A causeway spans the Rappahannock where the Embrey Dam once stood, as crews remove silt from the river's Stafford side. msn View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place

The river's recovery

Tomorrow, a year will have elapsed since Embrey Dam was breached. The dam's deconstruction is already paying environmental dividends and soon, all remnants of the dam will be gone.

By RUSTY DENNEN

Date published: 2/22/2005

By RUSTY DENNEN

Embrey breach one year ago already pays off

WEB EXTRA: Photo gallery shows the dam from its inception through its demolition.

John Tippett's office sits in a small building several hundred yards downstream of the former Embrey Dam.

For almost a year, Tippett--executive director of the Friends of the Rappahannock--has had a ringside seat to the dam's demise.

Army divers blasted a 130-foot hole in the base of the structure last Feb. 23, allowing the river to run free for migratory fish for the first time in more than a century and a half.

A demolition crew has nearly finished the job; soon, the rest of the concrete behemoth will be gone, leaving the landscape as though it never existed.

Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of that blast, a day that will be remembered for its expectant, party atmosphere and noble purpose. A crowd of 5,000, including politicians, environmentalists, a folk singer--but mostly ordinary people--lined Fall Hill Avenue to watch and hear the biggest explosions in Fredericksburg since the Civil War. CNN beamed the spectacle around the globe.

"The removal of this dam was and remains one of the most significant things that could have been done for this river," said Tippett, whose organization began laying the groundwork for the project a decade ago.

"The benefits are just now beginning to be seen," he said.

Herring and shad are making their way up the Rappahannock from the Chesapeake Bay, headed to their spawning grounds above the fall line. By late March and early April, vast numbers of fish will be here.

Last year, some were able to make it through the breach, becoming the first of their species in modern times not to be blocked by a 22-foot-high wall of concrete. Embrey Dam had a fish ladder, but it was ineffective.

This year, many more fish will make the journey, says Alan Weaver, fish-passage coordinator of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

"With the dam gone, there should be better access," Weaver said.

Last spring, several weeks after the breach, biologists did samples and found numerous hickory shad and a few scarce American shad above the dam.

Follow us on

Date published: 2/22/2005