Progress is under way on one of the largest infrastructure upgrades in recent history in Saratoga Springs.
Heading into Saratoga Springs on Route 50, drivers may not consider what’s long been beneath them — a dam built in 1871 to support a rapidly growing Spa City that has gone untouched for nearly 60 years.
In October, however, construction began to improve the Loughberry Lake dam, bringing the aging infrastructure to the forefront.
Last year, the city council unanimously approved a $7.6 million bid to upgrade the pipes that run under the road and bolster the slope of the hill on the lake side to reduce erosion.
In September, Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran outlined the importance of the dam.
“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.
Now, months in, several hundred feet of rock-fill extends the lake-side embankment.
After a presentation at Tuesday’s city council meeting, City Engineer James Salaway says the project is still on budget.
“So, the first phase I’d say was like the clearing of the site, so they had to do some clearing on both sides which included along the earthen dam, they got rid of a lot of overgrowth. As well as on the other side, they got rid of a lot of trees, it looks very different than it did at the start of it. And this was just so they could install all of the piping that they needed to be able to install and also to allow for diversion of just existing flow so they were able to work in the area. They’ve continued to put down rock along the dam and they’re getting closer to the end, I think last time we were two-thirds of the way across the dam,” said Salaway.
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 damage to roads, homes, other infrastructure, and even risk the loss of life.
A temporary road is set to be built above some of that extended rockfill, and assistant city engineer Matt Zeno says that will allow Route 50 traffic to continue mostly unimpeded.
“The contractor came up with a very unique idea to create a causeway all the way across the dam so they don’t have to close any portion of Route 50 when they do the work. And I think the only portion they’re going to have to close is when we replace the guardrail, they’ll just have to take a lane. But, other than that, they’re not really going to have any other traffic impacts to Route 50,” said Zeno.
Zeno says the contract has requirements that traffic won’t be impeded during specific time periods including during high-profile racing days at Saratoga Race Course that bring thousands of visitors to the city.
Salaway says apart from any unexpected delay due to extreme weather, the next steps of the project are clear.
“Once they get to the end, they’re going to start pulling back some of the rock so they can leave it the way it’s supposed to be. Along with any earth-fill that they have to add in. The other side of the dam, I mean eventually once they get all of the piping in the biggest thing will be doing that Hobas Pipe, which is like a liner if I’m not mistaken, which will keep that pipe that’s there in really good working condition for, I don’t remember—it’ll last past our lifetime basically,” said Salaway.
The project is set to wrap up by October.
