Harold Parker state forest, April 2020
With the coronavirus pandemic ravaging the world's civilization, one outdoor activity that's still relatively safe to engage in is solo walking in the woods as long as they aren't too crowded. On an overcast but pleasant afternoon I went for a jaunt in Harold Parker, figuring that I'd meet a sparse share of other people but could easily avoid coming near them as we passed on the trails. I didn't even get in the car, as I was able to walk to there through a couple of other parks, and lighter traffic made the minimal road crossings easy. The usual Wednesday morning Friends walks had ceased for the time being, which I had been hoping would take some opportunity to go view the ongoing new dam project at the outflow end of Field Pond. I would have to take my own initiative for that now, and on a Sunday with everything basically shut down it seemed like a good time to go give it a look. As everyone continues to adapt to the "new normal", traffic patterns on the trails are definitely a little different but still manageable. For example, to head east on the narrowish trail from intersection A24, I waited at a respectful distance for a guy with a dog to come down the hill and exit onto the fire road before starting up the trail myself. It's almost like we're emulating vehicle traffic now -- I'll stop well clear of some meeting point to let other people go by, and then proceed when safe. |
A little way in, I started hearing an engine running, and soon came upon a guy
and evidently his offspring who were tooling around in a utility cart
He was actually one of the workers, and was just there for a brief on-site
visit to keep a maintenance eye on things over the weekend.
We had a friendly conversation and he answered several of my questions
about the project.
The effort is indeed to rebuild the dam larger and wider for better flood
control, since the old CCC construction was quite a bit past its functional
life against any serious events.
He said it was fine for me to go poke around the site and get some pictures,
since nobody was actively working on it that day.
In general DCR *does* want to finish this project over the summer despite
the unfolding sociopolitical nightmare.
The contractor has re-trained the workers in distancing and they're
proceeding carefully, but in general the team is staying engaged.
I was glad to hear that; with a small crew this far away from anywhere
else it made perfect sense to keep them employed and not just shut down
for the sake of it.
So I was able to go in and capture a nice photo-essay of the whole thing. |
East | West |
Before getting to the dam I passed through the storage and office-trailer area; this is it viewed from the east and west. |
A fallen tree provided a "from the water" shot of the upstream face of the berm. That's some pretty large-scale rip-rap, but not as grandiose as what we see in sea-walls. |
Two views of the control gate box and mechanisms. I'm guessing a bit here; the gearbox and screw arrangement in the second picture is to open the drain gate way down there at the bottom, presumably for lowering the pond. The old dam had a similar but cruder setup that had probably been non-functional for years. With that, however, I'm not sure what the height-adjustment stoplogs in the slot on the upstream side are supposed to do, since where they're set above the gate level would not allow for complete lowering. |
Part of the old infrastructure is still in the weeds below the new dam. The big white bags on the left are simply full of dirt. |
I continued around the pond on the southern-shore trail, and detoured onto the headland across from the dam to get a wide view of the whole project. |
A little farther on, I found a weird fairyland of the previously submerged stumps and roots now exposed by the drained pond. The long-term underwater decay has interesting effects on the wood. |