Clearing the Way: Annual Debris Removal at Mount Morris Dam
MOUNT MORRIS, N.Y. — Massive trees, accumulated trash and other debris carried down the Genesee River are being removed from Mount Morris Dam as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Buffalo District conducts annual maintenance, critical to keeping the dam operational and reducing flood risk for downstream communities.
Each year, fallen trees and other material make their way downstream before eventually collecting near the face of the dam. If left in place, the debris could obstruct the dam’s conduits and interfere with the operation of its gates.
“Every year on the Genesee River, lots of trees fall into it. Trash accumulates,” said Steve Winslow, manager of the Mount Morris Dam and Recreation Area. “It’ll make its way down the river and eventually up to the face of the dam.”
Keeping that material away from critical components is an important part of maintaining the dam’s ability to regulate flows on the Genesee River.
“That debris can clog up conduits that can make it difficult for gates to operate up and down, to help close off the river, and us do our job to prevent flooding in downstream areas,” Winslow said.
To clear the accumulated material, crews bring heavy equipment into the debris field below the dam, where large machinery moves through muddy conditions to retrieve and process trees that have collected along the river.
From the top of the ~230-foot-high dam, the machinery and debris can appear deceptively small.
Once crews descend into the river channel, however, the scale becomes much clearer.
“It’s difficult to appreciate the scale of what we’re doing because we’re at such a high elevation when we’re on top of the dam,” Winslow said. “But when you come down here into the debris field, you can see that we’re talking about massive-scale trees here.”
Crews remove large logs and trees from the river channel and stage them near an industrial woodchipper. The material is then fed through the machine and reduced to piles of woodchips.
The chips are loaded onto trucks, hauled out of the debris field and recycled for use on other projects. Trash and other material that has accumulated along the river is separated and either recycled or properly disposed of.
The process not only clears material already accumulated at the dam but also helps prepare the structure for continued operation throughout the year.
“These logs that they’re chipping up right now, yesterday were in the river channel right against the face of the dam and would potentially cause problems as we try to operate gates for the rest of the year,” Winslow said.
Located on the Genesee River about 45 miles south of Rochester, Mount Morris Dam has provided flood risk management to communities throughout the Genesee River Valley since the early 1950s. The dam works by temporarily storing water during high-flow events and releasing it downstream at a controlled rate.
Annual maintenance activities like debris removal help ensure the structure and its components remain ready when needed.
For Winslow, removing what the river delivers each year is a necessary part of that mission.
“It’s important that every year we get in here with this big equipment and remove a lot of this debris,” he said.
The Buffalo District delivers world class engineering solutions to the Great Lakes Region, the Army and the Nation to ensure national security, environmental sustainability, water resource management, and emergency assistance during peace and war. Learn more atwww.lrd.usace.army.mil/buffalo.
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