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Removing Dams on the Musconetcong

A concise history of dams on the Musconetcong and the rationale for working toward a free-flowing river.

By Bill Leavens
All but two of the dams on the Musconetcong were built more than a century ago to provide cheap power
that was not available from any other source. Before rural electrification there was a need to run large machinery
for industrial and agricultural processes. Most of the dams powered machinery used in mills that turned
raw materials - food grains and trees - into things that people needed - corn meal, flour and dimensional lumber.

At first waterwheels were used to drive shafts attached by elaborate systems of gears and more drive shafts
and belts to spin mill stones that ground grain. Other belts drove bolters, sifters, bucket elevators and equipment to move in-process and finished material through the mill. As technology and metallurgy advanced, water powered turbines were introduced which operated far more efficiently to power the large tools of commerce.

After the turn of the 20th century, electricity or gasoline powered engines adapted from automobiles were used to run the machines. The mills stayed where they were next to the dams on the banks of the river because the mill buildings and equipment represented a substantial investment to the owner. But the dams became obsolete as electricity and Model T gasoline engines were incorporated to run mill processes.

   With the exception of two Musconetcong dams used to generate electricity to run Riegle Paper (later
Fibermark) operations in Warren Glen, the rest of the dams have been obsolete for six or more decades. We don’t need them anymore.

  Dams and the pools behind them still make a pretty scene to the casual observer with geese floating about amid lovely purple loosestrife flowers and the phragmites that look like feathered cattails. That lovely scene reveals a local environmental mess. When the dam was built it created an artificial pool that changed the local landscape.
Native plant, fish and bird species lost their natural home. The pool of standing water created by the dam replaced wetlands, river banks and marshes that could no longer support the flora and fauna that formerly thrived there. Removing the dam is the first step in restoring the natural environment.

The immediate problem with dam removal is that people who have grown up with a certain vista and soundscape don’t like to see it change. We are sensitive to this if only because it seems to be the main reason behind public resistance to dam removal. We will have sufficient experience from removing the Gruendyke and Seber dams in Hackettstown that we believe we can present a burbling stream view that anyone will love. One way to envision how ‘upstream’ will appear when a dam is removed is to look ‘downstream’ at the
rills and riffles of a natural ecosystem.

Fortunately for the MWA, there are many property owners that are quite happy to work with us to remove these obsolete dams. Many dam owners are eager to remove their dams and erase a potential liability in the event of a dam failure during a storm event which causes flooding down stream. That is what motivates dam owners. In at least two cases that we are handling now, the dam owner would like to put the land into preservation programs that will provide public access. These preservation programs will not accept
the property with the dams in place - they don’t want the liability either. The end product of these MWA assisted removals will be more public access to the Musconetcong River for fishing, paddling, hiking and birdwathcing.

For our part, MWA is most concerned with maintaining and improving water quality. Removing the twenty
or so obsolete dams on the Musconetcong is one way to achieve that. Water pooling behind a dam creates
an unnatural ecosystem that attracts non-native plant life. The pools also allow water to heat significantly
and that discourages fish breeding and migration. Sediment that quickly fills the pools can contain
industrial and agricultural toxins which would normally be flushed down river and diluted. The heating of
standing river water in a pool also promotes the growth of algae and other biological processes that remove oxygen from the water.

At the end of our dam removal adventure, we will have a river that has the highest possible water quality.
Kayakers and canoeists will enjoy safe passage with the elimination of portages and treacherous hydraulic
holes below the dams. Fishermen will enjoy a greater variety of native fish to catch, possibly including shad. And the Musconetcong will be just as pretty and sound as tranquil as it does today. The Musconetcong qualified for
Federal ‘Wild and Scenic’ designation just as it is now, with the dams intact. It will be even wilder and more scenic when it is allowed to flow freely.