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FORT COVINGTON — Residents were told it will take more than a year for a massive deposit of sediment to wash out of the Salmon River where a dam was removed.

But in case the tons of silt released in July don't flow out and bring the river back for recreational use, experts advised them to measure, monitor and record the resulting damage for five years.

That way, the town will have evidence and supporting documentation for future grant applications to pay for dredging or other remediation.

The more proof they show, the higher the priority for possible state and federal funding.

ENGINEERS ON HAND
The Fort Covington Town Council called the special meeting with American Rivers and the project engineers and even worked around the State Department of Environmental Conservation's schedule to get residents answers as to why the Salmon River is at a standstill near their homes.

Only the project engineers from Milone and McBroom Inc. showed up for the recent two-hour session, which drew about 50 area residents.

A group of property owners calling themselves The Lost River Society live on the northern stretch of the Salmon. They lost their ability to boat and swim this season because the silt deposited during dam removal made the water too shallow.

The water used to be chest high on a 6-foot, 2-inch man standing in the center of the river, but is now less than ankle deep, allowing property owners to freely walk from one bank to the other.

They say the once-abundant fish are gone, waterfowl have no place to land and feed, and beavers have moved on due to the lack of water.

DEC told the town the sediment will wash out because nature has to renew and recreate itself.

FEAR OF FLOODING
Many shoreline residents who spoke at the meeting said they are either in the process of purchasing or have already bought flood-insurance policies for the first time because they fear the damage that could come if ice lifts up in large sheets and targets their homes during seasonal thaws.

Some may even sue on the federal level because it is illegal for river navigation and passage to be blocked, which occurred under the project's DEC permit.

UNEXPECTED BUILDUP
Jim McBroom, senior-project engineer for the Connecticut-based firm, told residents the sediment release was a "perfect storm" of conditions and events that no one could predict.

Sediment washing in from heavy deposits off Brand Road in Malone, a summer flood in the middle of the dam removal and lack of funds for shoring up vulnerable riverbanks combined to make the situation worse than the expected 1,000-cubic-yard release.

His company's test results from 2003-04 showed little sediment behind the dam, he said, but a whole lot more accumulated in the past six years because "a continual conveyor belt of sand, tons of sand" moved in from Malone.

"Where we did probes and calculations in 2004, we said it would let 1,000 cubic yards or about 50 truckloads of sand," McBroom said, but much more was actually released.

Contributing to it was heavy rains that caused a flood that pulled even more tons of shoreline and riverbank into the water.

"The daily flow of water that had been three to four times above normal (decreased) to half the normal so the sediment sits there," McBroom said.

The only way to move it along is to wait for another major flooding event to churn the water up, raise the sediment and have it carried along into the St. Lawrence River.

MONEY RAN OUT
McBroom said the $200,000 contractor's cost estimates for dam removal were based on 2004 pricing and not 2009 figures, so the project ran out of money before the promised shoreline vegetation could be planted.

About $4,000 in grant funds are available for riverbank work, and McBroom asked townspeople to form a committee to prioritize the sites that need urgent help to prevent further erosion and sediment collection.

EMERGENCY PLAN
Town Supervisor Patricia Manchester said the Town Council is already working with Franklin County Emergency Services to formulate an emergency plan in case flash flooding or other dam-related disasters occur.

"I want to plan for it; I don't want to wait for it to happen," she said, adding that she's already been in contact with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Federal Emergency Management Agency officials.

Manchester defended the town's decision to remove the dam, saying there was no major opposition when several community meetings were held during the past six to eight years of planning and development.

"No one demanded that it (the dam) not be taken out. We had a general idea, and it was a good idea."

E-mail Denise A. Raymo at: draymo@pressrepublican.com