♥ Two Montgomery County dams demolished

As published in the Courier-Tribune on September 13, 2012

Denson’s Creek dam removed

By Hugh Martin

biscoewriter@yahoo.com

TROY — Two hundred miles of waterway were reconnected by the removal of two unneeded dams in Montgomery County this week, according to Lynnette Batt of the Durham office of American Rivers, a national conservation organization that works to restore rivers.

Batt and representatives from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the Town of Troy gathered at the Denson’s Creek site of the old Troy Reservoir Dam No. 1 on Wednesday to celebrate the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

“Removing this dam is an opportunity to help the town of Troy further enhance Denson’s Creek’s natural aquatic community, in turn helping meet local economic and conservation goals,” U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service biologist Laura Fogo, who has spearheaded the project, said. “The removal of Troy Reservoir Dam No. 1 is part of a larger, landscape-scale effort to restore the streams of the Little River watershed.”

Denson’s Creek flows into Little River.

The Troy dam was the second in Montgomery County to be removed by the duo, who came in from Mississippi to do the work. Another dam was removed from private lands on Little River earlier this week. That dam, Chandler’s Dynamo Dam, was constructed around 1900 to generate electricity.

Troy Mayor Roy Maness addressed the gathering to express his appreciation for the completion of the cooperative effort that had been in the planning stages for several months.

“The dam had no more use to the Town of Troy,” Maness said. “I was amazed at how quickly it came down. It only took about four hours.”

Laura Fogo, who lives in Biscoe, said that the removal took place more quickly than had been planned, even though the Troy dam turned out to be tougher than they had originally anticipated.

“We thought that it would come right out,” she said. “It wouldn’t budge, so we had to bring in a hydraulic jackhammer to break it apart.”

The Troy dam was once used for the town’s water supply. It was eventually replaced by another dam upstream.

The Troy Reservoir Dam No. 1 reached six feet high and stretched 83 feet across the stream channel. It was built more than 50 years ago to supply water for the town, though it has long since quit serving that purpose. Currently, water can flow through and beneath what remains of the dam; however, during high flow, water builds up behind the concrete and rock wall.

The removal of the dam was done in close concert with the town of Troy, which owns the 173-acre nature preserve containing the dam site. In total, the town has protected over 17 miles of stream corridor above and below the removal site, establishing public walking trails which connect to Uwharrie National Forest.

Mark Cantrell from the Asheville Fish and Wildlife office and Tripp Boltin, a fisheries expert from the Charleston office, each spoke about the importance that the dam removals are to the communities.

“Denson’s Creek and Little River are significant habitats,” Cantrell said. “Species like the American Shad, Blueback Herring and American eel travel upstream from the Atlantic Ocean every year. The American eel is already present in these streams.”

Boltin is the Fish Passage Coordinator for the Southeastern U.S. He helps remove impeding structures like dams, dikes and culverts to allow fish and mussel species the opportunity to move naturally.

“I’m looking forward to being a part of the next step,” he said, referring to the future removal of the second Troy Reservoir dam, which is several hundred yards upstream from the one removed this week.

Also slated for removal is the old Smitherman Mill Dam, which is visible on Little River from the bridge on Troy-Candor Road. Fogo said that removal will take place next year.

In a press release, Cantrell said that in addition to game fish, the nearby Little River and other area streams have been documented to hold a number of rare aquatic animals, including the Atlantic pigtoe, brook floater, and Carolina creekshell mussels — all considered endangered by the state of North Carolina — and the Carolina redhorse fish, a large fish that feeds on crayfish, insects, and other animals found on the stream bottom.

Additionally, there are historical records of the American eel in the Little River. Found in streams from Canada to South America, all reproducing American eels leave their home rivers and journey to the Sargasso Sea, in the Atlantic Ocean, to reproduce. The young then return to fresh water until their time to reproduce. This long migration has become truncated as dams were built, limiting how far upstream the eels can swim. Efforts to remove decrepit dams, paired with providing eels a way around larger, functioning dams, mean these fish will be able to extend their range up into rivers, eventually approaching their historical distribution.