Massachusetts Towns Grapple With High-Hazard Dams as Climate Risks Escalate
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| Westerly's dangerous Potter Hill Dam, mired in town politics like this story describes. Photo by Cynthia Drummond for ecoRI |
Suburbanites across Massachusetts can’t imagine life without local dams that give their children a place to skate in the winter and fish in the summer, but environmentalists say certain dams might be putting the lives of their most fervent supporters at risk.
Of the state’s 3000+ original dams, most built to power
small mills during the industrial revolution, around 300 are considered
high-hazard. This classification, one intended to warn surrounding civilians
that structural failure or misoperation is likely to result in the loss of
human life, is becoming even more salient as climate change increases severe
weather. And although experts say the best solution is dam removal, townsfolk
don’t like change.
“People are just blind with rage and there’s no open mind to reason,” says Marlies Henderson, a self-appointed radical conversationalist who sits on the Billerica town planning board. “A dam that has been in place for so long becomes a religious topic, and it’s not easy to convert a person from one religion to another.”
In 2015, Henderson began organizing a series of winter
walks and paddling
excursions along several rivers that belong to the
399-square-mile Sudbury-Assabet-Concord watershed. One waterway in particular,
the Concord River in Billerica, is home to the Talbot Mills Dam — one of the state’s
more controversial removal projects.
“I always saw the dam as an interesting historic structure,
but I’d never really given thought to the importance of a healthy river,” says
Henderson, the Billerica representative to the Sudbury-Assabet-Concord, or
SuAsCo, Rivershed Stewardship Council. “A healthy river flows.”
Henderson is referring to a feasibility study conducted in 2016 by Gomez and
Sullivan Engineers. This study found, in addition to threats to human life,
that the Talbot Mills Dam is the primary blockage for fish accessing the SuAsCo
watershed. Experts argue that the evidence leaves little room for
interpretation, but resistance coming from residents is understandable.
“Looking at zoning and dam safety and water withdrawals gets
complicated really quick,” says Katharine Lange, the policy director for
Massachusetts River Alliance. “It can be off-putting if you’re just trying to
learn a little more and be an informed resident.”
Massachusetts Rivers Alliance, or MRA, is a group that
strives to restore the Commonwealth’s rivers and streams through the
strengthening of statewide policy. Founded in 2007, the organization partners
with various watershed associations and environmental organizations to protect
streamflow, restore water quality, improve wildlife habitat, and invest in
green infrastructure.
“We have groups that are statewide and even global, and then
we have groups who are all volunteers who just care about the stream in their
backyard,” says Lange, who reviews and provides feedback on state and federal
environmental policy. “There’s a lot of interest out there.”
In November, MRA launched “Dam Busters 101,” a series of monthly online webinars
that focus on dam removal. Lange says each session aims to break down the
removal process so residents aren’t intimidated to approach the prospect on
their own towns. In collaboration with the Massachusetts Division of Ecological
Restoration and the Charles River Watershed Association, each session features
a different environmental expert who presents on dam-removal and answers
questions from viewers.
“You don’t have to be an engineer or a financial expert to
be involved. There’s many skills that are needed in dam removal,” says Lange.
“It’s a project that will need a lot of people. You can be a part of this.”
Experts and town officials are happy to discuss projects,
but many worry that time is of the essence. Robert Kearns, a climate resilience
specialist with the Charles River Watershed Association, has been speaking out
about the impending pressures of climate change. He says that the increased
flooding over the last few years is going to get a lot worse.
“Every dam is a different situation, but many were designed
for storms in the past. Now, we’re seeing a lot more rainfall, and they’re not
designed for that amount of flow,” says Kearns, who previously served as the
youth education and community engagement coordinator at Mass Audubon’s Tidmarsh
Wildlife Sanctuary in Plymouth. “We’ve been lucky in a lot of the towns, but
luck is not a climate change solution.”
And Kearns raises a good point. The vast majority of these
dams were designed for purposes that no longer exist. And now, decades, and in
some cases, hundreds, of years past their useful lifetime, age is starting to
show. Last September, catastrophic flooding in Leominster called for dozens of human
rescue missions and tens of millions of dollars in damage. A main break flooded
several residencies in Needham in November, and two deaths
have been attributed to Vermont’s severe flooding in July.
“If there were to be a strong storm, the potential for
catastrophic breach of the structure and the downstream flooding is a concern,”
says Kearns. “If you get a pulse of water and the dam fails, a bigger flow of
water downstream [might] impact homes and businesses, and for some of the
high-hazard dams, potential loss of life.”
One dam in particular that Kearns is referring to, the Watertown Dam, has raised substantial
concern in surrounding communities. In April of 2023, the CRWA received a major
grant to go toward the project. The association hopes that the $1 million
anonymous donation will accelerate the removal of the Watertown Dam.
“It’s a matter of making sure that state officials at the
Department of Conservation and Recreation prioritize this,” says Greg Reibman,
the president and CEO of the Charles River Regional Chamber. “There’s obviously
considerable expense involved. It’s just a matter of getting attention and
making this a priority for the state.”
Reibman, who says he is taking the lead from the CRWA, knows
that a breach in the dam would mean extreme flooding in Watertown Square and
along the adjacent roadways. He worries that, aside from danger to people and
damage to property, flooding would mean the cease of important federal affairs
for an extended period of time. However, research and facts aren’t always the
best opposition to emotions. Lange and the MRA are taking a different approach
to dam-removal opposition – one that acknowledges human tendencies to avoid
change.
“There’s a fear that if the dam is gone, what the dam
represents will be gone, and the history of the dam will be gone,” says Lange.
“In New England, the rivers were the reason that our communities were able to
exist and thrive.”
Lange’s assessment of citizen fear is evident. Most folks
living in Massachusetts, regardless of town, have known the nearby rivers for
their entire life. Dams are often what make these waterways fishable, skatable,
and swimmable. Residents who associate these activities with the history of
their person and their town equate dam removal with irreparable loss.
“There are many ways of commemorating that story and
history,” says Lange, who noted that most people have never seen a dam removal
firsthand. “The dams’ visual presence is one of them, but there’s many other
ways to convey that story without the negative environmental impacts dams also
bring.”
Many experts and organizations speak to the environmental
benefits of dam removal, but most present the issue as one of practicality.
Lange says that the majority of dam removal conversations begin as a safety
question, not because people are altruistic for the fish. However, for towns
housing dams low or medium-risk dams, residents are skeptical that such a dire
solution is necessary. And some believe ulterior motives at play.
“When all that water is gone and that land dries out, guess
what’s going to be available for more development?,” says Miguel Echavarri, a
West Concord resident. “It’s disingenuous. [The town of Concord] isn’t being
forthcoming, they’re not being honest.”
Echavarri, who moved to West Concord at age 5, is at the
forefront of a battle regarding his local dam removal. The dam, which blocks
off a small body of water called Warner’s Pond, has a significant-risk classification from Massachusetts’ Dam
Safety Inspection. This puts the surrounding area in danger of economic loss,
environmental damage, and disruption of lifeline facilities.
“I’m actually an environmentalist and I do believe in dam
removal, but I don’t want to see every little dam taken out,” says Echavarri,
who has property on Warner’s Pond. “They’re pushing through with a solution
that’s detrimental to the surrounding area.”
Echavarri says local officials care more about the exclusive
grandeur of Concord Center than West Concord Village, and noted affordable
housing will render the quaint history of Warner’s Pond a distant memory. Town
officials have said repeatedly in public meetings that there will never be
housing or anything built where the pond or adjacent wetlands are.
Echavarri’s sentiments toward the watershed echo Lange’s
explanation for why it’s so difficult for locals to think about the future. His
acknowledgement of healthy water and aquatic prosperity point toward dam
removal, but Echavarri’s “not in my backyard” attitude is almost impossible to
combat.
“I caught my first fish in that pond. I used to skate on
that pond as a kid. The reason I bought my place there was so I could walk to
the downtown and because the pond was there,” says Echavarri, whose letter concerning dam removal was
recently published in the town’s newspaper. “They try to make it sound like the
pond is some kind of wasteland, but the pond is beautiful. It means a lot to me
and it means a lot to the community.”
Environmentalists and town officials refrain from referring
to any watershed as a “wasteland,” but water quality in many rivers and ponds
is worse than ever. Organizations like CRWA and MRA say that rising
temperatures associated with climate change paired with the stagnation of
artificial ponds is a recipe for disaster.
“Dams create thermal pollution. Too often [they] heat up to
a temperature that disrupt the dissolved oxygen levels that are necessary for
fish and other creatures in the river,” says Emily Norton, the executive
director of the Charles River Watershed Association. “[The heat] also
contributes to the growth of invasive species and to conditions for
cyanobacteria blooms.”
Cyanobacteria, while naturally occurring in freshwater, can
multiply quickly under the right conditions. Too high a concentration results
in an algae bloom, a toxic blossom causing irritation to skin and eyes, runny
noses, and headaches for those who come in contact with the water in which it
grows. Ingesting the bacteria can lead to diarrhea and vomiting in humans and
death in dogs and other animals. Algae blooms, which have severely
limited swimming over the past few summers,
are also deadly to the fish populations.
“It’s not just about having fish variety in your river, it’s
the food production for the world,” says Henderson. “Our ocean fish need that
food, the steady supply of fish spawning upstream in these rivers.”
Those vehemently against dam removal, like Concord’s
Echavarri, are attempting to compromise with removal proponents through the
erection of fish ladders. Fish Ladders, structures that allow fish to migrate
over or around river obstructions, were once thought to be an adequate tool for
restoring local ecosystems and the hundreds of diadromous fish species that used to inhabit them. But
new research shows that fish ladders are not a functional solution.
“Even if you have a fish ladder, many species can not climb
it. For those who can, it exhausts the fish,” says Norton, who joined the CRWA
in 2018. “There’s all these things that negatively impact the ecological health
of the river, and unless people have studied it, it’s not intuitive to know
that dams are actually really bad for the river.”
Norton, who worked as a democratic politician in Washington
D.C. before venturing into environmental policy, also serves as a city
councilor to her hometown of Newton. With one foot in local politics and
another in river restoration, Norton knows that the work of watershed
associations and alliances can only go so far. Unless an elected official
believes a majority of people want something, Norton says it’s not going to get
done.
“[The Charles River Watershed Association] has no political
power. We have no leverage. So, we started doing a lot of site visits and
one-on-one meetings, and now we’ve got the local city council, the conservation
commission, the historic commission, local environmental groups, a lot of
regular citizens, and the state representatives,” says Norton. “And so, when we
go to the governor, it’s a whole network of community members and leaders.
That’s where the power is.”
For Norton and Lange, power is education. They say the
biggest enemy of dam removal is ignorance, and organizations like CRWA and MRA
are adamant in their efforts to make the public aware of the facts.
“We literally cannot be successful if the public is not
aware and supportive of what we’re doing,” says Norton, who, through the CRWA
website, offers countless volunteer opportunities for
anyone who wants to get involved in climate resilience. “It doesn’t have to be
every community member, but it has to be enough that political leaders will
listen to.”
Convincing those who harbor emotional bonds with certain
bodies of water has proved increasingly difficult, but experts remain hopeful.
When briefed on the discussion surrounding Warner’s Pond, Norton suggested
putting together an association that can speak to scientific data regarding
public health. Lange recommends developing visuals to depict what a site will
look like post-removal. She says visuals will assure folks that the features
they love about the water will remain.
“Give people time to understand the options and come to it
on their own terms. It’s easy, when a proposal comes out, for people to feel
attacked, to feel like what they know and love, their home, is being changed,”
says Lange. “That’s a scary feeling. People should allow for time for the
options to sink in so that people can consider the tradeoffs. Over time you
might find some of them attractive.”
At the root of every dam removal controversy, disagreement
and agitation stem from care. Some care for the environment, others about
preserving family memories. Many balance both, but few resonate with neither.
Lange says the sooner people identify what it is they care about, the sooner
policy makers and local officials can work with them to preserve what they deem
significant. In the meantime, locals must work to accept that everybody, no
matter their affiliation, is on the same side.
“Change is hard for people, and I appreciate that. I don’t
say it as an insult that people don’t like change. It’s a fact, and it’s a
grieving process,” says Henderson. “You have to try hard to stay open minded
and keep communicating.”
Dams will continue to impede fish migration, render local
swimming spots inhabitable, and threaten the lives of human beings. Climate
change rages on while the joys of skating on a frozen lake or eating freshly
caught fish retreat further into the distance. The power of passion and
perseverance, however, is unmatched.
“Just because some [louder] people are against it doesn’t
mean you can’t get a silent majority,” says Norton. “It’s a lot of work, but
it’s doable.”
Lila Hempel-Edgers
is studying journalism and criminal justice at Northeastern University. With an
interest in the intersection between mental health and modern media,
Hempel-Edgers continues to report on the rapidly evolving field of journalism
and the technology that accompanies it. She works with The Boston Globe
covering breaking news on the city/express desk.
