Ram Works Dam to be removed at month's end

A dam on the South River in Waynesboro soon will be taken down, and proponents of its removal say it will improve the water temperature for trout and lessen the liability for the homeowners who own the structure.

Permits and funding have been obtained for the removal of the Ram Works Dam, and the demolition should start by the end of the month, according to the Ram Works Unit Owners Association and Trout Unlimited.

The homeowners and Trout Unlimited say the removal would provide a lower stream temperature for trout and lower the association’s cost for liability insurance.

And a state official who helped facilitate issuance of the needed permits said aging dams like Ram Works can breach.

Alan Weaver, fish passage coordinator for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, said the dam project has “a lot of good environmental and fishery resource benefits as well as an added safety feature.”

Weaver said permits for the dam’s removal have been obtained from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, Virginia Marine Resources Commission and the Army Corps of Engineers.

The Ram Works association owns the more-than-century-old dam also known as the Rife-Loth Dam.

Built shortly after the turn of the 20^th century, the dam holds back the South River where it flows along Rife Road, just upstream from the Waynesboro Family YMCA.

Rehabilitating the dam would have cost $150,000 to $250,000.

Seth Coffman, Shenandoah Headwaters Home Rivers coordinator for Trout Unlimited, said the $50,000 to $75,000 needed to remove the structure has been raised through grants and private sources. He said the removal should take about a week.

Coffman said removal would lower the temperature of the river below the dam, providing cooler water for trout below the dam. He also said the dam’s removal could open the opportunity for the movement of American eels.

Chester Campbell, president of the Ram Works Unit Owners Association, said homeowners living in the 70 units could not afford a dam repair.

He also said the dam’s presence was a costly liability for property owners.

“It has been a liability because we could not keep people off the dam, and the dam has decreased our ability to pay liability coverage,” he said.

Weaver said older dams sometimes have problems.

He said a 100-foot section of a dam only about 7 feet high on the Appomattox River fell down a couple of years ago.

“What could happen is a section would breach and all of the water would rush through a narrow breach,” Weaver said.

Campbell said the local dam’s removal would reduce insurance costs and allow for the purchase of more effective liability coverage.

Coffman said that, once the dam is removed, other measures would be taken, including construction of in-stream structures to assure the flow of water to the middle of the channel.

And, by next spring, Coffman anticipates work on restoration of the stream upriver from the dam.