[MassHistPres] dam removal question

[Dennis De Witt]

This represents a real systemic preservation failure.  The anti-dam people have so dominated the conversation that when green energy is mentioned dams and hydro are totally self-censored out of the picture.

How can we preserve mills without the mill dams and the mill ponds behind them?  Turning a dam into a picturesque ruin is no more acceptable than doing that to a mill building.

Especially in New England mill dams and mill ponds are a major part of our historic built heritage and have uniquely shaped the region.  Preserving mills without their dams and ponds is preserving a falsehood.  

Ca. 1830 there with three roughly comparable mayor industrial areas in the country, Philadelphia, New York, and New England.  In the first two 80% of the industry was in those two cities.  In New England 80% of the industry was distributed throughout the region because of the distribution of waterpower sites.  That's why Philadelphia and N.Y became huge industrial cites while Boston created planned daughter cities like Lowell, Lawrence, Manchester, Waltham, etc.

Mill dams and mill ponds ought to be at the top of everyone's 10 most endangers lists.

Please excuse the rant -- its been building up for some years as I have watched a succession of dams on Plymouth's Town Brook, representing some of the oldest industrial sites in the U.S. (where bog iron nails were made) being demolished, with much brouhaha, because no one recognized or would assert their significance or would stand up for them.

Dennis J De Witt, Vice-Chairman
Metropolitan Waterworks Museum, Inc.
2450 Beacon St.
Boston, Massachusetts 02467 



On Aug 27, 2013, at 6:57 PM, marilyn.mcarthur at comcast.net wrote:

> Greenfield is working on a plan to remove the historic Wiley & Russell dam on the Green River, with partners including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, American Rivers, and others. The town historic commission and the Museum of Our Industrial Heritage are inclined to save the dam as the centerpiece of a proposed greenway along the Green River through town. (originally a timber crib dam from 1836, reinforced over time)
> Have other historic manufacturing towns in Massachusetts faced the challenge of interrupting the dam removal process? What has been the outcome?
> 
> Marilyn McArthur
> Museum of Our Industrial Heritage
> 
> 
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