A dam on a water supply for the City of Saratoga Springs is getting a multi-million-dollar facelift.
Driving into the north side of Saratoga Springs on Route 50, with Loughberry Lake to the right and a water treatment facility to the left, many drivers may never think about what’s underneath them — a dam built in 1871 to provide water to a city with a ballooning population.
Major improvements to the dam were made in the 1960s as the New York State Department of Transportation constructed Route 50. But today, the dam is showing its age.
This month, the Saratoga Springs city council unanimously approved a $7.6 million bid to upgrade the structure. Standing on the shore of the lake, city Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran says improvements are long overdue.
“So, the general gist of the problem is, we're what would be termed upstream on this side. The other side of the road is downstream. The majority of the issues outside of structures within the dam, the majority of the issues are on the upstream side. There's been hardening that was done on the downstream side in relationship to the to the road. But we know that there's potential liquefaction characteristics within the soils here that you're not going to convince me don't have something to do with the constant vibrations of guys like that,” said Moran.
18-wheelers and multi-ton trucks pass over the dam day and night. Moran, a Democrat, fears that more intense storms caused by climate change make upgrades even more urgent.
“If this dam goes we can't supply water to the city, that’s $6 billion worth of assessed property that literally just loses value. Look at what happened in Flint when these systems lose that capacity for water, then old systems like ours start to have problems. Quickly. We'd have pipe collapses in various areas. We'd have a lot of really ancillary things tragically break down at the same time and then, and then we're Flint. And that's not to say that that's a possibility or probability even, but that is, if you collapse those cards, that's where you wind up,” said Moran.
In 2019, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation designated the Loughberry Lake dam as a high hazard, or Class C, dam. The classification means that a failure could lead to widespread or serious damage to roads, homes, and other infrastructure.
“I mean, this overall is going to be just under $9 million project the city's been saving over the last couple years within our capital budget to cover it, but this investment is going to make sure that we don't have a hazardous event happen, and that we're able to handle a major weather event should that happen,” said Veitch.
Michael Veitch is Business Manager for the city Department of Public Works.
“There's a secondary benefit here, which is that we're going to be putting in a secondary intake to the water treatment plant, so if there's an emergency to our first intake, we have a backup. So a lot of innovations going into this project, and it might not seem like much, but it's going to make a huge difference to a critical piece of our infrastructure,” said Veitch.
City Engineer Deborah LaBreche says with this project, as well as a raw water intake improvement project completed last year, the city is “coming out of dark ages,” by finally updating infrastructure that's more than 150 years old. .
“It starts in this area with the construction of the 60-inch inlet pipe, as they call it. And then they cross under, and they’re slip lining the existing what size is that? Oh, 45-inch pipe underneath. And then they're building the new spillway across the, as Matt said, the downstream end and then they're replacing all this outlet piping all the way down to the outlet over here,” said LaBreche.
As the city prepares to begin construction, the Public Works Department is without a leader — former commissioner Jason Golub began a new role at the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in August, leaving a vacant seat on the city council.
Earlier this month, city councilors began moving toward selecting an interim commissioner and holding a special election to fill the remainder of the term, per the city charter.
According to planning documents, the dam project could take up to a year to complete. West bound traffic on Route 50 will be re-routed during construction.
