Southeastern Fishes Council
In the News
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Explosives Rip Into Embrey Dam
February 24, 2004
Release from:
Associated Press
Fredericksburg, Va. - Hundreds of spectators crowded the banks of the Rappahannock River Monday to watch Army divers twice set off plastic explosives under the historic Embrey Dam, which will be destroyed to free the river and allow migratory fish upstream.
A few minutes after noon, U.S. Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., who secured full federal funding for the $10 million demolition project, signaled divers to trigger 600 pounds of explosives.
As a portion of the 94 year old city dam exploded, a loud cracking noise was followed by a burst of smoke and water. But officials estimated that only 10 percent of the explosives actually ignited.
The second blast, about 90 minutes later, shook the city, spewed debris and sent a wave downriver.
Plans call for the Embrey Dam to be dismantled and removed by February 2006. The 22-foot-high dam hasn't produced power since the 1960s.
For environmentalists and anglers, the project means replenished populations of migratory fish such as shad will be able to swim upriver to spawn. For paddlers, it eventually will mean shooting the white water instead of portaging canoes and kayaks around the dam.
For others, the breach is simply a sentimental event, the razing of a relic of an industrial era when the river's shore was dotted with mills.
Eager to watch the explosion of the 22-foot-high dam, residents began arriving as early as 5 a.m. "It's sort of out of respect for the dam," Bob Wallace, a Fredericksburg resident, told the Free Lance-Star of Fredericksburg. "It's done its job well. It's a landmark."
Embrey is the first significant dam to come down in Virginia "in modern times," said Alan Weaver of the state's Game and Inland Fisheries Department, and its destruction will make the Rappahannock the longest free-flowing river in the Chesapeake Bay watershed - 184 miles from the Shenandoah Mountains to the bay.
It is also the second-largest dam to be dismantled in the United States since 1999, when the Edwards Dam was breached in Maine, a date many see as the start of a movement to restore American rivers by removing dams and bringing back natural flows.
The Rappahannock's significance to greater Fredericksburg is like the Potomac's to Washington. It has provided drinking water and electrical power, a place to fish and canoe and a lush backdrop for true stories about Union and Confederate soldiers facing one another across its waters.
"I've been on the Rappahannock since I was a Boy Scout and I've always been in love with it," said Bill Micks, who runs an outfitting business on the river. "It's the place to go when you want to re-energize yourself. There is a lot of growth taking place in the Fredericksburg area, but the river looks the same. It's an incredible place."
Embrey's demise will open up hundreds of miles of main stem and tributary waters to migratory fish - including American shad, hickory shad and blueback herring - for the first time since 1854, when a wooden crib dam was built to power mills.
Anglers will see results immediately, as spawning season begins next month. Boaters, however, will have to wait, as the river around the dam is expected to be closed for one to two years while chunks of concrete and steel are removed.
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