Pompton dam facts for kids
The Pompton Dam is a run-of-the-river spillway constructed as part of the Morris Canal system in Pompton Plains section of Pequannock, New Jersey, United States in the 1920s to increase land value and provide water retention by creating a backwater on the Pompton River. The structure is listed as part of the Morris Canal on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places as well as the National Register of Historic Places.
Technical description
The Pompton Dam is a spillway some 250 feet (76 m) wide, located along the Pompton River north of the Pequannoc Spillway and associated guard bank in Pequannock Township's Aquatic Park. The dam is a run-of-the-river spillway, which traverses the width of the river and at normal water elevation allows water to spill over its face.
History
Originally constructed in the early 19th century as a timber structure, the Pompton Dam allowed navigation upriver along the Morris Canal for nearly a century of operation. The Pompton Dam along with the Pequannoc Spillway were part of a feeder system that helped to maintain water levels along portions of the Pompton River and Ramapo River which were at the time of their construction a part of the Morris Canal.
In the 1920s, C.C. Vermeule, Decommissioning Engineer for the Morris Canal, working beneath the auspices of Dr. Henry B. Kümmel, General Manager of the Morris Canal and former New Jersey State Geologist, argued against the removal the dam on the basis that doing so would reduce the surrounding lands to a series of "ill smelling mud flats," thus devaluing the land. Instead, the State of New Jersey, which at this time owned the Morris Canal, opted to upgrade the dam to a concrete structure providing the same operation as it had previously performed.
As of 2011, the Pompton Dam is silted on the backside such that the backwater it creates is no longer navigable by boats larger than a row-boat and the spillway no longer operates as designed.
