|
|
|
| Sun, Nov. 08 - - Mobile - RSS | |
|
|
'A tribute to persistence'
Tippett: A 'tribute to persistence'
Date published: 2/23/2004 More than 1,000 residents and curious onlookers turned out for the breaching of the Embrey Dam this afternoon. After an initial mishap - only 10 percent of the explosives ignited in a first blast - a second blast left a gaping hole in the concrete structure. Water gushed downstream.
Bob Gramman describes himself as a whitewater paddler first and a folk singer second. "I've been dreaming of this dam coming down, I guess, for more than 20 years," gramman said today. "I'm looking forward to the fish going upstream and us coming down." He wrote a song, "Rappahannock Running Free," about the river about 10 years ago that advocates knocking down the dam. Gramman performed the tune in the ceremony preceding the breach. The song tells the history of the canal system and the dams on the river from the 1820s to the present. "I'm gonna have to rewrite the last verse," he joked.
"It's really rare in environmental work to have the fruits of long labor come to fruition in one moment and that's really what's happened here with this explosion," said John Tippett, executive director of Friends of the Rappahannock. He noted that there's still a lot of work to do - the rest of the dam will come down over the next one and a half to two years. In addition, FOR is planting submerged vegetation in the mouths of upstream tributaries to make them more hospitable for spawning fish. Still, Tippett couldn't help but gush about today's breaching of the dam. "There were many times years ago when this seemed like a pipe dream," he said. "Today is more than anything a tribute to persistence."
Bob Wallace of Fredericksburg was the first spectator on the scene. He arrived at 5 this morning. "It's sort of out of respect for the dam," Wallace, 54, explained. "It's done its job well. It's a landmark." Wallace, a librarian at Stafford High School, said he passes the dam every time he goes to school in the morning. "It's gonna be strange. I'm gonna miss it, but I'm not going to miss portaging around it." Wallace has been canoeing the river for years and says he's probably portaged around it 100 times or more.
Date published: 2/23/2004
|
 |
|||
|
|||
