the forty three mile long Musconetcong, or Muskie, winds its way through
the northwest New Jersey village of Finesville
providing a high quality coldwater home to fish migrating through and a good spot
to drop fishing line or kayak into the water.
It took the right combination of planning,
skills, funds, and people
to return it to its natural state.
Just over a year and a half ago nine foot high 109 foot long concrete
dam stood here -
part of a series of dams that continuously harnessed the muskie at the spot for more
than two fifty years.
Most of these dams
in this part of a state are obsolete
they have not been maintained or not at the current standards
The dam
played a valuable part in the history Finesville for hundreds of years but it hasn't
been used in forty or fifty years.
So uh... it's not really uh... any yet economic benefit to the town and hasn't
been for a long time.
Was actually some safety issues to unfortunate has been a coupla drownings here.
It's a dangerous situation
removing the ban can certainly
make this a safer place. I'll just be a very happy camper when this is out.
The actual dam removal
I think we figured it at total about three days.
It's going well
and uh...
I think this will be another successful project.
Once the dam is removed we'll go in and it'll be about a week's worth of work
doing stream restoration moving around larger stones to create that riffle, pool,
and run system.
Dam removals are I think the most rewarding restoration project to work on and the reason
why is because you get the biggest bang for your buck.
You really are restoring national processes to the river.
People need to understand why
people want to do dam removals and why it's good for the river and
why the changes is that a dam removal
will bring start from the bottom of the river literally
By improving habitat for aquatic insects
will improve it then uh... food source for fish, frogs, turtles and
then the tings that feed on those so we'll improve habitat for things like
herron, eagle, egret.
Restoring the uh... ecological integrity will help recreational fishing
you know uh... Warren County uh... recreational fishing as a multi-million
dollar business brings a lot of fishermen in money to the local economy.
People who can kayak down this stream
don't have to pick up their kayak or canoe go around the damn now they can continue to kayak.
Area residents raised concerns during the planning process.
As a homeowner
a few hundred yards behind the dam, close to the Delaware,
there is a flooding issue.
The banking on the water from the dam caused us severe damage last year.
During Irene
the water you know came down with came right in front of our house and
people evacuated.
And right after it was taken out
we had heavy rain again and
no water came down the street so we we knew that it was gonna help with the flooding.
There was some concern expressed about
uh... dam removal's effect on local shallow groundwater wells
and uh...
we did some research and uh... that research revealed that in over twenty
projects in New Jersey
and two hundred dam removal projects in Pennsylvania there was only one
documented incident
where uh... shallow groundwater well was affected.
And we were concerned
when they took it out that we wouldn't hear it.
You know, our bedroom at night me open the windows near the falls and can
you get used to that after thirteen years of being here
and we're concerned you wouldn't be able to hear that whatever they did
you can still hear the water flowing and it sounds nice.
The process is a lengthy one and thorough one but it's a good one that we
uh...
you know makes us think about every individual step, every individual
natural resource concern
from sediment
to water quality, surface water, groundwater, wildlife,
plants,
air quality, uh... natural and historic resources.
The reason for the archaeological monitoring
at the Finesville dam project project is to
document any exposed timbers for the previous uh... dams that were
in place, the earliest of which
is an 1807 dam are that we just found the the remains of.
The overall cost of projects like dam removal tend be very expensive.
The good news is that once it's done once it's completed if it's done well,
it's a walk away project.
You walk away you don't have to invest any more money in it.
We removed 2 dams in the town of Hackettstown, about 3 or 4 years ago.
2 dams down by the Delaware. The next 2 dams upstream are owned by an old paper mill who wants to remove them.
I love it, I think it looks great.
My kids, you know, on a nice day they are in there constantly - with adult supervision -
but they're always in the river and I love it.