Franklin County Supervisors OK Pigg River Project

By Ruth L. Tisdale, The Roanoke Times, Va.

Dec. 19–ROCKY MOUNT — The Franklin County Board of Supervisors agreed Tuesday to fund the environmental assessment needed before a dam on the Pigg River near Rocky Mount can be removed.

The county is considering removing the dam to build a kayak park on the site that will be the first of its kind in the region.

The environmental review could have been funded by the federal government but it would have taken nearly two years to complete, according to Scott Martin, director of commerce and leisure services in the county.

By allowing the county to pay for the assessment, it will take only nine months to complete.

Martin said the assessment should cost the county between $75,000 and $100,000 and the money would be returned to the county by the Natural Resources Conservation Service when the project is complete.

The power dam was built in 1915, but hasn’t been used since the 1950s.

Removing the dam would also remove a barrier for the Roanoke logperch, an endangered fish found in the Pigg River.

Martin said more than 370,000 cubic yards of noncontaminanted sediment was found behind the dam in late October.

"We were lucky that it wasn’t contaminated," Martin said. "It would have put a halt to the whole project. You don’t want to remove the dam with the risk that there would be chemicals moved into the water."

While the environmental assessment is being conducted on the Pigg River dam, the board approved $200,000 to be used to fund an in-stream project at the low-head dam at Veterans’ Memorial Park in Rocky Mount.

The project would help with boat and fish passage as well as act as a bio-monitoring plan for the Pigg River dam removal and provide recreation to the southern entry of the town, Martin said.

"This is a smaller project that we can undertake while waiting for the environmental assessment to be completed," Martin said.

Martin said the assessment will be placed for bid in February and will begin in March. Construction on the low-head dam project should begin in July or August and will be completed by October.

The dam removal project, which would be the second largest in Virginia, is slated to begin in 2010.

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