Does the dam serve a purpose?

July 1st, 2009 at 09:16am Wally Haas

I was reading an Associated Press story about removing dams from rivers and wondered what purpose the dam just a long softball throw from the News Tower really served. I asked Paul Callighan, a spokesman for ComEd, which owns the dam. Here’s his response:

Since ComEd no longer uses Fordam Dam for power production, it only provides a recreational pool of water in downtown Rockford.  Maintenance of the dam by ComEd was required when our power production license was surrendered to the Federal Power Commission (now the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) in the 1970’s.  Fordam is classified as a “run-of-the-river” dam (not a flood control dam) meaning water coming into the pool from upstream is discharged at the same rate downstream.  The recreational pool extends generally to an area between the Auburn Street and Riverside Boulevard bridges. The gates at the dam operate to maintain a steady level.  Various correspondence and memos suggest the actual river channel through downtown Rockford would be lower and/or smaller than the current shoreline height if the dam were not in place, meaning existing sea walls would be in jeopardy and boating into the downtown area during summer low-flow, low water conditions would likely not be possible.

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