The Weston Mill Dam will be removed from Millstone River in an effort to clear the way for local aquatic life.
Phillip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
A dam on the Millstone River, in a section of the Somerset County community of Manville, will be removed to better allow shad and other water life to navigate a body of water where they once were abundant.
Removing the Weston Mill Dam is part of an ongoing effort to remove antiquated dams along the Raritan and Millstone rivers that were originally used by mills and other purposes. Prior to the Aug. 10 announcement, three other dams along a 10-mile stretch of the Raritan were removed to eliminate obstacles to fish and improve water quality, the state said.
“New Jersey is committed to identifying and removing dams that are impeding the free flow of our state’s rivers wherever we can,” David Glass, deputy commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection, said at a press conference Thursday in Lincoln Park, next to the Millstone River. “We know that dam removal can accomplish a more natural and flourishing environment, improvement to public recreation and the reduction of flood-related risk.”
“We started out with a theory – that dam removals are going to improve the river system. And now a couple of years later, we’ve actually got some dams out (and) it’s a proven fact,” said Raritan Riverkeeper Bill Schultz.
Removing the Weston Mill Dam— measuring 5 feet 5 inches high and 112.5-feet-wide– will open a 4.5 mile “stretch of the river”, Glass said. The job is expected to start this week.
Crews will use a hydraulic hammer to break up the dam, remove the debris and do other related work in an expected two to three-week-long job.
“It’s an action that will help restore American shad and other migratory fish to the Millstone River, improve the river’s water quality and ecological integrity and remove a serious hazard to recreational boaters,” Jim Waltman, executive director of the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association, said at the press conference.
Later, state, federal and county officials touched on the far-reaching benefits of the project.
“We are doing something today that is good for the river, it’s good for Manville, it’s good for the county, it’s good for boaters, it’s good for people who fish, it is good for the environment,” Assemblyman Andrew Zwicker (D-16) said.
The roughly $900,000-job is being paid out of a settlement the state and the federal government reached with Wyeth Holdings LLC, the successor company to a chemical maker that had polluted the Raritan. According to the state, Wyeth had assumed liability for the past actions of American Cyanamid, whose former plant in Bridgewater is currently designated as a superfund site by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
With the dam located in a flood-prone area, Glass said removing the structure “may help reduce some of the flood risk” by clearing an impediment in the river.
He said after the project, the state would monitor to see if the shad return in higher numbers. “Our biologists are out there checking the progress after the removal,” he said.
Historically, dams on the Millstone were blocking shad runs beginning in the 18th century, Waltman said in quoting from the travel writings from that time period by German doctor Johann David Schoepf.
Waltman said the first-known dam in Weston was from around 1740.
“So this is truly a centuries’ long issue,” he said. “What you’ll see over there now is more twentieth century lump of concrete, as this dam location has been changed and modified and repaired and replaced over the years.”
