You asked for information about the Enfield Dam and the arguments for and against rebuilding it.

SUMMARY

The Enfield Dam, begun in 1827 to avoid the rapids and to divert water into the Windsor Locks Canal, is a wooden crib structure (crisscrossed logs or squared-off timber, with rock fill) that now spans the Connecticut River just south of the Rt. 190 bridge between Enfield and Suffield. Nearly 1,500 feet long, the dam fell into disrepair in the late 1970s and is now breached in many areas. As a result, the water level above (north of) the dam has dropped.

The dam is owned by Ahlstrom-Windsor Locks, LLC. Ahlstrom, whose parent company is headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, acquired the dam when it purchased its previous owner, the Dexter Corp. , in 2000. The specialty paper manufacturer uses water from the canal for industrial purposes and to cool its co-generation plant. Ahlstrom vice-president Bill Fitzpatrick says the company probably would have enough water for those purposes even if the dam failed completely, and has no interest in rebuilding it. Fitzpatrick said the company would cooperate with someone else who wanted to rebuild the dam, but said such a project would be costly.

The Pioneer Valley Yacht Club of Longmeadow, Mass. would like to see the dam restored. Yacht club treasurer Ronald Pare says the present low water level is unsafe for boaters and a hindrance to emergency rescue craft. The club is supported by several local police and fire departments. Representatives of federal and state environmental agencies and a nonprofit environmental organization oppose reconstruction of the dam. They say a rebuilt dam would prevent several species of fish, including one listed as endangered, from swimming upstream of the dam to spawn. They also say a rebuilt dam would compromise the natural riverine habitat and could cause water quality problems.

SUPPORT FOR REBUILDING THE DAM

Pare has written letters to police and fire departments along the river seeking support for rebuilding the dam. The departments have responded favorably to the idea. We have attached these letters.

Pare notes that the river level is so low at boat ramps in Massachusetts and Enfield that it hinders the launch of rescue craft. He says the low level greatly increases the chance of a boat hitting bottom, and estimates that boats strike bottom between 25 and 30 times a week during the summer.

Among those responding in favor of rebuilding the dam are the police and fire chiefs of Springfield, West Springfield, Longmeadow, Chicopee, and Agawam and the mayor of Holyoke, all in Massachusetts, and the police and fire chiefs of Enfield and Suffield in Connecticut. Agawam Fire Chief David A. Pisano wrote that the low water hinders the maneuverability of rescue boats, as well as the ability to launch them. Longmeadow Police Chief Eric Madison wrote that the low level renders much of his department's search and rescue equipment useless, including a new $ 33,000 rescue boat. Madison added that the ability to use rescue craft is becoming more important because recreational use of the river is expected to increase in the Springfield area. Suffield Fire Chief Thomas Bellmore wrote that reconstruction of the dam would "dramatically improve" the ability of public safety personnel to respond to emergencies.

We spoke with Enfield Fire Chief Ed Richards, who strongly supports rebuilding the dam. He said boaters unfamiliar with the dam become stranded because they don't realize how shallow the water is by the structure, and a repaired dam would be more visible. He says a rebuilt dam would both reduce the number of accidents and make it easier to launch rescue craft. He said such a dam should include a spillway, both to allow fish to swim upstream and the passage of his department's rescue hovercraft, purchased because of the difficulty in using conventional rescue craft. Richards estimated his department responds to eight or 10 calls on the river a year.

(Although Pare notes in his letter that the Longmeadow stretch of the Connecticut River is designated an emergency landing strip for airplanes in distress, neither the Connecticut Department of Transportation nor Bert Marien, Support Manager at Bradley International Airport's Control Tower, is aware of such a designation. )

OPPOSITION TO REBUILDING THE DAM

We spoke with Steve Gephard and Denise Ruzicka of the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), John Warner of the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and Tom Miner, co-director of the nonprofit Connecticut River Watershed Council. They oppose the dam's reconstruction. In addition, a federal commission specifically opposes rebuilding the dam.

Gephard, supervising fisheries biologist with the DEP's inland fisheries division, says dams impede the ability of fish, such as the shad, salmon, river herring, and short-nosed sturgeon, to swim upstream to spawn. Even dams fitted with passageways delay fish migration and contribute to fish mortality.

Gephard says there is a direct correlation between the collapse of the dam and the number of migratory fish that have traveled upriver to spawn, noting that the number of migratory fish "shot way up" after the dam was breached. Warner says shad fishermen, who used to fish south of the Enfield dam, now fish for shad below the Holyoke (Mass. ) dam, supporting arguments that more fish are making it beyond Enfield. (We should note, however, that Pare says he recalls that shad were plentiful north of the Enfield dam during his youth).

The Connecticut River Atlantic Salmon Commission, a congressionally-authorized organization charged with restoring salmon and other fish to the river, formally opposes the construction of new dams or the reconstruction of breached dams that would affect salmon migration. The commission, whose members include federal and state agencies, specifically opposes reconstruction of the Enfield dam ("The Commission opposes any reconstruction, or raising, of this dam that may modify the current zone of passage," Strategic Plan for the Restoration of Atlantic Salmon to the Connecticut River, (1998), p. 50).

Gephard said proponents of dam reconstruction could expect vigorous opposition from the commission, the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service, as well as from the upriver states of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. At the very least, such entities would require of those seeking to rebuild the dam detailed engineering studies and provisions for "state-of-the-art fish passage facilities. " These could be prohibitively expensive.

Gephard said even such state-of-the-art fishways may not pass muster, because the short-nosed sturgeon, an endangered species and therefore the most heavily protected, is not adept at making use of such passageways. Gephard said it is not feasible to leave a gap in the dam, as suggested by Enfield Fire Chief Richards, because such a gap would create a "velocity barrier. " Water would flow so swiftly through it that fish could make no headway against it.

Gephard and Warner also said restoring the river would compromise its natural riverine habitat, and could affect water quality by reducing the rate of water flow. There is less aeration and a greater build-up of solids in slower flowing streams.

The watershed council, a nonprofit group that advocates for cleaning up, restoring and protecting the river, commissioned a study of the dam in 1994 that concluded that there was no economic or environmental reason to restore the dam. Among other things, the study said that rebuilding or raising the Enfield dam could pose a risk of flooding in Connecticut.

Miner says he is concerned that the public safety issues raised by police and fire officials along the river may be used as a pretext by Massachusetts pleasure boaters to rebuild the dam. He also said that the lack of rainfall and the damming of the river further upstream of the Enfield dam by hydropower companies have contributed to the low water flow.

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