Un-damming the Neversink

By DAVID HULSE

	TRR photo byDavid Hulse The Army Corps of Engineers and the Nature Conservancy are funding the $1.8 million cost of removing this abandoned 125-foot, concrete dam from the Neversink River to allow the reintroduction of native aquatic species that has been blocked by the dam for the past century. (Click for larger image)

CUDDEBACKVILLE, NY — Ceremonies at the Orange County’s Neversink Valley Park visitor center last week were supposed to be celebrating the demolition of the old Cuddebackville Dam, but officials said the demolition is going to have to wait.

“The high water we’ve had this year had created a real problem in doing anything in the river,” said George Schuler, program director for the Nature Conservancy’s Neversink River project.

Schuler said upstream temporary coffer dams were being built to allow the demolition without creating excessive turbidity in downstream section. He said he hoped actual demolition, to be accomplished by a hydraulic hammer on a backhoe, would get underway soon.

The dam removal was said to be the first time in U.S. history that a dam had been removed for environmental purposes. Finished in the early years of the last century, officials said the dam had powered a long-gone hydroelectric plant.

The project is also unusual for the Nature Conservancy, Schuler said, as it is located on land that the environmental protection group does not own. Orange County owns the dam and allowed the project to go forward.

Officials said the overall goal of the project was to improve the habitat for migratory species, including shad and American eels, endangered mussel species and resident fish.

The removal also will “eliminate a public safety hazard” according to the conservancy.

Phil Chase, a long-time fisheries activist and delegate to the Upper Delaware Council was not impressed. He said the dam removal was “an image project” and that the Neversink’s real problems were in upstream flows below the New York City reservoir dam.

New York Department of Environmental Conservation fisheries biologist Doug Shepard said he could not disagree with Chase, but added that improvements in these areas come in small steps. “We could not have dreamed of seeing a dam removed in the past. You take what you can get,” he said.

The $1.8 million cost of the project, including archeological and environmental studies and the actual demolition, is two-thirds funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Nature Conservancy, using a combination of private grant sources, funded the remaining third.

The dam to be removed is one of two wings on either side of an island in the river. The other wing, which provides water for the remnant of the old Delaware and Hudson Canal at Cuddebackville, will be left in place.