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#Post#: 364--------------------------------------------------
The Erie Canal Embankment Breach Flood Potential Explained
DIR By: Doug K
Date: March 22, 2019, 11:57 am
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Finally figured out a way to illustrate why the NY Canal
Corporation's Embankment Integrity Program is so
important...it's all about the potential of the flood
devastation if the Embankment were to breach. And that potential
can be simply explained with water volume... and Erie Canal
history.
The Erie Canal turned 200 years young in 2018, kind of sorta. It
was started in 1817, and took 8 years to get built, the first
time. The Erie Canal wasn't big by today's version that we see,
it was a shallow, 4' deep by 40' wide trench full of stinky
water. Finished in 1825, it opened up the West to pioneers and
made NY State the gateway for low cost shipping & transport
across the growing nation. Here's a website to see some great
old pictures of the early canal as it transformed. Erie Canal
enlargements walked hand in hand with an ever growing canal
barges & shipping vessels.
HTML http://www.eriecanal.org/misc-1.html
The US quickly outgrew the Erie Canal and it's first major
renovation started in the 1830s and ran through 1862. It nearly
doubled the size of the waterway and also grew the many locks in
length & width. Here's a few illustrations of the canal internal
& external profile design of the first Canal Enlargement.
[attachimg=1]
Erie Canal traffic grew and once again the State of NY planned
yet another enlargement of the Erie. It would be so dramatic
they renamed the waterway to the NY State Barge Canal. This
"new" version was 3 times the original size in all ways, length,
width and water depth. If you live along the waterway it's what
we see today.
HTML http://www.eriecanal.org/index.html
In all of these eras of the Erie-Barge Canal, there have been
constants, like canal breaches that caused great flooding
events. They are well documented in stories and old newspapers
around our area. There are lots of causes for Canal Embankment
breaches, from animals to weather to simply aging around key
embankment areas. There hasn't been a version of the Erie Canal
over the past 200 years that hasn't had a leak or major flood.
But don't kid yourself, science & probability are saying the
Erie Canal embankments are in need of another era of change...
not to widen the canal, but to clear the overgrowth and neglect
that has come with less commercial use of the canal in it's
modern era where trucks & trains move product, not boats. The
neglect the Erie has experienced is a fact, verified by the new
owners of the Erie Canal, that most routine maintenance has been
lacking on the waterway for some time now, and NYPA intends to
fix the embankment safety issues that has caused.
And if it breaks again the flooding will be worse than anyone
can "ever remember".. just like we see on TV news in the
Midwest.
Look at how much MORE water there is now.
[attachimg=2]
Everyone who is old enough to remember the last breach of the
canal in Bushnell's Basin will say that was "so much water".
Folks, that was coming out of a small hole in the bottom of the
canal bed that flowed out a culvert that was used to carry a
creek under the Erie. It was a pretty "controlled" flood event
and the culvert most likely provided limits to the size of the
"hole" that was letting the Erie Canal drain out. That
particular area around Bushnell's Basin also has TWO canal Flood
Gates that also may have helped limit the amount of water that
was lost.
Many point at this and say "men caused that flood, the canal
won't flood if men don't touch it". History proves them wrong..
unsafe, improperly maintained & managed earthen embankment dams
will break, it's just a matter of time... and the Erie canal has
a history.
[attachimg=3]
An Erie Canal Embankment Breach will not be nearly as nice to an
area that it will flood as the 1974 culvert flood. It will not
stop at cement walls of a culvert and head down the wash of an
area creek. It will try to widen the breach as large as possible
as the water washes away the Embankment dam wall along with
people's homes and lives. It will clear everything downstream of
the breach for a few miles or more... who knows how deep as that
depends on how tall & wide the Dam section is that breaks.
Some in our communities along the Erie Canal will accuse the
ECNA of "scare-mongering" with this posting...but those folks
fail to even consider our safety, choosing a path that says "if
it's not broke don't fix it". The Erie Canal is broken, easy to
see by the extensive repairs made in 2018 and recent Embankment
Inspections that show major safety issues and the potential for
Dam failure.
Sadly these same people fighting the Embankment Program also
fail to hear the owners of the Erie Canal saying that it is
broken. That is why the New York Power & the Canal Corporation
are spending the money to fix the Erie Canal. "Significant flood
events will occur"... that is what experts say about what will
happen without proper Earthen Dam Remediation in our country.
And what does science say?
As long as there is large woody vegetation growing on Earthen
Embankment Dams there is a high risk of potential flooding...
due to too many factors to list here.
When will the Rochester community wake up and demand the NYCC
Embankment Program does it's job, to make us all safe again, and
anyone standing in the way of public safety is held accountable?
When will the Rochester area wake up & smell the coffee... it's
never a smart idea to fight against Safety.
#Post#: 394--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Erie Canal Embankment Breach Flood Potential Explained
DIR By: Erie Canaller
Date: March 28, 2019, 12:01 pm
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Wow, where do you find this stuff? Great pictures and like the
way you guys tie all this together. Saw that you have a another
website with lots more good information...www.ecna.us . Is that
going to replace this forum someday?
Pretty good idea to have something like this for a neighborhood
that is as wide as New York. What's been needed for awhile is a
way for Erie canal neighbors to be able to talk to each other
and it seems like this might work, thank you.
Passing this along to friends in central NY, they might be
interested in Little Falls.
#Post#: 395--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Erie Canal Embankment Breach Flood Potential Explained
DIR By: Doug K
Date: March 28, 2019, 12:52 pm
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Thank you, pass the word along.
Pls take a look at the Main Forum Board and think about signing
up as a member
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