Bennett Spring hatchery renovation is now aimed at December 2027

Bennett Spring’s hatchery rebuild has a new finish line. Steve Smith’s story in the Laclede County Record’s October 2026 Trout Talk says hatchery manager Ben Havens told a town hall at the park that completion is now set for December 2027. Havens’s line in the story: he hopes that on opening day of 2028 they are back in action.

The project is the roughly $40 million renovation that includes a new intake, office, raceway work, and water-quality upgrades. Smith writes that construction paused Sept. 10, 2025, after groundbreaking in 2023 with Cahills Construction, following a disagreement between the Missouri Department of Conservation and the contractor over construction plans. MDC said in January that work had resumed with Crossland Construction. While that is underway, Bennett Spring is drawing trout from other coldwater hatcheries, including Montauk and Shepherd of the Hills, and from Crystal Lake Fisheries.

Havens told the paper the job is more a rebuild of a 60- to 70-year-old hatchery than a plan to raise more fish. Bigger fish or more production, he said, would be a side effect of lining the raceways up so the crew can actually work them. He also said this season’s visitor numbers are in line with the other trout parks and that the construction has not kept people away the way the hot weather and earlier rain have. Park superintendent Gabe Dumond used the same town hall for park projects: a new shop, a new nature-center roof, cabin work, splash-pad shelters, and campground water-line work paid in part with American Recovery Act funds. This is the hatchery timeline, separate from the Eleven Point snakehead note already on the desk.

This is a The Gillnet news desk summary, not a reprint.

Source: Laclede County Record — Trout Talk, October 2026 (Steve Smith, “Bennett Spring hatchery now slated for completion by late next year”).