An innovative Natural Resource Damages (NRD) Settlement Agreement between the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) and El Paso Corporation, formulated to address claimed lost ecological services caused by former industrial operations discharging into several New Jersey rivers, specified the removal of three lowhead dams (Calco Dam, Nevius Street Dam, and Robert Street Dam) on the main stem of the historic Raritan River in central New Jersey. The most downriver dam (Calco Dam), a former chemical dispersion weir located in the vicinity of Bound Brook, was successfully removed between July 18 - August 2, 2011. The dam was initially breached over a specific modeled width, which allowed the upriver impoundment to completely drain by the end of the working day without triggering adverse sediment transport. The subsequent two weeks of work involved removal of the dam's deeper infrastructure, careful severing of the dam where it was underlying a historic 175-yr old canal towpath berm, and removal of all concrete and rebar from the river. The final aspects of the project included grading of the river bed and restoration of embankments back to their pre-dam configuration. This dam removal re-opened 6.1 miles of the Raritan River and 1.5 miles of the Millstone River, in addition to the lower reaches of several significant tributaries, which have widespread sandy and pebbly gravel river bed substrates, ideal spawning habitat for anadromous fish species such as American shad that formerly numbered in the millions. The Robert Street Dam, a sheet-piled supported structure encasing an older concrete gravity dam located seven miles upriver of the former Calco Dam, is slated for removal in July-August 2012, which will then be followed by the breaching of the Nevius Street Dam, thus satisfying the NRD Settlement terms and completing New Jersey's most significant river restoration project to date.