Unlike the the silly old ram in the song "High Hopes," Joe Semyon of Semyon's Trucking & Excavating of Pittston pounded away at the 15-ft high concrete Heilman Dam in Lehighton with an excavator-mounted hydraulic hammer until he punched a hole in the dam.

He did this in spite of three inches of rain that raised the waters of Mahoning Creek well over a foot. With the dam breached, Semyon is working his way across the dam and hopes to have it removed by week's end.

The Borough of Lehighton considered the deteriorated Heilman Dam to be a public safety hazard and a liability, not worthy of investing taxpayer dollars to repair and maintain for the long-term.

“Removing the dam is the most logical decision for economic and public safety reasons. Plus, it restores Mahoning Creek to its natural state and allows us to create a safe riverside park for our community,” said John Hanosek, Lehighton Borough Manager. “We’re looking forward to seeing shad swimming past the park, and we thank our partners for helping make this happen.”

The removal of the dam opens 18-miles of free-flowing stream from Schuylkill County to the Lehigh River at Lehighton. For this reason, the project was supported by financial and technical assistance by the NOAA Restoration Center, American Rivers, FishAmerica Foundation, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Growing Greener Grant Program, Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

These organizations are working to return shad, herring and other migratory fish to the upper reaches of the Lehigh River. Much of the Lehigh River had been dammed from the construction of the Lehigh Navigation System in 1827 until recent times. The dams created stagnate pools of polluted water and prevented fish from migrating from the Delaware River to the spawning tributaries of the upper Lehigh River.

Even earlier, Moravian settlers had placed a number of log dams for grist mills along the Mahoning Creek. At the site of the Heilman Dam, Nathan Hinkle built a grist mill in 1746. In 1825, Daniel Snyder tore down the aging Hinkle mill and constructed a gristmill to service Mahoning Valley farmers.

During the second half of the 1800s, the LVRR established its coal car manufacturing shops at Packerton. In the late 1800s, when demand for livestock, milk and produce cars developed, the LVRR bought the Mahoning Creek property which included a dam on the Mahoning Creek.

M. Heilman and Company took over an existing wood facing mill operation below the dam. The Mahoning Yards began attracting shipments of milk, meat and produce, all transported in insulated cars cooled by blocks of ice. In order to replenish the melted ice, Heilman used the mill dam as an ice dam, harvesting blocks of ice in the winter and constructing an enormous ice house to store the ice to cool the refrigerated cars during the summer months.

In 1913, the LVRR rebuilt the dam on Mahoning Creek to impound water. The new dam was made of concrete.

A gate valve diverted water into an underground 16-inch cast iron pipe that supplied water to a two million gallon per day electric powered pumping station retrofitted in the old mill building, about 300 feet below the dam. The pumps produced 250 feet of head to provide sufficient pressure to provide water to the Packerton shops.

In the 1950s, the LVRR switched from steam engines to diesel locomotives, no longer requiring a water supply. Shortly afterward, the Mahoning Yards, including the Heilman Dam, were sold to the borough of Lehighton. The Heilman Dam remained—unused, neglected and deteriorating. “The dam has no usefulness as far as historic artifacts because it lost its purpose,” said Hanosek. “There’s no need for it.”

He argues that it blocks fish migration, is a mosquito breeding ground, and during the summer attracts youngsters, who ignore the posted warnings of an unsafe dam.

Once the dam is removed, banks of the restored stream channel will be planted with native grasses, shrubs and tree seedlings. The project will enable about 3 acres of land to be used as a riverside public park. The borough’s long-term plan is to improve access to the site and increase boating and fishing of Mahoning Creek.

The creek is currently designated a Cold Water Fishery and portions are stocked with trout by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission. Removal of the dam, and resulting water quality improvements, will increase the length of creek that is available habitat for trout.

Although a primary goal of the dam removal is to restore the natural habitat for migrating fish, the Lehigh River is still not free of blockages to fish migration. The dam at Cementon does not have a fish ladder and the Allentown dam, the Chain Dam, and the Easton dam, have fish ladders that perform poorly—letting undesirable species such as lamprey eels pass more efficiently than the shad.

But projects such as the removal of the Heilman Dam are one step in the right direction as the Lehigh River continues to change from a stagnate, polluted, fish-poor 19th century industrial navigation system into what is now Pennsylvania's River of the Year.

Mike Ebbert helped provide historical information.