The dam at the north end of Kushaqua Lake will be raised 2-1/2 to 3 1/2 feet this summer to better prepare it to withstand a 100-year flood. (Enterprise photo — Glynis Hart)

ONCHIOTA — The Franklin County legislature approved a bond for $270,000 to rebuild the dam at Lake Kushaqua at its last meeting. The bond is on behalf of residents of nearby Rainbow Lake, which flows into Kushaqua, and will be paid by members of the Rainbow Lake Water Protection District.

Work on the dam is estimated to last 45 to 60 days and will take place early this summer.

The north end of Lake Kushaqua flows under a metal deck bridge on Kushaqua-Mud Pond Road and exits over the dam, morphing back into the North Branch of the Saranac River and flowing toward Mud Pond and beyond. Except for a few empty seasonal cabins, there’s nothing to be seen but trees and water, and nothing to be heard except the rumble of the dam and the occasional squawl of a Cooper’s hawk.

The dam is classed as a “low hazard dam,” in that if it failed, likely nobody would drown. According to the engineering firm’s feasibility report for the project, “some seasonal camps along Goldsmith Road could, potentially, be flooded to a depth of around 2 or 3 feet, but it is unlikely this would result in loss of life.”

On the other hand, failure of the dam could affect shorefront properties on Rainbow Lake, which flows into Lake Kushaqua. There are almost no private properties on Lake Kushaqua — most land parcels are owned by the state — and the dam is owned by the Rainbow Lake Water Protection District, a taxing entity established by Franklin County. There are 201 properties with lakefront property, with a total approximate value of $48 million. The average assessment of the properties in the Rainbow Lake Water Protection District is around $250,000. Six of the parcels are worth more than $1 million each.

After all is said and done, water district fees on the RLWPD parcels will go up to pay for the increases in the water district budget and to pay off the bond. The RLWPD’s normal budget of $5,000 to $7,000 will go up to around $30,000 to pay for the project. The tax on the typical residential property, assessed at $250,900, will be approximately $171 per year, an increase of $45 per year over the 2018 levy.

There appears to have been a dam at the site since before settlers Arthur Leonard and Frank Smith founded the Lake Kushaqua Hotel in 1896, one of the first places in the Adirondacks to have electricity. In 1947 the wooden dam was replaced with the current one by a company that later became New York State Electric and Gas. The dam is no longer used for generating electricity.

After the dam was inspected in the spring of 2011, the state Department of Environmental Conservation engineer who looked at it found that it couldn’t be operated safely in the event of a 100-year flood.

The dam relies on stop logs, which couldn’t be removed during high water except by a crane, and given that the dam is remote, getting a crane out there in a hurry could be difficult.

Peter Geertz of the RLWPD said normally the commissioners hire a local contractor to raise and lower the flash boards and perform routine maintenance.

An report issued in 1995 recommended the logs always be removed during major flood events. At the same time, if the stop logs were removed beforehand, that would bring the level of the lakes down 5 or 6 feet.

“The lower reservoir level is not acceptable to landowners within the District and would have negative effects on the environment,” according to the report.

Prepared by John Carr of Blue Mountain Engineering, the report continues: “The preferred alternative has been determined to be raising the dam … by approximately 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 feet.”

Right now the dam is about 14 feet high.

The project will raise the abutment walls of the dam, which is still sound, 2 feet, 8 inches, and construct a berm for about 325 feet along the shoreline by the dam. The abutment walls will be extended and a new steel-framed deck made so the dam can be operated safely during high-water events. A 7-foot-high chain-link fence will be erected to protect the dam from vandalism.

RLWPD Chair Roger Gorham said board members were pleased that the county legislature approved the project. There was a public hearing on March 22, which cleared the way for the county to issue the bond.