A plan is in the works to fix the lower dam at Egelman Park in Reading

A plan to fix the lower dam at Egelman Park is in the works.

Reading City Council recently heard an update on the proposed project at a committee of the whole meeting.

Vince Humenay, senior project manager for Engineering Consulting Services, presented the recommended option for the dam on Hill Road. The Malvern, Chester County, firm was contracted by the city.

The dam was drawn down in 2018 after city inspectors deemed it hazardous.

Humenay provided a simplified explanation of the technically complex proposal.

Basically, the plan is to enlarge the spillway and add about 10 feet of fill to the reservoir’s bottom. This would reduce the potential impact on nearby neighborhoods should the dam fail.

An outlet used to drain the reservoir would also be raised, he noted.

Though reduced, Humenay said, the amount of water allowed to refill the reservoir would be enough to support the use of the reservoir as a bass hatchery by the Berks County chapter of the Isaak Walton League.

The local chapter had used the Egelman hatchery to stock largemouth and smallmouth bass in Blue Marsh Lake, but has been unable to use the reservoir since the water was drained.

“So think of the pond as a bathtub,” Humenay said. “We want to fill that up with fill so that we only have four to five feet of water instead of 15 feet of water.”

That way, he said, if the dam were to break, the amount of water escaping downstream would be significantly reduced.

The water exiting the spillway enters a culvert under Hill Road and flows into Rose Valley Creek.

A retaining wall would be built under the new section of spillway to maintain stability along the road.

The extension would be six inches higher than the existing spillway, Humenay said.

During normal flows, water would only spill over the older section spillway, he said. The secondary spillway would be activated if a storm causes the water to rise.

That water would flow down into a catch basin before its gradual release into the culvert.

The idea is to maintain the historic appearance of the dam as far as possible, officials said.

From its banks, the body of water would appear as it had before being drained.

The cut-stone spillway wall and datestone would be preserved intact as far as possible. However, an old pedestrian bridge over the spillway would be removed.

A temporary cofferdam would be used to hold water in the upper dam away from the lower dam work area during construction.

Councilwoman Marcia Goodman-Hinnershitz stressed the importance of maintaining the park’s natural and historical features.

“It’s one of the most beautiful places to walk,” she said.

City public works staff said the plan is the most viable and least invasive option and requires the least disturbance of the park’s aesthetics of the three considered.

Other options were to lower the dam breast or create a stone wash-over, officials said.

The plan presented is the least expensive of the options considered, said David W. Anspach III, city capital project manager.

Anspach said the estimated cost of the project will not be available until the design concludes.

The city received a state grant of $350,000, effective until June 20, for the project, he said.

Source: Berkshire mont