Blue Spruce Dam Indiana County
Crew works to repair dam gate
Written by Randy Wells, Gazette Staff Writer
Tuesday, 25 March 2008
ERNEST - Normally, swimming is not permitted in Blue Spruce Lake.
An exception was made Monday for Mike Folweiler.
Technically, though, he wasn't swimming. He was working.
With the aid of hot water pumped through his wetsuit and a combination hard hat-diving helmet, Folweiler Monday labored 24 feet below the surface of the lake at the bottom of Cummings Dam in Blue Spruce Park.
Folweiler, 21, of Quakake, Schuylkill County, is an employee of Marion Hill Associates, of New Brighton, a company that specializes in construction and repair projects at power plants, bridges and waste water treatment plants.
"Anything in water, we do it," said Justin Broerman, a Marion Hill Associates dive master overseeing the underwater work at the dam.
Folweiler's efforts will make a lot of area fishermen happy. He's preparing the bottom of the breast of the dam for the installation of a new sluice gate. Originally it was planned to drain enough water from the lake to expose the old rusted and inoperable gate so that a new one could be installed.
That plan would have disappointed area fisherman who hope to be standing along the lakeshore when trout season opens April 12.
Broerman said the new gate should be installed by Wednesday - without the need to lower the water level of the lake and without interfering with Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission plans to stock the lake with trout after the fishing season begins.
Folweiler said he was comfortable enough in the heated wetsuit to stay underwater for hours if necessary. Cold wasn't the main obstacle to his work.
"I can't see anything. I'm working by feel," he said when he came up for a break.
Folweiler was suctioning sludge and silt away from the old gate, and was preparing to use an underwater torch to cut off rusted bolts holding the old gate frame to the concrete dam.
Other Marion Hill crew members on top of the dam monitored the pumps sending air and warm water down to Folweiler. They also stayed in contact with the diver over a safety radio.
When the preparation work is completed, a new gate frame, about 30 inches square, will be bolted onto the dam. Then a new gate, along with a heavy rubber gasket, will slide into a grove in the frame. Both pieces are made of cast iron and each weigh about 250 pounds.
When the installation is done, a wheel turned on the top of the dam will raise the gate and allow water to drain out through the bottom of the dam.
Marion Hill Associates is working on the project as a subcontractor to Kukurin Contracting, of Export.
Jim Stormer, of Plumville, a Kukurin foreman, said a similar gate on the downstream-side of the dam had already been replaced, and extensive repairs have been made to the concrete parapets of the dam's spillway. Another small section of concrete remains to be repaired after the second gate is installed.
When it was originally suggested last summer that Blue Spruce Lake might have to be drained to install the new gates, Ed Patterson, Indiana County Parks & Trails director, said volunteers might be needed to net the trout, carp, catfish, bluegills and other fish in the 12-acre lake as the water pool shrank, and then relocate the fish to other nearby bodies of water.
Two grants totaling $175,000 from the state Department of Environmental Protection are paying for most of the work. The remaining $16,191 is coming from Parks & Trails' general budget.
DEP requested that the repair work be done as part of its efforts to improve dam safety throughout the state. Cummings Dam is otherwise considered structurally sound as determined by an annual inspection.
The Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh Railroad built the dam 100 years ago as a source of clean water for its locomotives. The lake was last drained in the mid-1960s when the property was purchased to become part of the emerging Indiana County Parks system.
post edited by outdrwriter - 2008/03/27 07:41:05