Silver Lake Dam
Silver Lake Dam is a dam off Silver Lake Road outside of Woodridge in New York in the United States . It was built in the 1840s to regulate Sandburg Creek , which supplied the apex of the Delaware and Hudson Canals about 15 km to the west with water. On June 20, 2000, the structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places .
The hydraulic engineering work created the 34- acre lake, which eventually became Silver Lake as a destination for visitors to the predominantly Jewish summer vacation settlements in Woodridge and the surrounding communities that developed in the Borscht Belt at the beginning of the 20th century . The dam belongs to the Village of Woodridge.
description
The structure is a stone construction, with large blocks of mortar enclosing a dry mass of gravel inside. The dam has a length of 54 m and is 1.5 m thick at the top. Its height on the side facing away from the lake is 4 m. There was a centrally arranged overflow with a width of three meters and a depth of 50 cm. Two cast iron pipes, the flow of which was controlled by large gate valves in the upper area of the dam near the overflow, led through the base of the dam.
history
In the 1840s, improvements to the Delaware and Hudson Canal, which runs southeast through the Town of Mamakating , required a more reliable supply of the critical section of the apex between there and Napanoch . The Sandburg Creek, which flows into the Basha Kill , whose catchment area extends from the surroundings of Woodridge to almost the canal at Wurtsboro , was identified as a body of water that could be dammed up to form a reservoir to feed the canal. The dam was built on the site long before the area was developed and populated.
Around 1895, when the use of the canal declined due to the displacement of shipping by the railways , as they did not have to cease operations in winter, the structure was renewed and repaired. The New York State Conservation Commission found in 1914 that the dam was not significantly changed from its original appearance.
At that point, the canal operations had come to a complete standstill and the dam had become private property. The reservoir, which the commission calls Woods Lake in its report, had become a magnet for the newly founded Woodridge and the summer stays in the area, which are frequented by Jews. A bathing beach was set up at both ends of the lake and a few cottages were built on its banks .
Water undermined part of the structure and caused a dam break in 1999 , in which almost three quarters of the lake's volume leaked. The local economy was damaged by the sinking water level. The village sought grants, including state and federal government grants, to repair the dam and restore the reservoir. The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) - the successor organization of the New York Conservation Commission -, which is responsible for dams in the state of New York, delayed the repair in order to assess whether the dam should be classified in a higher risk level with regard to a dam failure. This would have increased costs and required a revised project. Finally, the DEC approved the project subject to conditions. The result of the tender was a setback for Woodridge as the lowest bid was $ 1.5 million, almost double the estimated budget.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Neil Larson: National Register of Historic Places nomination, Silver Lake Dam . New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation . August 25, 1999. Retrieved May 8, 2009.
- ^ Marie Szaniszlo: Memory of lake may spur repairs (English) . In: Times-Herald Record , Ottaway Community Newspapers , February 15, 2000. Retrieved May 8, 2009.
- ↑ Adam Stone: Silver Lake dam tied up in tangle of red tape (English) . In: Times-Herald Record , Ottaway Community Newspapers , June 8, 2002. Retrieved May 8, 2009.
- ↑ Heather Yakin: Cost delays dam repair (English) . In: Times-Herald Record , Ottaway Community Newspapers , February 6, 2006. Retrieved May 8, 2009.
Coordinates: 41 ° 42 ′ 6 ″ N , 74 ° 33 ′ 1 ″ W.