Workers appear to be "chinking" or adding small rocks between the largest rocks. A backhoe is actually operating in the spillway area working in the flat spots between rock rapid levels.

The river level seems lower than normal. These smaller "chinking" rocks are suppose to fill in gaps in the structure and help bring the basin back to the level of the old dam.

Matt McMillan is publisher of the Leader and can be reached at mcmillan@hutchinsonleader.com.

If the cost of the dam conversion comes in at anywhere close to the estimate, I believe that this was one of the most cost effective and "upside" projects that the city has ever been involved in.
As a city owned dam, the only positive was that it provided a basin for Otter and Campbell Lakes. There was no flood control because the water flowed over the dam. Any conversion to a productive hydro dam would have been much more expensive.
The DNR's policy of "let a river be a river" would have mean that if the city abandoned the ownership we would have seen water levels for the majority of the year at the level we saw the river last summer. Cattail and willow swamps would soon be the view. How would that have affected the property values of the river front homes? (think property taxes). The "fish ladder" objectors are not looking at the whole picture. If the DNR will throw in a chunk of the cost to keep our basin in place I say "bully" for the spawning carp.
If you are interested in how this might have played out if our city owned dam failed, check out Windom, MN problems with their dam.
By the way, this might be an interesting piece for one of you opionionated writers at the Leader to do an article on. You may even be able to spell things correctly;-)