Description and Details

The Kinzua Dam was com­plet­ed in 1965 by the Pit­tburgh Dis­trict of the Unit­ed States Army Corp of Engi­neers in the hopes to pro­vide flood con­trol and improve the water qual­i­ty of the Pitts­burgh region. The dam is locat­ed in War­ren Coun­ty, Penn­syl­va­nia and holds the Alle­gany Riv­er result­ing in the Alle­gany reser­voir which extends for 27 miles behind the dam with a depth of 120 feet. The dam also pro­duces hydro­elec­tric pow­er. The Kinzua Dam was pro­posed in response to the cat­a­stroph­ic flood­ing in Pitts­burgh where some floods result­ed in water lev­els 21 feet above the typ­i­cal flood lev­els which occurred over the peri­od of a day. Con­gress passed the Flood Con­trol Act of 1936 which enabled the con­struc­tion of the Kinzua Dam but wasn’t fur­ther explored until 1956 when sur­vey­ing began for the dam construction. 

The Seneca Nation of Indi­ans Alle­gany Ter­ri­to­ry is locat­ed along the Alle­gany Riv­er and strong­ly opposed the con­struc­tion of Kinzua Dam as it would require flood­ing 10,000 acres of their ter­ri­to­ry and los­ing sacred bur­ial grounds. The Army Corps of Engi­neers defined this land as the “take area” as it fell below 1,365 feet of ele­va­tion so most of the area would be flood­ed or inhab­it­able. The Seneca peo­ple liv­ing in this area were forced to relo­cate and their pre­vi­ous towns were burned. Over­all, the Seneca Nation lost nine com­mu­ni­ties, 10,000 acres of ter­ri­to­ry, and 600 Seneca peo­ple lost their homes.

The Seneca Nation did “fight back” by launch­ing a legal case that was ground­ed in the Treaty of Canandaigua which was formed in 1794 and affirmed the per­ma­nent friend­ship between the Iro­quois Con­fed­er­a­cy and the Unit­ed States. The treaty defined the ter­ri­to­ry of the Seneca Nation and declared that the U.S. will not dis­turb the Seneca nation and the Seneca peo­ple have the right to free use of the land. The Seneca Nation believed their ter­ri­to­ry could not be sur­veyed or sur­ren­dered to the Army Corp of Engi­neers because of the treaty but in 1957 the fed­er­al court decid­ed against them in Unit­ed States vs. 21,250 Acres of Land Etc. which stat­ed the nation had no right from bar­ing fed­er­al agents from enter­ing its ter­ri­to­ry and resist­ing the tak­ing of its land via emi­nent domain. The rul­ing also stat­ed that the treaty can­not rise above the pow­er of Con­gress to leg­is­late. This fur­ther result­ed in legal bat­tles that ulti­mate­ly result­ed in the U.S. gain­ing con­trol of the Kinzua Dam con­struc­tion. The Seneca Nation pur­sued anoth­er route in 1957 by hir­ing a civ­il engi­neer to explore alter­na­tive flood con­trol solu­tions which result­ed in the Conewan­go-Cat­ta­rau­gus Plan which pro­posed a diver­sion dam near Cold­spring, NY to divide the flow of the Alle­gany riv­er as it was dis­cov­ered that the Kinzua Dam was not an opti­mal solu­tion to flood­ing in the Pitts­burgh region. The diverged water would be rerout­ed into two out­lets with one being Lake Erie, and along this path a recre­ation lake would form. This plan was argued to have advan­tages to the Kinzua Dam and Lake Erie would hav­ing greater stor­age capac­i­ty mean­ing increased flood pro­tec­tion. This dis­cov­ery delayed con­struc­tion of the Kinzua Dam and gained wide­spread sup­port. The Army Corps of Engi­neers respond­ed by hir­ing an engi­neer­ing firm to eval­u­ate the Kinzua Dam plans and the Seneca Nation’s alter­nate pro­pos­al. The firm con­clud­ed the Conew­na­go-Cat­ta­rau­gus plan was too expen­sive but the engi­neer­ing firm (TAMS) could have been biased in favor of the Corps as it was its biggest client for the firm. The Seneca peo­ple did receive set­tle­ment funds from the U.S. gov­ern­ment to relo­cate their people.

The Kinzua Dam has pro­tect­ed the Pitts­burgh area from flood­ing and pol­lu­tion and the Alle­gany resevoir is pro­tect­ed from fill­ing with sed­i­ment as most of the river’s sed­i­ments set­tles 20 miles away from the Kinzua dam in the Seneca Nation ter­ri­to­ry. Cli­mate change is a cause for con­cern for the dam as the area has expe­ri­enced record rain­fall result­ing in the pos­si­bil­i­ty for flood­ing to still occur in the Pitts­burgh region. This record rain­fall also impacts the area upstream of the dam which is expe­ri­enc­ing more flood­ing as well as the result of the grow­ing imper­vi­ous­ness of the river’s flood­plain. This is result­ing in flood­ing in com­mu­ni­ties not accus­tomed to it and could bring increased pol­lu­tion to the area from the flood runoff waters. 

CEE sub­jects: Con­struc­tion Engi­neer­ing and Man­age­ment, Envi­ron­men­tal Engi­neer­ing, Hydraulics and Hydro­log­i­cal Engi­neer­ing, Envi­ron­men­tal Pol­i­cy and Sus­tain­able Infrastructure

Com­ments: Addi­tion­al media is avail­able detail­ing emerg­ing con­t­a­m­i­nants of con­cern in the Alle­gany riv­er due to indus­tri­al prac­tices that may be of inter­est in cre­at­ing a larg­er case study for this topic.

Discussion Questions

  • While the time peri­od the Kinzua Dam was pro­posed and built in is very dif­fer­ent from today, what can we learn from its pur­sued con­struc­tion? Was the Kinzua Dam the right choice? 
  • The Seneca peo­ple pro­posed an alter­na­tive option to the Kinzua Dam con­struc­tion that was not approved due to the mon­e­tary costs despite the option pro­vid­ing increased flood­ing pro­tec­tion. This is com­mon in engi­neer­ing projects for some designs to be cho­sen over oth­ers but how can we ensure that all com­mu­ni­ties are ben­e­fit­ting equal­ly from a project? More impor­tant­ly, what con­sid­er­a­tions should be tak­en into account with a long-term con­struc­tion project like a dam? 
  • What bias­es, if any, were present in the con­struc­tion of the Kinzua Dam and can bias­es pre­vent engi­neer­ing designs from being the best they can be?
  • While the Seneca peo­ple and their cul­ture are still alive and thriv­ing com­pared to oth­er indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties, a huge loss was tak­en to their cul­ture and their way of the land. How does the loss of indige­nous knowl­edge affect the envi­ron­ment and how can this knowl­edge be used in engi­neer­ing principles?

References

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