This is great, visited the site last week and it is going to be excellent for the kayak traffic, these sites are definitely a neat part of history but have way out stayed their welcome. Glad I went back last year and took a bunch of pics of the lock and dam before it did breach and was subsequently removed.
It is a great thing that this old L and D was removed since it was long ago taken out of service due to disuse, and then when the under the structure breach of the dam took place---it had to go. It will be good that this removal will allow the Green to go back to a more natural water flow which will be good for wildlife, fishing and recreational paddle sports on the river. On the other hand, as a boater that has boated the Ohio for a long time, it is kind of sad in a way that many of the lock and dam structures are slowly being removed, because they allow for navigation by motor boats coming in from the Ohio. There still are working L &Ds on the Muskingum River up in Central Ohio that date back to the days of the old Miami-Erie Canal systems that still allow boaters to run that river for a distance from the Ohio and the State of Kentucky recently spent significant money to make repairs on several of the L & Ds on the Kentucky that once allow for powerboat navigation from the Ohio, up past Frankfort. I plan to do some boating of both rivers I have mentioned and I guess I had better ad the Green to my list since at some point those last remaining Lock and Dams may be slated for permanent shut down and removal and I am sure that at some point, there will be calls to remove them from the Kentucky and the Muskingum as well, removing the ability to navigate a larger powerboat coming up those rivers from the Ohio. I actually foresee a day, perhaps not in my lifetime, that there will be an end of commercial navigation of the Ohio, and the eventual closure and removal of the large lock and dams found on that river. There are growing calls for the removal of such structures out on rivers in the west like the Columbia and lower Snake Rivers. As for the upper reaches of The Green, I do think it is a good thing that the old lock and dams are going. I am sure that what is left of the old Rochester Dam will get removed at some point. If that happens, if John Prine is still alive when that does happen, he will have to slightly rewrite the verse in his famous song "Paradise" that talks about shooting snakes below the Rochester Dam....
The dams provide the vast majority of electricity down here in western ky and beyond, and river traffic is HUGE down here so the locks are vital on keeping that flowing by giving the barges a way to get up or down to the next level in the journey. Seriously it's a TON of money that goes up and down the rivers
Restored river sections like this typically see an improvement in fish population and size, but powerboat access tends to be more difficult, and the fish don't get concentrated at the dam they way they used to. You'd need a more specialized type of river boat, a shallow draft welded hull john with a Mercury Jet 25 and pair of spike anchors seems to be the go to power boat rig on my local river, but I imagine a trolling motor with a rock guard on a drift boat could work good. Of course, muscle power boats, like an unpowered drift boat or a canoe are probably most people's first choice.
funny, didnt hear anything said about the park wanting the river gone just so they could get deeper into the cave, how bout yall do an episode about the corp of engineers being caught dumping into blueholes along green river in atempts to plug them, or about the wonderful tourism, i mean management of the flow from cambelsville dam, and the destruction of the land along the river
Kind of thinking? Let the dam fall into disrepair through neglect and failure to do your job. Then complain they are a hazard. Seems to be working so far.
