A Dam on the Steele Brook Gone, One Year Later

Add the Heminway Dam in Watertown, Connecticut, to American River’s Map of US Dams Removed Since 1912.

The dam, holding back Heminway Pond on the Steele Brook and generally backing things up along the stream system, was deemed unsafe, unnecessary and unhealthy to a functioning floodplain wetland. One year after its removal, you can stand on the ballfield at Watertown Recreation Department and hear the bubbling of a low and frisky brook, and the call of crows in a nearby, emergent wetland. Nice.

A less-is-more approach to river restoration, after removal of the dam in Watertown, Connecticut, allows the Steele Brook to decide where it wants to go.

An aerial view of the healthy river system upstream of the former pond and dam, along the Steele Brook in Watertown, Connecticut.

Iron precipitate colors river rocks red in the Steele Brook in Watertown, Connecticut. An increase in streamflow since the removal of the dam will help to carry this iron downstream.