Help us keep bringing you the Adirondack information you value.
Email
Twitter
RSS
Facebook
Very few structures conform to the rigorous restrictions imposed on Adirondack wilderness areas – unless you are talking about dams.
Largely a remnant of the region’s logging industry, structures that impound the headwaters of scenic and wild rivers dot the park’s most remote corners. While no new dams can be built in wilderness areas, existing ones can be maintained, one of the few structures considered conforming.
Despite management plans that suggest the state should maintain its most remote dams, some have fallen deep into disrepair, while others have succumbed to storms in recent years (see Duck Hole and Marcy dams).
Let me wrap up something I’m really happy to be a part of: a series of stories looking at the Adirondacks’ rivers, its dams and efforts to return salmon to the rivers despite the dams.
Over the past several months, I’ve begun to explore the role that dams play in the Adirondacks.
In the 19th century the state of New York built many dams, reservoirs, and even feeder canals in the Black River watershed of the Western Adirondacks as the Erie Canal’s dry periods became more and more costly.
Saranac Lake based Northern Power & Light, Inc. has gained approval to operate under a new program created by New York State that allows electric customers to purchase a share of the electricity from a small renewable generator.
TAUNY, Traditional Arts in Upstate New York, will host a lunchtime program, TAUNY Talk & Taste: “Tupper Lake Dams: The Dammedest Place” with 
The Adirondack Park Agency held public hearings on Boreas Ponds at eight different locations around the state in November and December. Hundreds of people spoke, offering a potpourri of opinions. But one constant was a sea of green T-shirts bearing the slogan “I Want Wilderness.”
From its founding in 1893, and over the next 30 years, the Beaver River Club was the destination of many of the visitors to the Stillwater area.
General inquiries about the Adirondack Almanack should be directed to editor
Recent Almanack Comments