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Jan. 22, 2024 Editor, The News-Gazette: If the 58-year-old earthen dam, holding back the 450acre Boy Scout lake in Goshen, whose overall condition has been listed as “fair” in recent years, suffered catastrophic failure, the East Lexington bridge, according to official reports, would be 20 feet underwater within four to six hours.
A system is in place to alert landowners, but it seems as rudimentary as the Pony Express. One person has said her warning is scheduled to come from an aged landlord in Roanoke, the officially designated person.
Despite the structure’s current “fair” rating, the Department of Conservation and Recreation, overseer of dams in the state, allows it to keep operating under a conditional use permit.
What the dam needs is a clean bill of health in the engineer’s next report in July in order to receive an uncompromised operating permit. “If the Boy Scouts don’t address this, they’ll just keep applying for conditional use permits,” said a long-time landowner on the river, well-versed in the dam’s woes, adding that these issues have been plaguing the county for the past 50 years.
The Scouts lowered the dam’s water in August, causing an outpouring of sediment that covered the rocks and coves of Goshen Pass and on down the Maury to the James and beyond (what happened to protecting the Chesapeake Bay water shed?) with a slimy sludge, negatively impacting recreation, flora and fauna, and threatening the Maury’s designation as a State Scenic River.
“A significant amount of sediment has been trapped in the lake during its lifetime,” said a PhD civil engineer and hydrologist knowledgeable of the situation. “It would be impossible to catch all that sediment without constructing another temporary dam. Reasonably priced catchment traps can retain small amounts of sediment such as is released during maintenance activities. But that’s up to the Boy Scouts to do.”
“It makes you feel violated,” noted a local, “when you see this historic place (Goshen Pass) abused like this.”
The Boy Scout Camp pays no taxes on its 4,800 acres, employs few area people, and is not open to local lads. SARAH CLAYTON Rockbridge County
