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The river's recovery

February 22, 2005 1:07 am

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.

"We found one female American shad about five miles upstream," Weaver said. Striped bass were also reported, with at least one caught in the Rapidan River 12 miles upstream from the dam.

"Clearly, those fish moved through the breach and moved up the river," Weaver said, "which leads us to believe that entire amount of water will be used" by schools of migrating fish.

Game department crews will begin monitoring the river again in mid-March to determine just how far up the Rappahannock and Rapidan the fish actually go. Historical records indicate that herring and shad used 700 miles of tributaries upstream.

Embrey Dam was completed in 1910. It replaced a wooden crib dam finished in 1854. The two structures effectively blocked the river to all migrating fish, with the exception of some eels, which could navigate the fish ladder, or wriggle around the dam.

Weaver said baby shad and herring born in the upper river this year will return in about five years to spawn.

There are already good numbers of hickory shad in the Rappahannock, but biologists would like to see many more American shad. In anticipation of the dam's removal, the Game Department and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been stocking American shad fry by the millions upriver over the past three years.

Dam removal, a harvest moratorium and stocking have greatly improved American shad stocks on the James River.

Weaver hopes to see similar results here.

"The Rappahannock, we think, will show quick recovery," he said.

While there have been obvious environmental benefits, the dam project has had some unintended effects as well.

A massive amount of silt was dredged from behind the dam prior to its removal, but in the year since the breach, silt has piled up in areas downstream. Friends of the Rappahannock and some waterfront residents have complained of shoaling and its possible impacts on recreation and aquatic life.

The corps has maintained that last year was unusually wet, carrying more silt downstream and that the dam project was not responsible. The agency has said that it expects much of that material to be eventually flushed out.

Also, the dam supplied water to the Rappahannock Canal, which has been dry since the breach, creating a muddy ditch and, some residents say, a breeding ground for mosquitos.

Water will be pumped into the canal from the tidal portion of the river to address that problem, with aerators to keep the water from becoming stagnant.

For now, a three-quarter mile section of the Rappahannock above where Embrey Dam stood is off-limits to paddlers because of the demolition work. That ban won't be lifted until the project is done.

Tippett cautions that steel-reinforcement bar used in the construction of the dam could still be underwater and pose a potential hazard to boaters.

After the remaining concrete and silt are removed, the riverbank will be restored and replanted. Plants and small trees have already begun to re-establish themselves along the shore.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has headed the $10 million project, which got the personal backing of U.S. Sen. John Warner, R-Va.

With Embrey Dam fading into memory, environmentalists are setting their sights on another, smaller dam in the village of Rapidan to open up even more of the Rappahannock watershed.

Tippett said that there are a couple possibilities--a fish passage similar to one recently installed on a dam downstream in the town of Orange, or even removal.

Rapidan Mill is privately owned and has been listed for sale. Realtor Ross Stevens, the listing agent, said there has been some interest in reopening a hydroelectric mill on the site. The mill dam has a fish ladder, but it hasn't been maintained.

"We're still in the early stages of exploring options for that dam," Tippett said. For now, "Community education is probably the biggest thing we can do to help people realize the community benefits of a free-flowing river on the upper Rapidan."

American Rivers, a national river-protection group, has been working to remove obsolete dams through its Rivers Unplugged program. The group wants to help get fish around the Rapidan dam, says Sara Nicholas, director of dam programs in Harrisburg, Pa.

"It's quite preliminary at this point, but it makes sense to look at the upper watershed to increase the amount of [fish] habitat. It would open up a whole new part of the state," she said.

Nicholas said there are about 3,000 small, obsolete dams blocking Virginia rivers.

"Many of them are old, decrepit mill dams," she said. In Pennsylvania, there's also about the same number, of which some 100 have been modified or removed. State and federal funds and private donations have been used for that purpose.

Nationwide, about 60 dam-removal projects were in the works last year. There are an estimated 2 million dams in the United States. Of those, about 75,000 are large structures.

To reach RUSTY DENNEN: 540/374-5431 rdennen@freelancestar.com