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Not Worth a Dam
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In last week’s column we made note of a proposal to
create locally a dam and a reservoir that could store 10,300,000,000 cubic
feet of water and produce 150,000 horsepower.
The late Louis Simmons, editor emeritus of the Tupper Lake Free Press and
Herald and local historian for almost fifty years, felt that from a
historical point of view the details of that project rated rekindling. What
follows is from Louie’s notes as contained in an article he submitted to the
Franklin Historical Review, Volume 26, 1989. In his typical good humor, he
entitled it, “Not Worth a Dam?”
It was advanced by the New York State Water Supply Commission, and outlined
at considerable length in its Fourth Annual Report to the legislature,
published in 1909. The Tupper Lake area was the focal point in the proposal,
which involved the water storage and power development potential of the
Raquette River. Had it been carried to completion as planned in its early
stages, it would have made downtown Tupper Lake a cross between Atlantis and
Venice — largely under water — and inundated camps along the shores of Big
Tupper Lake and other area waters, as well as homes in low-lying sections of
the uptown village.
The project “died a ‘borning,’” and its details have been largely forgotten,
but from the historian’s point of view, they rate resurrections.
The engineers envisioned a reservoir area in that stretch with a storage
capacity of some 10 billion cubic feet by raising the present level of
Tupper Lake area waters about 28 feet. That could be accomplished, they
found, by adding 15 to 20 feet to the height of the existing dam at
Piercefield, or 10- 12 feet to the height of what was left of the old
reservoir dam at Setting Pole Rapids below Raquette Pond.
Either stop would have involved some serious problems, they found. “If
either of these dams was to be built it would submerge the little town of
Faust (post office designation then for downtown Tupper Lake) and inundate
the New York & Ottawa Railroad for a distance of about four miles. Also it
would flood the present site of four large sawmills, with their lumber yards
and trackage facilities, and inflict considerable damage on the lower
margins of Tupper Lake village.” The report prudently added that while these
injuries could be repaired by moving the structures to higher ground, “the
cost involved is obviously so large as to render it a very serious
obstacle.”
“We appear to be driven to selection of the narrowest part of the strait,
which connects Big Tupper Lake with Raquette Pond,” they reported. Their
reservations regarding that site are understandable. What had once been a
timbered flat, mostly above water, had been turned into a “stump-covered
morass” by flooding when the reservoir dam was built at Setting Pole Rapids,
where test borings to a depth of 90 to 100 feet failed to reach rock bottom.
Terming it “altogether a forbidding place for a dam site,” they could find
no better alternative and added that considering it offered greater water
storage potential than all the others combined it “seemed to justify extreme
measures.”
Their plans for the dam indicate there were no ribbon clerks among the
survey party, whose engineers conceived a monumental project, even by
today’s standards. They chose for its site the narrowest point of the
strait, extending from near the lower section of the present Rock Ridge
housing development in uptown Tupper Lake across to the promontory on the
west shore. The design called for digging a trench in the mud and silt of
the river bottom, from the middle of which sheet piling in three tiers,
bolted together, would form a water-tight bulkhead driven into the sand. The
trench would then be filled with an impervious and tightly packed soil,
further strengthened by a curtain wall of reinforced concrete rising to the
top of the dam and extending throughout its entire length. On that
foundation and with a concrete core, the earth embankment was to be
constructed, making a dam 55 feet high, 450 feet thick at the lowest point
of the base, 220 feet thick at the water line and 100 feet thick at the top.
A masonry spillway would be built on a solid rock foundation at the easterly
end of the dam, and provision was made for the necessary gates and a log run
to accommodate the spring log drives down the Raquette River, still in
progress here in 1908 and for many years thereafter.
The engineers reported that timber in the area to be flooded had already
been mostly removed by lumbering or rendered worthless by the great forest
fires of 1903 and 1908. The reservoir lake the dam would create was to cover
some 15,800 acres — about four times as large as the present Big Tupper Lake
and 15 times the size of Raquette Pond. It would have been the largest lake
in the Adirondacks, with some 180 miles of shoreline, and have substantially
increased the navigable mileage open to the few shallow-draft steamboats
that operated on Tupper waters 80 years ago.
The magnitude of the project is pointed up in the 1909 report. Construction
of the dam would have necessitated rebuilding nearly 17 miles of road
between Tupper Lake village and Wawbeek, Axton, Ampersand Lake, Tromblee’s
and Follensby Pond, which would have been submerged. It would have required
moving, or rebuilding on higher ground, 172 buildings, including one church,
one school, three hotels, 68 dwellings, 14 barns, 57 outbuildings and 28
boathouses. A map prepared by the State Water Commission of the Moody area
at the foot of Big Tupper Lake showed the home locations of many Tupper
pioneer settlers which would have been flooded out, including Martin Moody,
Jabez Alexander, Col. William Barbour, Pliny Robbins, Fred Moody, Jim
Minogue, Richard S. Gile, J.T. Johnson, C.E. Hathaway and George McBride.
In addition, the camps and summer homes of many would have to be moved to
higher ground, including, on the Big Tupper Lake, the Barbour estate (later
the American Legion Mountain Camp), and the Levey, Sprague and Stern camp
developments, among others; the lakefront holdings of the Edward H.
Litchfield private preserve; the Titus B. Meigs estate and others on
Follensby Pond, and a tract of 1,333 acres bordering and surrounding
Raquette Falls. The report also noted that some 4,400 acres of state land
would also be flooded if the dam became a reality.
Conceding that “some inconvenience would doubtless be caused” by the
proposed dam, the report said “the strength of the opposition which is bound
to come from some quarters, also the amounts which will be appraised for
damages, will depend on the importance which these matters will assume in
the public mind. How far the creation of a magnificent lake, which will be
larger than any other of the Adirondack plateau and at the same time will be
unique among all the beautiful lakes of that region for the notable
irregularity of its shore line and the number of its islands, the increased
scope of navigation by pleasure craft, and improved transportation will go
toward reconciling the permanent and temporary dwellers of that section to
the annoyance and moving back their homes and rebuilding their boat
landings, and to the minor inconveniences due to periodic variations of
water level cannot be foretold at this time.”
The best laid plans of mice and men, including state engineers, “gang aft
aglee” . . . it’s interesting to speculate on why a plan which promised
major benefits — flood control, development of cheap and dependable
hydroelectric power, improvement of navigation and replacement of swamp
areas by attractive lakes — never got off the ground. The engineers did an
impressive job, starting in the early spring of 1908 with a survey of the
Raquette River from Norwod to the river’s source. It was nearly August
before the corps of three stadia parties of seven men each, a smaller party
of four or five men for the special work, borings, triangulations, etc., was
in the field. Nearly all the topographical work was in the woods, where
experienced woodsmen had to cut and clear lines for the surveyors and tote
in subsistence supplies.
The great forest fires of 1908 seriously interfered with the work, a dense
pall of smoke bringing all operations to a standstill at times in September
and October. The entire survey was completed on November 5th, and by
December 23rd all notes had been reduced and plotted at the field
headquarters in Tupper Lake Village, the corps was disbanded and engineer
Erwin E. Haslam and his assistants returned to Albany to complete mapping
and put the work in shape for permanent record.
What killed the reservoir dam project? Probably a combination of factors.
Apparently it was a little ahead of its time. Electric power demands had not
yet progressed to the point where they would warrant construction of a
network of dams. the “forever wild” concept for the Adirondack Park may have
stirred opposition, and the owners of those 172 buildings, which would have
had to be moved to higher ground or rebuilt above the flood level, as well
as others whose property would have been affected by periodic variations of
water level didn’t agree with the survey notion which spoke of these as
“annoyances” and “minor inconveniences.”
We wrote the New York State Division of Water Resources in Albany while
preparing these notes, but received no answer to our inquiry as to what was
the deciding factor in abandoning the project. It is interesting to
speculate on what effect the availability of abundant and cheap
hydroelectric power would have had on the development of this region if the
dreams of the engineers 80 years ago had been a reality. If nothing more, it
would have spared homeowners and business interests the “adjustment factor”
tacked on to electric bills in recent years to pay for the costly nuclear
power which has virtually doubled those bills. |
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