SPEARFISH - South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks Department officials just finished a joint restoration project on Spearfish Creek near the Savoy Intake that they hope will provide better recreation and fish habitat.
The GF&P teamed with Corr Construction in Hermosa and Barr Engineering in Minneapolis for the $475,000 project, which includes a brand-new large fishing platform, a hiking trail and parking lot, a bathroom and a bridge that makes the area more easily accessible, as well as other improvements.
The project began last fall and went through its final inspection Wednesday.
"I think it's going to be a really popular place for people to fish and watch fish," GF&P senior biologist Ron Koth said Friday morning as he looked over the newly finished construction project at the Savoy Intake.
The GF&P bought 17.6 acres at the Savoy Intake last summer as part of a large land acquisition from Homestake Mining Co. that included other areas of Spearfish Canyon. After the acquisition, the GF&P decided to improve the Savoy Intake area, which as of last year included a dam built by Homestake and a somewhat shallow pool of water that was largely filled with sediment.
The improvements in amenities will make the area more tourist and visitor friendly, Koth said. A number of changes were also made to make it more fish friendly.
Koth said 3,600 cubic yards of sediment were dredged from the pool at the intake, providing the pool with much more depth than it had previously. He said the pool is now about 9 feet at the deepest and averages 6 feet, compared with a previous depth of 3 or 4 feet on average.
And, in what Koth said will be one of the most dramatic improvements, fish will have the opportunity to swim up and down Spearfish Creek in the Savoy area more easily than they could before.
Crews built "constructive rapids," which are basically stepping stones, near the platform and pool at the Savoy Intake where the Homestake Dam used to be.
The dam, which was used by Homestake to divert water to its hydroelectric plant just down the road, used to stop fish from coming upstream from the Savoy area. With the new rapids, fish can swim and jump up through the constructed rapids and into the Savoy Intake pool.
"We designed this so that there's deep enough pools below each elevation change that they'll be able to easily get enough movement there and depth to jump over these and be able to move through here," Koth said.
He said fish had already made their way up into the pools soon after the water was reconnected. The new ability to move up and downstream should lead to dramatic differences in the fish population in that area of Spearfish Creek.
"There's going to be a period of time here where there's going to be some changes in the fish population that we haven't seen probably for the past 90 years because of the way the plumbing was in place up here for the hydro (Homestake Hydroelectric plant.)"
Koth thinks the habitat will improve for brown trout and rainbow trout will begin to move up toward Savoy, whereas they used to be relegated to areas farther down the creek.
"I think people will potentially see, here and there, rainbow trout in places they didn't see them before," he said.
Koth also said people will be able to watch the fish jump up through the rapids in the fall as they travel upstream to spawn.
"In the fall, when we have brown trout spawning, we're going to be able to come up here and watch fish jump from pool to pool without any trouble at all," he said.
McNenny State Fish Hatchery assistant superintendent Keith Wintersteen said the pool itself should provide much greater habitat for fish now that it has been dredged and is more readily available to the fish from downstream.
"Anytime you create a pool like this, it spreads the water out. They don't have to fight the current," he said.
Contact Ryan Woodard at 394-8412 or ryan.woodard@rapidcityjournal.com
