fish aren’t able to come up. Once they get to that first dam, they’re blocked from coming up through and that’s really important, especially in the summer months when the temperatures are high and they’re looking for those nice cooler springs to move into.”

The borough reached an agreement with the Wildlands Conservancy in March 2021 to pursue the stream restoration. According to the memorandum of understanding, the Wildlands Conservancy would apply for state and local grants, on behalf of Jim Thorpe, to cover the costs for design, permitting and construction to address stream and floodplain restoration needs along Silk Mill Run as it runs through the borough’s property. The borough would assist in providing an in-kind match for restoration.

The $200,000 grant announced Wednesday is the largest awarded in DEP’s 11-county Northeast region.

“I’m very happy to announce this application approval because of the numerous benefits that this project will have to not only the Silk Mill Creek but also on downstream issues,” Shane Kleiner, watershed manager and grants coordinator for DEP’s Northeast Regional Office in Wilkes-Barre, said. “I know that Jim Thorpe has had this issue with the dams on the stream because of it being an unnatural process, but also some of the liabilities that come along with possible dam failures and the impacts they may have downstream.”

The project faced initial opposition from sportsmen in the borough who worried how removing the dams would increase the speed of the water, among other concerns.

Kleiner said the project, in actuality, will improve the area and have a benefit for sportsmen.

“This restoration project will have significant environmental impact to the stream’s water quality, health and aquatic habitat, not to mention improving outdoor experiences for sportsmen and women,” Kleiner said. “Having funding available through Growing Greener enables the project partners to begin the work needed to restore the creek to its natural habitat.”

Council President Greg Strubinger said the borough had been informed in the past that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection may require the borough to breach the dams at some point, and this was an opportunity to have it done at little to no cost.

“It became a liability and the borough is fortunate to be able to work together with DEP and the Wildlands Conservancy on this restoration project that the municipality doesn’t have the ability to fund on its own,” Strubinger said. “By receiving this grant money, we don’t have to burden the taxpayers to get this done and the project, turning this creek back into its natural habitat, is going to produce beautiful results.

Silk Mill Run flows 2.6 miles to the Lehigh River. According to the Wildlands Conservancy, the cold water and woodlands protecting the stream would provide ideal conditions for healthy trout populations and the organisms that serve as a food source for cold-water fish.

“There’s sediment now that’s filled all the way up behind the dam,” Fach said. “So with that sediment, it’s now covering the potential habitat there for fish. So all that cobble stream that you connect with a great habitat for trout, that’s all lost.”

Fach said native rock from the dams would be used to build habitat structures for fish.

“They would help prevent erosion, while also creating riffles and pools and all of that great habitat that fish are going to be using,” she said.

The ballpark estimate for the entire dam removal project, based on site visits, is $800,000.

Per the memorandum of understanding with the borough, the Wildlands Conservancy plans to seek more grant funding from sources such as DEP, the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development.