Corps Blows Hole In Last Dam On Rappahannock River

[hatrack]

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. — "For the first time since before the Civil War, the graceful Rappahannock River flowed unchecked Monday from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Chesapeake Bay after Army explosive experts blasted open a 130-foot section of the Embrey Dam.

One minute, a glistening wall of water — 22 feet high and 700 feet wide — flowed over the dam into the gently running, greenish-brown water of the Rappahannock. Then, after one mini-blast and a second, much larger one an hour later, the lake behind the dam surged forward, sending churning white spray and muddy water past thousands of people gathered on the riverbanks to witness the spectacle.

"Today is the day we let the fish run upstream; today is the day we let the river run free," exclaimed John Tippett, executive director of Friends of the Rappahannock, the local environmental group that spearheaded a multiyear effort to restore the river's natural flow."

EDIT

As early as the 1700s, settlers tried to harness the Rappahannock's rapids to power mills. The Embrey Dam was built in 1910 to create electricity and fuel the industrialization of this agricultural community, about 50 miles south of Washington. But the hydroelectric station that brought power to Fredericksburg for decades was shut down in the 1960s. After that, the impoundment above the dam was used for drinking water, but the completion of a new water treatment center five years ago left the dam without a purpose."

EDIT

[RobertSeattle]

1. Cool

I'm surprised that explosives tend to be the best way to demolish a dam since doing so causes such turbulance/brown water/etc, but perhaps one big splash of turbulence is better than a long slow one.

[blindpig]

2. hurray!

hopefully the first of many. I wonder if there's any shad left to recolonize. The shad run in the Bay used to be a big thing when I was a kid.

[donsu]

3. yeah!

I had in-laws that got Shad every year until it got too crowded on the banks of the river and things would get ugly.

I too wonder if any Shad are left.

[SoCalDem]

4. How did they get rid of the toxic sludge that accumulates

at the base of dams?? That would be my worry.. that all that gunk would spread throughout the river sytems..

I am glad that they did undo the dam, though..

Let beavers build dams..people do not need to live right next to a river, if they fear floods.. Flooding is natures way to spread nutrients..