By Dorothy Tod
For 46 years, I’ve lived in the oldest house of the village, upstream from the covered bridge. Warren Village is blessed with both a covered bridge and timber crib dam that have been linked together on the Mad River for more than 100 years. I want them both to stay. I love the scenic quality, the history and the peaceful part this combination produces in the heart of the village.
When I bought my house in 1970, I had a good swimming hole, with water over my head, and first-rate trout fishing. I was warned not to put a furnace in the basement and each year in the 1970s, I did have water in the basement, flooding either from ice jams backing up from the covered bridge during winter thaws or from summer flash floods. Also in the 1970s, as the price of gravel increased, the towns began to mine the river. Gravel was removed each year from behind the dam and under the covered bridge, as well as just upstream from my house, from a huge gravel bar in front of a culvert carrying water off Fuller Hill.
Friends of the Mad River have a graph showing a major high-water event for every year in the 1970s and each year during these flooding events major chunks of bank were lost. In 1977, I organized an effort to stabilize the banks by installing riprap from the covered bridge to the Route 100 bridge and gravel removal from this section of the river mostly ceased. My swimming hole is now only waist deep, no one comes by to fish anymore, but my banks have remained stable.
I experienced no more major flooding until 1998. That year, I not only had water in the basement, but 18 inches of sediment-filled water everywhere in the first floor of my house, as well massive quantities of sediment on every square inch of yard and garden. The covered bridge abutments constrict the river, slowing its flow, creating back eddies, causing the river to drop the sediment in the flood plain, my yard.
During Irene, the water surrounded my house, dropped almost 2 feet of sediment over the entire yard, filled my basement and heating ducts but spared the main part of the house. I was home and could see where the river was moving swiftly, where it was just spreading out. I took these observations into consideration by creating a berm out of the deposited sediment, to keep the sediment from spreading everywhere during the next event. I also planted a riparian buffer – native trees and shrubs in the area formerly covered by dense knotweed to slow the flow.
After the 1998 flood, the studies began: studies to remove the dam, studies to rebuild the dam and studies to repair the covered bridge abutments. The "remove the dam" focus doesn’t take into consideration what high, fast water could do to the covered bridge abutments, much less the upstream properties. The "fix the covered bridge abutments" plan was hobbled by conflicting state agencies’ input. I don't think anybody wants to see the covered bridge torn from its moorings heading down the Mad River in a high-water event like what happened in Rockingham during Irene. The dam, the bridge, the fish, gravel, plants, recreation and tourism are all linked. A study that looks at how they are all linked would be an important foundation from which to view the issues. This is not a "take out the dam" or "not" issue. It is way more complex and important than that.
