ORANGE — The state government has restored $100,000 in aid to repair the dam by the Mahar Regional School, with the project out to bid.
Superintendent Tari Thomas said the money was allocated in the budget last fall, then stripped from the 2014-2015 budget and returned in the 2015-2016 budget. The district receiving the money this month.
Thomas wrote that the money will help defray the amount of borrowing needed to fund the total cost of the dam rehabilitation and therefore reduce the overall debt assessment to the member towns over the next five years. The full cost is not yet settled, with the project currently out to bid. Early estimates were in the hundreds of thousands.
The dam, on a stream by the school, has been under a Department of Conservation and Recreation safety order since 2008 with an expectation that it be repaired or removed by July 2014, according to a district memo. The district originally intended to tear out the dam in response to the order.
The efforts of a volunteer group interested in preserving the dam turned the focus to repair.
According to the undated district project history, the cost estimates — controversial in themselves — were at one time $300,000 to remove the dam and $380,000 to $420,000 to repair it.
The dam creates a pond on Gulf Brook, beside the school. Carl Sauter, a prominent proponent of preserving the dam, remembers the pond for its place in the outdoors culture of his generation of alumni and views it as an instructional aid in engineering for a school with two nearby major employers — now one — in the water control business.
You can reach Chris Curtis at:
ccurtis@recorder.com