by Sydney Cromwell

The city of Elba isn’t a coastal community; in fact, it’s about 80 miles away from the Gulf of Mexico. 

But for the Gulf sturgeon and other species that migrate up the Choctawhatchee and Pea rivers each year, Elba is only a pitstop on their journey — or it would be, if there wasn’t a dam in their way.

Upstream migration is an important part of the life cycle for native Alabama species like sturgeon, striped bass, Alabama shad, paddlefish, mullet, American eels and even certain mussels. Some will travel more than a hundred miles to return to their spawning sites. But the creation of dams, locks and other water blockages by human activity has made many of those migration routes difficult or even impossible for fish to travel.

The former hydroelectric dam at Elba is now being considered for removal to make that upstream journey easier, thanks in part to recent grants awarded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The dam isn’t just a problem for aquatic species. It has also played a role in repeated floods that have hit the Coffee County community over the last century, since the dam was built in the early 1910s.

When Laurie Chapman moved to Elba 25 years ago, the city had just experienced a major flood that broke the earthen levee and caused two deaths. She remembers the mud and the smell that lingered even months after the flooding.

“That’s a beautiful little stretch there, but it has caused the downtown area to flood a few times, so a lot of people are scared of the river,” said Chapman, who works at the local housing authority and also volunteers with Restoration 154, a nonprofit focused on community improvement in Elba.

The Choctawhatchee, Pea, and Yellow Rivers Watershed Management Authority was created in 1991 as a response to the flooding in Elba, Geneva and other towns in the area. Lisa Harris, the WMA’s executive director, said it was supposed to be the first of many such state agencies to manage flooding and other river issues around Alabama, but 30 years later, it’s the only one of its kind.

Harris said the WMA’s work over the years has included installing flood monitors for earlier warnings and working on the levee to better protect Elba. 

Chapman said that work has made a difference in Elba: “Since they raised the levee, there seems to be a renewed spirit downtown and people fixing things up.”

After the repeated floods, Harris said, many residents had the chance to leave, but they didn’t.

“FEMA tried to buy people out, but they loved their city,” she said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency purchased 41 homes to demolish due to flood damage during its buyout program, which was funded from 2015 to 2022.

The last major flood happened in 2015 and breached the dam, making it inoperable. This breach lowered the Pea River’s water level in the area, which hasn’t flooded the town since then, Harris said. 

But it also left behind a big block of concrete, a hazard for canoes and kayaks navigating the Pea River. The turbines on the dam also can leach contaminants into the water.

“It’s really a human safety issue too,” Harris said.

Removal of a dam can be a contentious issue, since they often support recreational use, shipping, power generation and other purposes. However, a breached, unused dam is the perfect candidate to be removed and allow the natural flow of the river to return.

Getting rid of the Elba dam would allow migratory fish to access an additional 34 miles of waterways for spawning and habitat. The Choctawhatchee and Pea rivers are home to around 80 freshwater species.

“In our whole watershed, this is the only dam we have. And for nature and for the critters, free-flowing water is best,” Harris said.

The idea of removing the Elba dam has been under discussion since long before Harris joined the WMA four years ago, she said. 

The owners of the property intend to give it to The Nature Conservancy of Alabama, Harris said, and it will then be donated to either the city of Elba, the county commission or some other steward organization.

Two recent federal grants have given this long-discussed project a more immediate timetable.

In April, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced its latest round of National Fish Passage Program grants, which included $1.9 million for the Elba dam removal.

In late May, NOAA Fisheries announced the Elba dam removal as one of 46 projects funded through its Restoring Fish Passage Through Barrier Removal grant program. The Elba project will receive $1.7 million for planning purposes such as feasibility studies, site planning, community engagement, design and engineering.

Grant funds will also help cover the repair of a nearby boat ramp that was damaged by floods, Harris said. Fire and rescue personnel can’t currently use the ramp when the water level is low, so during a water rescue they need to travel several miles upstream to get boats in the water and then head back downstream, Harris said.

---

“Do you let the land rehabilitate itself? Do we want a park? What do the citizens want?”

Lisa Harris, Choctawhatchee, Pea and Yellow Rivers Watershed Management Authority

---

Kristen Kaufman, who works at the Restoration Center in NOAA Fisheries’ Office of Habitat Conservation, said grant winners were chosen based on their projects’ regional importance and demonstrated benefits both for migratory fish passage and for community resilience to natural disasters and climate hazards.

“There were tons of applications and it was a competitive review process,” Kaufman said. The program received applications for about four times as much funding as there was available, though there will be another round of grants awarded within the next year, according to NOAA.

There are still decisions to be made about the Elba dam during the planning and feasibility stage, including how much of the dam to remove and what will happen to the surrounding property afterward.

“Do you let the land rehabilitate itself? Do we want a park? What do the citizens want?” Harris said.

Restoration 154 and the National Parks Service have had discussions about creating a park at the site, possibly with some sort of museum or educational installation about the dam, and a “blueway” trail on the river for canoers and kayakers.

Restoration 154 also would like to save the dam’s historic pumphouse, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, even if the rest of the dam is torn down, Chapman said. There are tax credits and other resources that could be used to restore the pumphouse, she said.

“I think it would make an amazing flood museum or park,” Chapman said. “… Once you tear it down, you can’t build it back.”

Harris said there may be safety concerns if parts of the dam are left behind, but it will have to be studied.

Those potential projects are separate from the dam removal itself, Harris said, and would need their own planning and funding processes.

Restoration 154 holds regular “potluck brainstorms” in Elba, Chapman said, where people can bring a dish and talk about topics that affect the city’s approximately 3,400 residents. Past brainstorms have included discussions on historic preservation, recreation opportunities, addressing homelessness, asset mapping and even “speed dating” conversations with topic experts.

“It’s a lot of fun. I love doing them,” Chapman said of the brainstorms. “… We’re trying to turn things around, like any small town. Trying to get people to move to Elba.”

At brainstorm meetings and other conversations about the Elba dam, Chapman said she has heard some concern about how removing the dam will affect the river flow and how creating a park could impact nearby property owners.

In particular, some local anglers have worried that the water level will drop and “we will be living on a ditch instead of a river” if the dam is removed, Chapman said. However, since the dam has already been breached, Harris said, hydrologists at NOAA don’t expect the level to change much.

“Most people are OK with the dam being removed just because it’s sticking out in the river,” she said.

Troy University will host additional community meetings for input about the dam removal, Harris said. Chapman said Restoration 154 would like to hold more brainstorms about it and bring in experts to talk to the community. She wants to hear about people’s “wild dreams” for how the project could improve life in Elba.

“We hope that there’s some kind of long-term recreational opportunity for people to enjoy,” Chapman said.

Harris said that while the WMA has done some work to support sturgeon in their rivers before, this is the largest project of this sort that the agency has undertaken.

“It’s a lot to take on and we’re a small agency. Without our partners we couldn’t get it done,” she said.

In addition to the organizations and agencies already mentioned, other longtime partners in the project include the Army Corps of Engineers, Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, State Historic Preservation Office, Alabama Cooperative Extension Program, Wiregrass RC&D, Troy University and a professor from the University of Florida.

The NOAA grant will go through its final review and agreements in the next couple months, Kaufman said. The funds have to be used within 3 to 5 years, though Harris said construction may extend beyond that point. Plus, additional time and funding may be needed to repurpose the site after the dam removal.

“We’re very preliminary right now,” Harris said.

But eventually, she would like to see Gulf sturgeon, shad and other species make their way to Elba each spring — and keep right on swimming.

“It’s cool that they come and migrate in our area and then go back to the Gulf,” Harris said.

Read more from Southern Science about dam removal and a proposal to build passages around two dams on the Alabama River.

Kaufman said that fish passage around dams and locks is one of the NOAA Restoration Center’s major priorities for protecting both endangered species and the long-term future of the fishing industry.

While the Northeast and Pacific Northwest regions have a long history of fish passage work related to salmon migration, Kaufman said the priorities in the Southeast are “a little less formalized.”

“In the Southeast, our only migratory sea-run fish that is protected under the Endangered Species Act is the Gulf sturgeon,” she said.

This is the first project in Alabama to be funded through this particular grant program, although NOAA has been involved in other restoration projects in the state, including fish passage on the Alabama and Chattahoochee rivers. In 2022, the Fish and Wildlife Service also granted funding to a project to replace bridge culverts in St. Clair County to allow better access to habitat for the trispot darter, which is threatened.

“We are really excited as a region to have the opportunity to work with a new partner in Alabama. It’s really exciting to be able to work on fish passage in the Gulf of Mexico, and specifically with a new, vocal Alabama watershed authority,” Kaufman said.

Main article image of the pumphouse on the Elba dam, courtesy of Lisa Harris.