It took just one day to remove nearly one hundred years of history—or perhaps it might be better stated that it took one day to reclaim a portion of the Lehigh River that had been degraded for nearly a century. 

A stone-filled timber-cribbed dam, built in 1915 by the New Jersey Zinc Company to impound water for cooling its power plant  condensers, was removed on Monday, April 17 by the Pennsylvania DEP and its contractor Adams Enterprises of Factoryville, PA.

“It went very well,” said Ben Adams of Adams Enterprises. “It only took one day to remove the actual dam itself.” The total construction, from the time the southbound right lane on Rt. 248 was blocked, until it was reopened took roughly three weeks, although 27 months elapsed since January 2004 when this writer identified it as a hazardous low-head dam that needed to be removed.

In the meanwhile, the owner of the dam - Horsehead Industries -  had to be identified, and then convinced to abandon the dam to the State. The State had to accept the dam, target it for demolition, and earmark funds for its removal. 

Once this was accomplished, the DEP Bureau of Waterways took over and designed a plan for the removal of the dam. Then things began to get complicated. 

Access to the Lehigh River was possible from either the Rt. 248 side or from the abandoned railroad bed on the other side. That property now belongs to the Wildlife Information Center. At the time, the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor planned to install a trail in that area in the same time frame. The project was delayed to coordinate the two projects and reduce overall cost. 

The D&L trail was delayed and DEP planned to bid the contract for removal of the dam when they were told by the Carbon County Conservation District that the proposed access would disturb existing wetlands. In the fall of 2005, DEP revised their design, this time with a plan accessing the Lehigh River from Rt. 248. Because PennDOT did not want lane closures during the winter, the dam removal ultimately would start after the last possible snow. Hence the dam removal would be in April 2006. 

Once the actual construction began, the time consuming portions of the project were the creation of a temporary roadway to provide access to the river and the removal of the roadway after the dam was taken out. 

Steve Newhart, the operator of the tracked excavator said that the most difficult part of the project was the removal of the roadway. “When I’m removing the rip-rap, there’s little room for my machine to sit,” he said. 

Here’s how the dam was removed. After PennDOT blocked the lanes, Adams removed the guard rail along Rt. 248. They graded a ramp and unloaded stone to stabilize it. 

On April 17, the Lehigh River was running about 150 cubic feet per second, about a third of its typical flow this time of year. It was down a third due to a lack of rainfall and down another third because water is being stored at the Francis Walter Dam for summer whitewater releases. 

Adams estimated that just upstream of the timber-cribbed dam, the water was about three-foot deep. His excavator could operate in about two feet of water. Adams added a foot of stone along the edge of the river. 

The flash boards were removed to allow the river to begin dropping. The excavator entered the river and took a 20-foot long section off the top of the dam. The level began to drop as each layer of each section was removed.

By the time the excavator was mid-way across the dam, the water level dropped to about a foot deep, where it remained. All the debris, mostly logs about eight-inch in diameter, were discarded in a dumpster.

After the dam removal was completed, the rip-rap stone was removed. It will be reused by East Penn Township for a fishing access. The final touch is to reassemble the guard rail and then the barriers can be removed and Rt. 248 can be returned to four lanes of operation.