After three years of intensive effort, a Natural Resource Damages (NRD) Settlement was reached between NJDEP and El Paso Corporation for past suspected impacts to sediment and surface water from several former industrial facilities in New Jersey. Through assiduous historical research, factors such as the areal extent and years of potential degradation and the baseline condition of the resources were appraised to ascertain the potential amount of the NRD claim. Concurrently, feasibility studies were conducted on various dams to determine permitting, engineering, and removal/disposal costs in addition to expenditures related to providing alternatives to the services the dams are presently providing. The equivalent compensatory restoration of the claimed lost ecological services was determined to be the removal of three lowhead dams (Calco Dam, Nevius Street Dam, and the Robert Street Dam) on the main stem of the Raritan River. These dams were constructed by various private entities to withdraw water for agricultural or recreational use, or to discharge waste water effluent. The permitting for the removals is an ongoing and complex process that includes confirming ownership of the dams, executing demolition and access agreements with property owners, performing hydraulic modeling and sediment analyses, surveying of river bed, dam structure, and flood plain topography, meeting with other stakeholders and environmental groups, addressing state historical preservation office concerns regarding affected archaeological and historical resources, pre-application interactions with NJDEP’s Land Use, DamSafety, and State Parks permit writers, issuing public notices and landowner notifications, and performing engineering tests to assess the best techniques to deconstruct the dams. Over 30 miles of the Raritan River, the Millstone River, and their tributaries will be positively affected by the dam removals, re-opening these historically significant sandy and pebbly gravel river bed substrates as spawning habitat for anadromous and catadromous fish species such as American shad.