Cumberland Dam

Cumberland Dam
Cumberland Dam
Country	United States
Location	Cumberland, Maryland

Last updated August 16, 2023

The Cumberland Dam was a dam that was built across North Branch of the Potomac River in Cumberland, Maryland, for the purpose of diverting water from the river into the head of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company began construction of Dam No. 8 in 1837 and work proceeded intermittently, finally concluding in 1850.^[1]^: 242 The dam impounded water over a distance of a mile, causing back water for about 3 miles (4.8 km) up the river. Above the dam is the mouth of Wills Creek.

Environmental impact

In the early 1900s Wills Creek received a large quantity of industrial sewage and refuse from a paper mill, a brewery, a distillery, a cement works, a tannery, dye works, a gas plant, and a number of coal mines. Furthermore, in the early 1900s the city of Cumberland supplied 2,500,000 US gallons (9,500 m³) of water and discharged 1,000,000 US gallons (3,800 m³) per day into Wills Creek. As expected, these pollutants accumulated in the pond above the dam as if in a settling basin, especially during seasons of low water when no water passed over the crest of the dam.

About 400 yards (370 m) above the dam was the intake of the Cumberland waterworks, where the city's water was pumped from the river directly into the water mains and was served to the inhabitants without being purified through filter beds or other artificial means. Complaints arose yearly prior to 1900 during the dry season, when the water, besides being unpalatable, was scarcely clean enough for laundering purposes. Of the large percentage of impurities which the water contained at such times, a portion was composed of sewage from the city that had backed up to the point of intake of the dam.

Much has changed since 1900 to eliminate these problems. The city's economy has made a significant transition away from manufacturing and coal production. The city's water is filtered and obtained from other water supplies. The city’s sewage is now treated before being discharged.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allegany County, Maryland</span> County in Maryland, United States

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Wills Mountain is a quartzite-capped ridge in the Ridge and Valley physiographic province of the Appalachian Mountains in Pennsylvania and Maryland, extending from near Bedford, Pennsylvania, to near Cumberland, Maryland. It is the northernmost of several mountain ridges included within the Wills Mountain Anticline.

The Maryland Mining Company is a historic coal mining, iron producer and railroad company that operated in Allegany County, Maryland, United States.

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The Hoffman tunnel, or Hoffman drainage tunnel, was constructed to drain water from coal mines northwest of Clarysville in Allegany County, Maryland. The two-mile-long tunnel drains into the Braddock Run tributary of Wills Creek.

Seneca Dam was the last in a series of dams proposed on the Potomac River in the area of the Great Falls of the Potomac. Apart from small-scale dams intended to divert water for municipal use in the District of Columbia and into the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, no version of any scheme was ever built. In most cases the proposed reservoir would have extended upriver to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. The project was part of a program of as many as sixteen major dams in the Potomac watershed, most of which were never built.

The Potomac River basin reservoir projects were U.S. Army Corps of Engineers programs that sought to regulate the flow of the Potomac River to control flooding, to assure a reliable water supply for Washington, D.C., and to provide recreational opportunities. Beginning in 1921 the Corps studied a variety of proposals for an ambitious program of dam construction on the Potomac and its tributaries, which proposed as many as sixteen major dam and reservoir projects. The most ambitious proposals would have created a nearly continuous chain of reservoirs from tidewater to Cumberland, Maryland. The 1938 program was focused on flood control, on the heels of a major flood in 1936. The reformulated 1963 program focused on water supply and quality, mitigating upstream pollution from sewage and coal mine waste.

References

↑ Unrau, Harland D. (2007) [1976]. Gray, Karen M. (ed.). Historic Resource Study: Chesapeake & Ohio Canal (PDF). Hagerstown, MD: U.S. National Park Service.

Newell, F.H. (1900). "The Hydrography of Allegany County". Maryland Geological Survey: Allegany County. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. p. 250. hdl:2027/uiug.30112070501728.

39°38′54.5″N78°45′56.5″W / 39.648472°N 78.765694°W / 39.648472; -78.765694

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[unrau-1] Unrau, Harland D. (2007) [1976]. Gray, Karen M. (ed.). Historic Resource Study: Chesapeake & Ohio Canal (PDF). Hagerstown, MD: U.S. National Park Service.

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