Fish Passage and Dam Removal
The shad migrate further now than they did a decade ago.
In the early 1800's, dams on the Fall Line were built to harness the waterpower
for Virginia's mills and factories. Richmond became a major exporter of flour,
after grinding the wheat with the energy of falling water. Complex systems of
pulleys and cables stretched through multi-storied buildings to transfer the
mechanical energy from the river to the millstones for grain, saws for lumber,
and other equipment. Five different major dams were built on the James River
in Richmond, as the water dropped 100 feet in its 7-mile journey through the
Fall "Zone."
One price for economic progress in the 19th and 20th centuries was the sacrifice of fish habitat. By the end of the 20th Century, the state was actively studying how to mitigate the impacts of development on the fish populations and the natural ecology of the Chesapeake tributaries in Virginia.
Recently, efforts to open fishways around the dams have been completed. The last dam on the James River to get a fish bypass was Boshers Dam, a few miles upstream of Richmond near the I-295 bridge over the river.
On the Rappahannock, Embrey Dam was built nearly a century ago, not far from the site of a pre-Civil War dam. It too was effective in blocking the migration of shad and other anadromous fish upstream - but now Embrey Dam has been removed.
Links
How a Fish Sees Virginia
Natural Lakes vs. Reservoirs
Geography of Virginia
In the early 1800's, dams on the Fall Line were built to harness the waterpower
for Virginia's mills and factories. Richmond became a major exporter of flour,
after grinding the wheat with the energy of falling water. Complex systems of
pulleys and cables stretched through multi-storied buildings to transfer the
mechanical energy from the river to the millstones for grain, saws for lumber,
and other equipment. Five different major dams were built on the James River
in Richmond, as the water dropped 100 feet in its 7-mile journey through the
Fall "Zone."
