MONTOUR PRESERVE’S FIRST LAND MANAGEMENT SPECIALIST REFLECTS ON AGNES IMPACT, OTHER MEMORABLE MOMENTS
CREEK IS AN EXAMPLE OF COLLABORATION, PERSISTENCE IN TACKLING ABANDONED MINE DRAINAGE ISSUES
by John Zaktansky, Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association
In the early 1970s, as word spread about PP&L building a power plant in Montour County and a subsequent lake area to be used as a backup coolant for the plant, local landowner Richard Hess developed an idea to capitalize on the news. “Our farm joins the preserve land where the pavilions are now. I had the idea of putting in a campground, because I understood that PPL wasn’t going to put a campground in and I figured that they’ll have the lake there for boating and fishing and trails to hike,” he said, taking a few days of vacation from his job with Sylvania, developing what would be the earliest electronic components for automobiles, to attend a conference at Penn State University on starting a campground. “They introduced a man who worked for PPL if you had any electrical questions. I talked to him during the first break, and he told me that he was responsible for this particular piece of property around the lake,” Hess said. “He wanted to find someone in the area to work as a contractor, so I started mowing grass for him, took care of tables when they were delivered and worked for him about a year as the lake was finished up.” Soon
after, Hess was hired as the property’s full-time Land Management Specialist, holding the position from 1972 through his retirement in 1995 and overseeing the first 23 years of the preserve’s development and growth. Flood of 1972 Richard’s first major challenge came immediately – as the historic flooding of Hurricane Agnes took its toll on the newly formed lake infrastructure. “It was interesting because here was no plan developed on what to do if we did have a flood because the lake was brand new,” he said. “There is an emergency overflow on the east side of the lake where the Sunset Overlook stone wall is, and they dug a deep concrete wall there.” The reservoir held back a lot of water that would have originally gone directly into the middle branch of the Chillisquaque Creek and eventually flowed into the town of Washingtonville. “At first, the water started to subside a little bit, and the people in Washingtonville thought they were done, but we all didn’t realize at the time that the water was building
more and more in the reservoir, it went over the emergency overflow and washed out a gulley more than six feet high – I know I remember that as I was later netting fish that were left behind in pools,” Hess said. “Residents of Washingtonville at first were very angry because they thought the company opened valves and let water out (of the lake), but they didn’t realize we were doing all we could to hold the water back.” The incident led to better planning for future flood events. “PPL stationed someone from the plant to make sure the dam was stable. They had a system set up to warn the people downstream – I think a fire company had a siren system,” Hess said. “Also, if a large amount of water was projected, the company would open valves prior to the storms to lower the level of the lake for more storage capacity. Of course, that caused more work for us, netting fish and repairing erosion. We wound up with some new species of fish in the creek that weren’t there before. It was all part of that first flood, which wound up being the worst one.”
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