PLAINS, Pa. — After more than 130 years of service, a dam along Laurel Run in Plains Township is coming down.
"By the DEP, the Department of Environmental Protection Dam Safety, that dam is rated through their engineering safety specifications for dams as a 'class C1 high-hazard dam,'" said Nicholas Lylo of the DCNR's Department of Forestry.
Lylo says the demolition of this dam will have positive impacts all around.
"It's going to be better for eliminating a hazard to the public, to the employees, to the people downstream. It's going to improve the ecosystem to habitat for wildlife. And it's also going to improve recreation in the area," added Lylo.
Crew members tell Newswatch 16 that after they get the dam down, the next step will be to start removing more than 100 years of sediment built up behind the dam. Then the plan is to let the creek settle for about a year and then do a stream restoration project.
"We'll come up with the plan to design in the plan to species selection, native species that would be from this area that would be in that type of ecology along the stream buffer and put it back in to stabilize and create that habitat," explained Lylo.
That project is likely to happen in the spring.
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