UPDATE #4- Beaver Dam Ice Blockage Suspected Cause of Irregular Flow.

Beaver Dam - Spillway was suspiciously quiet both at the dam's top and bottom. The volume of surrounding ice is suspected to have been the cause. Photo by Edie Johnson

Blooming Grove, Washingtonville, New Windsor, Cornwall

A quick look at the Beaver Dam Spillway probably told the story ....Ice, Ice and Ice while little water flowed.

SUPERVISOR JEROLOMAN UPDATE 8pm - At Blooming Grove's 2/4 Town Board Meeting

Supervisor Rob Jeroloman told board members and meeting attendees that he had multiple notifications and a discussion with the County on Monday evening and again at the Beaver Dam site on Tuesday afternoon. A concern had been raised because wing panels along the side of the spillway had displaced, likely because of the pressure from a lot of surface ice, and the first one displaced had water seeping beneath it. But by Tuesday afternoon they had returned to their original position. After additional analysis and some small ice block removals, the engineers and officials decided to allow the lake water to rise a little - high enough to allow water flow over the spillway, to return and thus decrease the pressure. Jeroloman said that as of now, the corrective actions seem to be working.

Orange County's Update #4 says they will give an additional tomorrow morning.

The situation will continue to be monitored and concerned residents can either call the Town Hall and check either the Town or County Facebook page for any new updates, and of course the notices will be shared here in the Orange County Courier Journal.

COUNTY UPDATE 3 -Orange County took another look on Tuesday afternoon and broke up some of the ice blocks and will continue monitoring the situation over the next week which is expected to have evenings back down in the teens. They have divers ready to take a closer look and break up more of the ice and examine what is going on under the surface if necessary.

"Back in the day" area lakes would have teams out on these area lakes, loading ice blocks (similar to the ones below) that horsedrawn wagons would deliver to supply residents and business throughout the area with refrigeration. We wonder whether they knew they were also helping the regular flow of the water. Areas in Maine and Canada still follow the tradition of collecting ice blocks in Winter. It looks like maybe we will too, although not for refrigeration.

Orange County Beaver Dam Update No. 3

Blocks of ice that County staff removed from the spillway head

Orange County engineers and officials at the spillway

Beaver Dam as seen from Shore Rd. today Photo By Edie Johnson