Centuries Old Pittsfield Dam Eyed for RemovalBy Brittany Polito, iBerkshires Staff
04:19PM / Tuesday, February 04, 2025 | |
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The state is looking into removing a West Pittsfield dam that dates back to the early 1800s.
The Healey-Driscoll administration last week announced $400,000 from the Department of Fish and Game's Division of Ecological Restoration for preliminary design studies on dam removals.
Pittsfield was one of eight municipalities to receive funding, which will allocated near-evenly resulting in about $50,000 for the project. The privately owned Shaker Grist Mill Dam, located nearest to 321 Lebanon Ave., is the first dam on the Southwest Branch of the Housatonic River.
Its removal would reportedly benefit cold water species in a core aquatic habitat and improve flood resilience for the community.
It is not included in the federal or state inventory, making the exact condition and hazard level currently unknown.
A website titled "The Mills of Pittsfield" states that the Shakers purchased the former mill site on the river in 1823 and built a grist mill for processing grain. The nearly 15-foot-tall remnants of the mill dam and foundation remain in the river.
"Although originally built for their own purposes, it was improved and enlarged in 1850 and 1867 and became open to the community and was one of the largest grist mills in all of Berkshire County," according to the website.
The mill was destroyed in 1915 by fire that was believed to have been set. It was rebuilt smaller and the business sold to the Coty brothers, who had been managing it. It was later operated for few years by Murphy & Mullen, mainly as a storehouse until torn down in 1925. By that time, the dam wasn't needed for power and the mill's location was too far from the railroad.
The stone dam remained but without maintenance began to crumble, and partially fell in after a flood in 1977.
The late Merton Todd, a retired GE engineer, tried to rebuild the dam in the 1980s to power his Lebanon Avenue home but was apparently unsuccessful.
There are more than 3,000 dams in the state and most don't serve their original purpose or are in disrepair. Many degrade water quality, block passage for fish and wildlife, increase flood risks, and pose public safety hazards.
Construction to remove the Bel Air Dam on Wahconah Street is slated to begin in the spring and conclude at the end of 2026. The 26.5-by-200-foot structure was built in 1832 and used to generate power for a woolen mill into the 1920s.
The city took it by eminent domain because the owner is deceased.
In 2023, $20 million in American Rescue Plan Act dollars was allocated to remove the deteriorating, potentially deadly dam on Wahconah Street. It has been an area of concern for more than a decade, with the city and DCR conducting inspections, maintenance, and repairs. In 2020, it was identified as a high-priority project.
The dam is one of six included in the pilot abandoned dams program.
DER also awarded $35,000 to the Housatonic Valley Association's Berkshires Clean Cold Connected Partnership to help build local and regional capacity for restoration education and to plan and implement locally-driven priority restoration projects.
The partnership supports a network of organizations, agencies, and communities working for healthy aquatic systems and building climate resilience in the Hoosic, Housatonic, and Farmington River watersheds.
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