The existing Facility comprises a river-spanning concrete gravity diversion dam structure built across the NF Jocko in 1924, operated by the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project (FIIP). Water diverted at the Facility enters the Tabor Canal and is conveyed several miles to the Tabor Reservoir where it is ultimately routed to reservoirs and irrigated land in the Mission Valley. This trans-basin diversion from the Jocko to the Mission Valley supplies over 15 percent of Mission Valley irrigation water and is the primary source of water supply and inflow to Tabor Reservoir.
The Facility is critical irrigation infrastructure and, at over 100 years old, is in a state of disrepair with the following structural, operational, and environmental deficiencies:

The Facility is deteriorating and causes worker safety issues; lacks fish screening; lacks sensitivity to efficiently manage water; is a complete barrier to fish passage; and impacts natural sediment movement, thereby affecting water quality and aquatic habitat due to the lack of appropriate sluicing capabilities and operational practices. Therefore, the purpose of the Project is to address these structural, operational, and environmental issues by replacing the diversion to include a rock ramp fishway that passes all life stages of fish; adding automated sluicing to the diversion to incrementally sluice sediment downstream in a more normative sediment regime; adding modern operational controls to manage flows and reduce worker safety issues; and installing fish screening in the Tabor Canal.