What Happened When Hebgen Dam Failed

November, 30 2021 1:47 PM. Word that Hebgen Dam has malfunctioned and volunteers are requested to save stranded fish reaches a trout bum sitting on his couch. Upon receiving this notification, said bum puts writing his sisters wedding ceremony to the side and tosses on his under wader clothing. Sends it to the Upper Madison to help return stranded fish to the main river by 2:10 PM.

What Happened

On Nov. 30th at 1 AM Hebgen Dam malfunctioned which caused the flows to drop immediately from about 660cfs to just over 200cfs. Given how poor of a water year we had this season, the flow of 660cfs was under the 83 year median flow by around 400cfs. Bad right? So now this already slight flow drops by another 400cfs imediately. The fish below the dam lost 70% of their living quarters instantly. Fish of all sizes were stranded in diminishing pools, spawning redds were dewatered with their eggs exposed, aquatic insects on dry land searching for moisture. A dam catastrophe.

And this is what happened to the flows below Quake Lake

As It Unfolded

November, 30 2021 1:47 PM. Word that Hebgen Dam has malfunctioned and volunteers are requested to save stranded fish reaches a trout bum sitting on his couch. Upon receiving this notification, said bum puts writing his sisters wedding ceremony to the side and tosses on his under wader clothing. Sends it to the Upper Madison to help return stranded fish to the main river by 2:10 PM.

If you were one of the folks closely following the situation after the dam malfunctioned you know that slightly after 2 PM the dam people/FWP told volunteers to stay home to avoid a potentially quickly rising river and keep folks off of exposed brown trout redds. I called Galloup's Slide Inn to retrieve this info. By 2:15 PM I had turned around, back to my house. Watching for updates like a hawk on Instagram it wasn't until around four that Trout Unlimited made a post stating that there was no worry of the water rising quickly and that the following day, Nov. 31, volunteers were requested to help with the fish. I had to work. This dam catastrophe had me feeling fired up, sad, shocked, and more than anything worried about the condition in which we would find the upper Madison in the summer of 2022.

I met a few fellow fish bums for dinner at 5:30 on the night of November 30th. The conversation more or less revolved around one topic. The dam issue at Hebgen. What would this do to the trout, the aquatic insects? How could something like this happen? How did no one know until 12 hours after the malfunction occurred? What did the river look like? For those of you who don't know, here is a breakdown of the Upper Madison River.

The Upper Madison

The Madison runs out of Yellowstone National Park into Hebgen Reservoir. Where water flows from Hebgen Dam, where the malfunction occurred, there is a 2-3 mile stretch of quickly moving river, between the lakes. The water mellows out again, at Earthquake Lake where an earthquake initiated a massive landslide on August 17th, 1959. That landslide killed 28 people and created a natural pinch point which formed the 6 mile long Quake Lake. Directly below quake is the rest of the upper, "the 50 mile riffle", which ends in Ennis Lake. The area that was most affected by the dam impairment was between the lakes.

Race to the Upper

Now, back to the story. By the time dinner was consumed, I had talked to one of my closest fishing buddies, Tyler. We met a few years back when we both worked in our Bozeman fly shop. He cares about wild fish and the health of our fisheries as much or more than myself. He had school on the volunteer day, Nov. 31. So we sent it. We departed Bozeman with buckets, nets, Red Bulls and cheap cigars at just after 6 PM on the 30th, well after dark here in MT in the winter, on an 1hr 45min drive to Raynolds Bridge. We stopped briefly at Varney fishing access site to discover that the river still looked fine at this point. A few tributaries above this area probably helped the flow situation immensely.

After stopping on the boat ramp at Raynolds it was clear that even this far down river the situation was bad. All of the rocks just beyond the boat launch were wet but no longer under water. Stonefly nymphs were scattering when hit with my headlamp, attempting to find moving water. If you were to turn over a stone larger than a 6" sub it was no surprise to find at least one sculpin. I walked about 20 feet up river and near the bank was a puddle just larger than a dinner plate. This tiny puddle, completely detached from the main river held a plethora of aquatic insects and anywhere from 25 to 35 fish under 5 inches, a mix of trout and sculpin. Shocking. Sad. Worrisome. Between this puddle and the next, only another 15 feet up river, Tyler and I saved around 100 fish and handfuls of aquatic insects. We worked down river from here until about 2 AM. While this area was not nearly as bad as between the lakes we were able to save well over 500 fish and countless insects. Many of the stranded fish we found had their tails completely out of the water and others were alone in puddles half an inch deep and smaller than the size of my palm. One of the most effective methods I used to find these stranded fish was listening for splashes in the insignificant and rapidly draining pools.

What is Next?

The entire time I was bent over in search of fish that had no escape, I cursed in astonishment. How could this happen? Will anyone be held responsible? What will be the long term effects on the Madison River? We likely won't know for years to come. This was a very unique and hopefully isolated incident. It remains interesting to me that a private energy company, Northwestern Energy, controls several aquatic ecosystems throughout the state. Many of which are blue ribbon, world renowned trout streams. Drought conditions? Hold back water water for future energy production. I'm no expert in this matter but not only is the health of this ecosystem held firmly in Northwestern Energy's hands, so is the livelihood of outfitters, guides, fly shop staff, and many more outdoor professionals. This is worth putting some serious thought into moving forward as our rivers become more pressured, winters milder, spring rains briefer, and summers longer and hotter.

Volunteer Day

I was worried sick all day on the 31st. Stuck in the shop, unable to be out saving fish. I was pumped to hear that over 200 volunteers showed up and Montana FWP ended up turning people away. A huge shout out to Montana Trout Unlimited, the fly shops in and upriver of Ennis, and Fish Wildlife & Parks for coordinating and spreading the word about the fish rescue. Another huge shout out to everyone that dropped their immediate responsibilities to help out a river that we all get the opportunity to recreate on throughout the year. The true care and appreciation that was shown for the fish and the upper Madison was outstanding.

So what has to give to ensure the longevity of our healthy Montana rivers?