I'm curious what some of the effects of this can be? The river that runs through the town I live in has a small (by most standards) dam that used to function as a mill but now has no functional significance. The homeowners association that owns the rights to it and is also responsible for it's upkeep wants to remove it all together. Here's where it gets tricky, this river has trout in it and the local TU chapter would like to see the dam taken down so that the river below it would drop in temperature which in turn could make the river a trophy trout stream instead of a delayed harvest trout stream. SOME of the people that live near the river want the dam to stay because they contend that removing the slack water above the dam would change the usage potential of the river and would also result in an increase in mosquitoes (these are just a few of their arguments). I have yet to hear the city's official stance on the issue. No one has offered to pick up the tab to remove it or maintain it either.

Here's my question: how credible are the arguments of each group? In my experience, mosquitoes have a hard time breeding in moving water, so wouldn't there be fewer if the water was moving at a faster pace. Can the temperature of the river really drop enough to turn a delayed harvest into a trophy stream just be removing a small to medium sized dam?

I don't claim to have any sort of expertise on any of this, I'm just curious as a fisherman and citizen who lives within rock chucking distance of this river. Most of my information was gained through a flier that was distributed by the opponents of the project and from talking to people who are in favor of the project (so I've gotten to hear LOTS of biased opinions). I would simply like to hear some UNBIASED opinions about the aftermath of taking a dam like this down.