CLARKSBURG, W.Va. - Four small dams built 85 to 105 years ago to supply municipal water systems have converted the north-flowing, 40-mile stretch of the West Fork River from the outskirts of Weston to the southern edge of Clarksburg into a series of placid, flat-water pools broken by short sections of free-flowing stream.
Since the dams were built so long ago, few people who live along this reach of the river, or who fish or boat in its waters, are old enough to remember the river in anything but its present state.
For some, the dams are regarded as man-made waterfalls, and the pools they create have become a part of the area's scenic landscape while providing West Fork users with shuttle-free boating and lake-like fishing. For others, the aging dams, which have never provided a flood-control function and only one of which still has a water supply role, are seen as safety hazards, costly insurance liabilities, and impediments to natural stream ecology and a diverse fishery.
For Jeff Reichel, a member of Guardians of the West Fork, a citizens group leading the effort to save the dams and create a West Fork Water Trail, removal of the dams would torpedo plans to develop the planned paddling route.
"The original vision of the water trail committee was for a trail with the unique features that exist today," Reichel said. "Without the pools of water provided by the dams, the vision will die."
Not so, according to John Schmidt, head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's West Virginia Field Office, which is based in Elkins.
Removal of the dams, he said, "will make paddling that 40-mile section of the West Fork safer. The river will be narrower in places, and instead of going through a series of ponds and dams, you'll be paddling through pools and riffles. It will be a pleasant experience. If you like what you see when you look downstream from the dams now, you'll like what the river will be like when the dams are removed."
In recent months, such divergent points of view have led to a standoff over the fate of the dams. The dispute involves, among others, the Clarksburg Water Board, the Harrison County Commission, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Guardians of the West Fork.
The four dams - Hartland, Two Lick, Highland and West Milford - are owned by the Clarksburg Water Board. They are located five to seven miles apart and range from 8 to 13.5 feet in height, compared with the 95-foot-high Stonewall Jackson Dam, which eliminated the water supply role for three of the dams when it was completed in 1990.
The dams are run-of-the-river structures, with no gates or water-control devices, meaning that flow from whatever level the West Fork is running passes unimpeded over the dams. Their low profiles make them difficult for boaters to see until they are very close to them, adding to their hazardous nature, although warning signs have been posted in an effort to prevent accidents.
Engineers often refer to such low-head dams as "drowning machines" because they produce hydraulic rollers, hazards produced by a steady wave of water passing over the dams and retaining enough kinetic energy to boil back to the surface and roll back upstream in a steady surge.
In 2000, three canoeists drowned just below the Highland dam when they were swept into a hydraulic roller. Following the accident, the water board hired an engineering firm to come up with ways to increase river user safety in the vicinity of the dams and reduce the board's liability. Removal of the dams was considered an alternative at that time but, following public hearings, it was decided instead to keep the dams in place and spend more than $250,000 to modify two of them by placing rock on the downstream faces of the structures to disrupt the formation of hydraulic rollers. While placement of the rocks was intended to reduce or eliminate the water board's liability, the boulders "increased the top width of two of the dams and actually attracted more people, which potentially increased the liability," according to an environmental assessment prepared by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Since then, the water board has spent an average of about $160,000 a year on liability insurance and maintenance work on the dams. Seeking to eliminate those costs, the water board began working with Fish and Wildlife in 2008 to look into the possible removal of the West Milford, Highland and Two Lick dams and the development of a fish and boater passageway at the Hartland Dam, which still functions as a water source for Clarksburg. An environmental assessment completed in 2010 by the NRCS, in cooperation with Fish and Wildlife, concluded that such a plan was the best alternative for improving safety and restoring the ecological integrity of the 40-mile stretch of the West Fork affected by the dams.
Later that year, the water board voted to authorize Fish and Wildlife to begin removing the Highland, Two Lick and West Milford dams as funding became available. During 2011 and 2012, the federal agency was allocated $140,000 to begin the planning and permitting phase of the project. The water board voted to proceed with the dam removals in 2012, and in 2014, voted to provide in-kind hauling services to cover its match in a grant application for funding to remove the dams, according to Fish and Wildlife. In March of this year, the water board voted 2-1 to give Fish and Wildlife permission to remove the three dams and renovate the Hartland Dam, a move that also triggered a pledge from the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources to support improved boating and fishing access once the dams were removed. Since then, Fish and Wildlife has secured a $400,000 grant to complete the dam removals, which had been scheduled to begin this fall.
However, plans to demolish the dams soon became murky, after Clarksburg teacher Jon Calvert was elected in June to replace Charles Thayer on the water board. During a July 13 meeting, Calvert provided the swing vote needed to effectively bail out of its agreement with the Fish and Wildlife by authorizing the water board's attorney to draft an agreement transferring ownership of the dams to the Harrison County Commission, which previously had gone on record as wanting to take over the dams to prevent their demolition. In a West Virginia MetroNews interview following the vote, Calvert said he was motivated, in part, to opt for the transfer because the dams are located outside Clarksburg and in rural Harrison County, making the County Commission the best agency to look out for what "is best for their constituents in that neck of the woods."
"I'm upset," Schmidt said after the vote. "A lot of money has already been spent planning this project. We've studied it at length and have engaged the public all through the process. We competed with a lot of other projects to get the $400,000 needed to take the dams out."
While removing aging dams that no longer perform their initial purpose might be new to West Virginia, it is common elsewhere in the nation. According to American Rivers, more than 1,150 dams have been removed in the United States in the past 100 years to restore habitat or improve safety, including 72 taken down last year.
"It's become a common practice at places where expenses in liability and upkeep don't justify keeping such dams," Schmidt said. "It's been proven time and time again that removing them is a good thing for fisheries."
Removing the dams would increase oxygen content and reduce temperatures in the 40-mile section of the West Fork, and encourage the expansion of smallmouth bass, walleye and sauger populations, while keeping muskellunge populations stable, according to Schmidt, and likely decreasing largemouth bass and bluegill numbers.
While at least 20 species of mussels once lived in the West Fork, only five can now be found in the river. By removing the dams, remnant mussel populations consisting of up to 25 species, including two on the federal endangered list, would be able re-inhabit the river from tributary streams, and help filter out impurities in the river, according Fish and Wildlife.
Recreational Engineering and Planning, a Colorado firm hired by the Harrison County Commission at the request of the Guardians of the West Fork to come up with alternatives to the dam removals, presented a plan in April calling for building a fish and boat passage over the Hartland and Two Lick dams by cutting V-shaped notches lined with anchored rock in the faces of the dams to take the full flow of the river at normal levels, and a 400-yard bypass canal around the West Milford Dam. No specific plan was completed for the more challenging Highland Dam, although a bypass was deemed feasible. Cost estimates for the improvements to the three dams ranged from $330,000 to $450,000.
Similar alternatives were considered during the NRCS assessment but rejected because they didn't solve liability issues for the dams and did little to restore natural stream ecology.
While the County Commission has received the water board's draft agreement to accept ownership of the dams, it has yet to sign it. The matter has been tabled since Aug. 6.
"Some of the commissioners have questions on the maintenance and upkeep costs of the dams that they would like to review" before taking action," Harrison County Administrator William Parker said.
No vote is expected to be taken on whether to accept the dams until a public informational meeting on the dam removal proposal takes place. Parker said that meeting is tentatively scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Sept.17 in the Harrison County recreation complex.
To negate implementation of the $400,000 grant to remove the dams, consent of the dams' owner and Fish and Wildlife is required, Schmidt said. Should a breach of contract occur, the dams' owner would have to repay a portion of the money already spent on the project.
Meanwhile, Schmidt said, his agency is moving forward with low-head-dam removal projects on Hackers Creek, in Lewis County, and the Worthington Dam, on the West Fork in Marion County, where a woman drowned on Aug. 11.
Reach Rick Steelhammer at 304-348-5169, rsteelhammer@wvgazette.com or follow @rsteelhammer on Twitter.