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The Mill Creek dam has been around since the 1830s.
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After being a landmark of the village of Dexter since the 1830s, the Mill Creek dam is finally being removed as part of the Main Street Bridge project.
Workers were out at 8 a.m. sharp on Monday to begin the gradual removal of the dam over several weeks.
Crews from ET MacKenzie were out with a hydra-hoe to undertake the first phase of the removal, which involved punching out a concrete line at the dam's edge to open up the flow of the creek underneath the bridge.
The sections of creek embankment where steel pylons will be inserted and the bridge foundation will be built up from the ground to the road surface are segregated from the water flow by steel dividers.
Just east of the bridge and north of the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Substation No. 3 are a series of man-made, "U"-shaped rock structures to slow the flow of sediment downstream, which is a concern of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.
Paul Wessel of the DEQ's Land and Water Management Division was out overseeing the work to ensure that no environmental harm is done.
"We want to make sure that the habitat is protected and that we don't lose any of the sediment," he said.
The water level in the creek dropped slightly as a result of the removal due to increased flow.
One day a week for the next five or six weeks, more and more of the dam will be removed to minimize the impact on fish that live in those waters.
"The bottom line is that we really don't know what will happen," said Aaron Berkholz, construction manager for the Washtenaw County Road Commission.
"Even at this point you can see the flow of the stream ... the ripples in the water, which were lost in all the water that was there before."
He said the water level will become lower and lower with each phase of the removal, which will free up land along the riverbank.
That land is already being considered by village officials for use as a park.
Berkholz recalled the history of the dam in Dexter and dams elsewhere, such as in Manchester and Brooklyn.
The dam under Mill Creek was built in 1910 and the structure was bolstered in 1932.
In total, the dam has been holding Mill Creek back to varying degrees for the past 98 years.
"Henry Ford built the bridge here because he planned on building a manufacturing facility here," Berkholz said.
"He was going to use it to generate power, but he never built the plant and now you have all of these dams all over Michigan.
"They don't really serve any purpose."
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