about was put forth by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2014. If approved, the dam's lowering and the installation of a fish ladder would allow steelhead to move into an additional of Cattaraugus Creek and its tributaries. The $6.6 million (USD) project would allow anglers to seek steelhead at an additional of public stream access, a large increase over the current of the stream that is currently publicly accessible for fishing below the dam. The dam's removal could also allow Cattaraugus Creek's steelhead populations to become more self-sustaining as they gain access to suitable spawning habitats available above the dam. Currently, the steelhead fishery is maintained only through annual stocking of fish. Critics of the project have raised concerns about impacts on resident brown and rainbow trout populations above the dam, and the possibility of introducing invasive species such as the sea lamprey into stretches of the creek currently free of such organisms. The USACE proposal includes barriers that are intended to restrict the movement of sea lamprey beyond the dam. Flooding The creek is prone to rapid flooding, and two significant floods hit the creek in 2009 and 2014. Environmental issues The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation describes Cattaraugus Creek as "one of the healthiest watersheds in the area." Potential threats to the creek's ecosystem include deforestation of the surrounding area, overdevelopment of the Zoar Valley, and invasive species. Nuclear waste Nuclear waste has contaminated Cattaraugus Creek and other areas around West Valley, New York. Although almost all of the high-level nuclear waste has been removed, according to the Department of Energy (DOE), nuclear and hazardous wastes are still buried in unlined trenches on two sites at a former privately operated nuclear fuels reprocessing facility alongside Cattaraugus Creek north of the village of West Valley in Cattaraugus County. The DOE's Demonstration Project at the site transferred high-level nuclear waste into glass canisters. Reprocessing of spent fuel rods from military and civilian nuclear power plants between 1966 and 1972 resulted in burial of low-level radioactive waste (LLNW) on and burial of high-level radioactive waste on another there. The facility that created the nuclear waste there closed in 1972, and was begun in 1961 by Nuclear Fuel Services (NFS), a subsidiary of W.R. Grace & Co. (the focus of the book and film A Civil Action) and American Machine & Foundry, on of land leased from the