Ligonier area dam removed; trout stream to be restored

A 1940s-era reservoir that once held close to 7 million gallons of drinking water for the Ligonier-Laughlintown areas is empty.

A New Kensington company is removing the dam — a project that eventually will allow the stream that fed the reservoir to be rechanneled so it flows freely into a Loyalhanna Creek tributary.

Swank Construction Co. is removing parts of the Furnace Run reservoir spillway and a concrete wall hidden beneath soil that formed the breastworks of the dam in Ligonier Township, said Michael Barrick, project engineer for Hunt Valley Environmental of New Kensington, the project’s designer.

Work will continue for about two months. As the concrete is removed, the basin slopes will be graded and the creek, a tributary of Laughlintown Run, will once again flow through the basin and reconnect with the natural channel below the spillway, Barrick said. About 34,000 cubic yards of fill will be used to reduce the slope of the basin.

To put the stream back in a creek bed, it will be diverted from a 1,400-foot concrete channel that had pipes to feed water into the reservoir into an area where the stream once flowed, Barrick said. “Step pools” will be created along the new stream bed so there is a slower drop of the water, thus reducing the potential for erosion along the stream bank, Barrick said. That old concrete channel will be backfilled with soil and the spillway will be covered with soil as well, he noted.

The project has been planned for more than three years as work continued to get government approvals, said Michael Kukura, resident manager for the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County, which owns the 26-acre site that holds the large reservoir and two smaller ones. The reservoir was decommissioned about eight years ago when the authority connected a waterline with the Greater Johnstown Water Authority, which serves the Ligonier area from its North Fork Reservoir, a more reliable source of water, Kukura said.

The Municipal Authority was not under state orders to remove the dam because of safety factors, said Curt Fontaine, a Municipal Authority engineer.

The Land Reclamation Group, a New Kensington affiliate of Hunt Valley, reached an agreement with the authority to drain the reservoir, remove the dam walls and restore the natural flow of the channel at no cost to the authority, Kukura said.

The entire project, including obtaining permits, likely will cost more than $1 million, said Andrew Dzurko, president of Land Reclamation and affiliates. In return, the company receives stream mitigation credits from the state and federal government.

“It’s a creative way to fund the project,” Dzurko said.

Land Reclamation can sell both stream and wetland mitigation bank credits in Pennsylvania that it obtains from the project, said Lauren Fraley, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Protection.

The Municipal Authority will retain ownership of the property when the work is finished, but a conservation agreement will prohibit any development on the site, Fontaine said.

Bulldozers and excavating equipment will move earth and remove a 20-foot concrete wall underneath the breastworks. The gatehouse in what was the middle of the reservoir will remain, Fontaine said.

The restoration of Furnace Run will mean the return of a high quality coldwater stream for wild trout, said Susan Huba, executive director of the Loyalhanna Watershed Association.

“It’s of exceptional value,” she said. “It’s good to be able to restore the habitat of the native trout.”