BSA Dam’s ‘Threat Is Real. Time To Act Is Now’

April 19, 2024 Editor, The News-Gazette: The Boy Scout dam must go. It is an existential threat to Rockbridge County.

Water quality issues caused by the dam are severe, but these pale in comparison to potential damages from a dam collapse.

Extreme weather events, which we are seeing with increasing frequency and greater severity, have the potential to cause widespread tree uprooting. While the BSA has the means to deal with a few trees stuck in their dam gates, an event with high enough rains and winds could move massive numbers of trees, causing their debris to jam the gates. Once water overtops the jammed gates, a dam collapse would ensue.

In 1889, the Johnstown dam, like the BSA dam, was a privately owned, earthen dam believed to be safe. Its unforeseen collapse, caused by trees carried by heavy rain and clogging the outlet, destroyed the town below it. I believe that the BSA is a far more careful neighbor than Henry Frick and Andrew Carnegie, the dam’s robber baron owners, were. And it has an able and conscientious dam manager.

The BSA is to be commended for its efforts to provide outdoor experiences for the children who come to camp. But the lake is badly placed, and a dam failure could happen tomorrow or 50 years from now. For me and many others, that failure will cause extreme inconvenience, but for those in its flood path, it will be devastating.

The campsite needs to be modified and the lake size reduced. The state may have to make this happen. A cost/benefit analysis breaks down to: hundreds of lives lost, billions in property damage, or leisure space for campers. This threat is real. The time to act is now. JOHN WALLER Lexington