Dam breach narrowly averted near Libby

Lincoln County officials recently narrowly averted a serious flooding situation on a rural lake with an earthen dam southeast of Libby.

Vic White, director of the Lincoln County Emergency Management Agency, said a rancher came into his office at about noon on May 13 to report that water was flowing over the top of the Miller Lake Dam south of McGinnis Meadows.

“If that guy hadn’t come in the middle of the day that dam would have failed in the middle of the night,” White said Thursday, adding that Miller Lake has a surface area of about 120 acres.

About 24 residences in the valley below were threatened.

Sheriff’s Office personnel and other county officials “recognized the seriousness of it and they got right on top of it,” White said. “They organized a plan to notify people upstream and downstream. They let people know there was a chance for failure.”

The situation was caused by a clogged outlet culvert that starts releasing water through the dam once the lake reaches a certain level.

White said the problem was remedied with sandbags provided by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the construction of a temporary spillway lined with plastic to prevent further dam erosion. The culvert also was eventually unplugged.