One of the large reservoirs in my neck of the sage was the first built in this part of the West. Completed in 1909. Naturally, power generation was not on their minds, so a power plant was not retrofitted until the 1960s. And they placed the power generators four miles downstream from the dam, funneling the water in through a long tunnel to increase the head and power.

Net result? Most of the time, four miles of that river is dewatered.

There are rare exceptions, like the super heavy spring flows of 1984 that filled the reservoir (and all those above it), forcing roughly 22,000 cfs (cubic feet per second) over the spillway and into the river bed.

But most of the time, the river is supported only by a few springs that leak in below the dam. Not only could you walk across the wide streambed without getting your feet wet, but so could your dog.

And ever since the river was largely dewatered, our outfit and concerned citizens and anglers have been trying to get at least some water back into the river. A hard thing to do, since it requires the Bur Rec to actually waste water by running it through the dam without getting a single excited (and valuable) electron in the process.

But they have succeeded. After forty years, there will soon be a steady flow of at least 750 cfs.

Pretty insignificant compared to the size of the river channel, and therein lies the problem.

What good is a trickle of water 3-4" deep, amongst a broad field of cobblestones? Other than ensuring your dog will get its feet wet?

To get back the fisheries and entire river system, we need a deeper channel.

So our guys built a river.

It's actually an incised channel inside the old river bed, covering a little over a mile. Technically a simple feat for somebody like the Corps of Engineers. But they didn't just go out and dredge a channel with a backhoe. This is a habitat for trout, custom designed. With the ideal ratio of riffles to pools, all surveyed to the centimeter (or less). With boulder intrusions, and oxbows designed to slow flows and provide banks for vegetation.

Rivers are living things. They are not static. So they laid out their river with that in mind, putting in oxbows where they expect the river to carve new channels. Using the dredge material to create new riparian benches.

To top it all off, there will eventually be those exceptional flows again, when the river tops the dam and pours 22,000 cfs into a channel that was built for 750. So they designed the overflow channels, too. Using photographs from 1984.

But with the physical construction done, it was necessary to test the new river. With 750 cfs. And that test happened to occur on Thursday afternoon, just a little off my route home from the two days of a day-long meeting.

And the new river happens to be a little upstream from here.

So you know I had to go watch.

Crossed the bridge on the way up. And walked out to stare below. Swallows and swifts everywhere. But no flowing water that I could see. Just the usual placid pools, reflecting your own thoughts back up. There are pools farther up the canyon that will take a while to fill, even at 750 cfs.

Turns out I wasn't the only one curious. Four aquatics guys from our region in an SUV. And also the new, temporary acting interim #1 boss.

We wandered the shore of the new creation, listening to water coursing over boulders for the first time, feeling the breadth of its new home. Visited with the project's head, a friend who spent years trying to work habitat improvements in my country, unsuccessfully. Horribly frustrating.

He's not frustrated now. Like a new father with a baby. Big smiles, excited eyes, a lilt to his voice. Good to see.

Also bitter sweet. He spent the day before moving. He's transferring to another part of the state, leaving his newborn to the care of others.

Listened as two anglers who will head up the crew of volunteers to replant the banks with trees and willows got their instructions. And plotted where they will lay their granite monument thanking the folks who made this possible.

I suggested up by the parking lot, but that was immediately vetoed.

They want this granite marker hidden down by the river. Where only someone who has taken the initiative to actually walk along their creation might stumble across it.

That is so cool.