Oakley Dam: A Rising Tide

Now that I’m a famous Mahomet Citizen columnist when I run into people around town they frequently ask me questions about the Sangamon River. Questions like “Hey, Scott, have there been any articles written about the Sangamon River by U.S. Supreme Court Justices in Playboy Magazine?”

I of course respond “Why yes, I know of at least one! And that’s quite a story!”

But we must begin at the beginning. With the story of the rising tide of opposition to the Oakley Dam.

Opposition to the Oakley Dam project began with a simple weekend nature hike in Allerton Park by Patricia Hannon. On this hike Patricia first learned about Oakley Dam.

In case you somehow (gasp!) missed the previous Notes column about Oakley, in 1962 the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Congress had authorized Oakley Dam on the Sangamon River upstream of Decatur (technically still in Lake Decatur) to correct for the myriad problems created by the first dam (no need to review the problems with this logic here).  

While Oakley was initially authorized for a cost of $27 million at a height of 621 feet above sea level (which presented no problem for Allerton Park), in 1966, with no public hearing, no announcement and no public input, the Corps decided to raise the height of the dam by 15 feet to 636 feet and raise the cost to about $64 million. This proposed increase would have back up the flood pool all the way to south of Monticello, flooding much of Allerton Park in 5 or 6 feet of water.

So Patricia went home and shared this information with her husband Bruce, and they told several friends and so on.

Soon after, Patricia and Bruce and a few others formed the Committee on Allerton Park, or COAP to stop the dam and save the park.

COAP started with a simple petition drive, stopping people in grocery stores to sign petitions. They talked to people who were at first unaware of the project, and then immediately after hearing about it, were naturally opposed to it. So before 1967 was out, their petition had over 20,000 signatures of people opposed to the dam.

But there was a nearly unbreakable bond between Decatur’s political leadership, the Decatur Chamber of Commerce and pro development groups, and politicians. These included William Springer of the Illinois 21^st District (which included Decatur, Champaign and the entire Oakley project area) and Governors Otto Kerner and Richard Ogilvie, who were all closely aligned with the Army Corps of Engineers which sought to please them all.

And the 20,000 signatures opposed to the project? Well, those were just some people talking. The plans to start building Oakley Dam proceeded apace.

But COAP didn’t give up.

They organized demonstrations and marches, drawing assistance from local news outlets, including the News Gazette, which was unsympathetic to the wasteful Oakley Project. Moreover, the News Gazette was competing for readers with the Decatur based Urbana Courier, which in a clear example of ‘fair and balanced’ reporting, was amazingly very supportive of Oakley Dam.

In the midst of the emerging environmental movement of the late 60’s, the Oakley Dam project quickly took on national importance. Senator Charles Percy of Illinois received more mail concerning the Oakley Dam project than he did on U.S. involvement in Vietnam! Oakley also became a poster child for big government projects run amuck. Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin referred to the Oakley Project as “a pork barrel boondoggle of the most blatant kind.” (important note: this project is not in his state). And Proxmire signed a second petition, circulated in 1968, that gathered 80,000 signatures. Impact on the Corps’ decision making concerning the project? Nil.

In May of 1969, COAP invited noted conservationist U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas to Allerton Park. He led a hike through the park and spoke out about the dam at a protest event alongside John Gregg Allerton.

Articles on the Sangamon River Oakley Dam project appeared in Time magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, and the Christian Science Monitor. Field and Stream magazine named the Oakley Dam project as one of the nation’s 10 most unwanted projects.

And as a result of his trip, Justice Douglas wrote an article in Playboy magazine referring to the Corps of Engineers as “public enemy number one”, criticizing the Corps for its unneeded and environmentally destructive projects and citing as his example the Oakley Dam project on the Sangamon River.

By 1968, COAP had already proposed several quite reasonable alternatives to flooding Allerton Park, while keeping the dam and its “benefits”.

The Corps summarily rejected all compromises. As a matter of fact, in a shining example of government responsiveness to the peoples’ will, in 1969 the Corps proposed raising the height of the dam yet again (to 641 feet) and increased the projected cost of Oakley to $75 million.

Political support for the project remained quite strong and the project proceeded apace.

And by 1970, COAP prepared to sue the Army Corps of Engineers in Federal Court over the Oakley Project.

But since I’m a mere Mahomet Citizen columnist and not (yet) a novelist, my editor tells me that here is where my story must end.

…for now…

Appeared as

Share on Facebook

I’ve always looked up to Eagle Scouts, the highest rank in Scouting. I was a Boy Scout once, advancing all the way to the exalted-sounding rank of “Tenderfoot.” For me to be an Eagle, I’d have had to continue through Second Class, First Class, Star and Life (and who knows how many “snipe hunts”). And then I would have to have earned 21 “Merit Badges” requiring a mastery of 21 different skill sets.

Merit Badges include expected outdoor guy stuff like Camping, Swimming, Hiking, Wilderness Survival, Shotgun Shooting (which could also come in handy for Wilderness Survival) and the ever useful Fingerprinting. Apparently in modern Scouting, you never know when you’ll have to “Be Prepared” to book a felon. But they also include some unexpected stuff like Coin Collecting, Dentistry (presumably a nod to Hermey the elf), Chess, and even Cooking.

But to be an Eagle also requires a Community Service Project benefiting an organization other than the Scouts.  And here’s where our story meets the Sangamon River

Last weekend, a few volunteers from the USRC and I went tromping through the bottomland forest led by Zach Williams of Champaign Boy Scout Troop 101. Zach is working to become an Eagle by helping out Wood Ducks. His Eagle Service Project involves constructing, posting and monitoring 12 Wood Duck nest boxes in the riparian corridors along the Sangamon River. 

Like a lot of Scouts, Zach has had the opportunity to spend the night in some somewhat unusual places. These include deep inside Indiana’s Blue Springs Cave, high on a plateau in the New Mexico desert during a lightning storm which ignited a forest fire on the next ridge over (Awesome!), and, in an experience which undoubtedly served as an early inspiration for his future Eagle Service Project, high in a tree house in the Indiana forest. 

Wood Ducks also nest in trees. And they perch in trees. In fact, they are one of the few ducks with claws on their web feet for perching and nesting. They are also unusual because they are often found in heavily wooded swamps, and they eat nuts and berries, with acorns being among their favorite food.  Wood ducks are widely regarded as one of the most beautiful ducks in North America. The Complete Birds of North America describes the male as having “stunning, intricate plumage that renders it distinctive.” The female, like a lot of females (ducks, that is) is merely a “gray brown ghost of the male.”

Around the turn of the 20^th century, Wood Ducks were one of the most hunted species. Even though slightly smaller than a mallard, they were hunted for food (why not?), but also for that lovely plumage, which apparently looked just dandy in ladies’ hats. And by the 1900’s most of the Wood Ducks had disappeared from their range and had become nearly extinct due to a combination of habitat loss and overhunting.

But Wood Duck nest box building programs, first begun here in Illinois in the 1930’s, have been integral to restoring their populations to healthy levels. So Zach, with support from the USRC, is out putting up nest boxes in our area. If the Wood Duck hen likes Zach’s boxes, she will build a nest using the cedar shavings Zach put inside and lay 12 to 15 eggs, one a day, and then she’ll incubate the eggs for about 30 days.

At 16, Zach is a sophomore who lives with his parents, presumably with their willing support, for a few more years. But someday soon Zach will leave the nest with plans of becoming a Champaign cop, sadly leaving his parents with an “empty nest”.

But Wood Ducks have no qualms about becoming “empty nesters” too soon. It seems that the next morning after hatching, the hen flies out, leaving her brood in the nest box and after checking for predators, she goes down to the ground beneath the nest and calls them out. These nests can be located in some instances as high as 290 feet off the ground; in the case of Zach’s boxes, it’s about 8. But even though these poor hatchlings born yesterday are too teensy to fly, they must leap out of the nest, falling straight to the ground, never to return to the nest again. And we thought “Tiger Moms” were tough on their kids.

At this point, were Zach a Wood Duck, wildlife experts would give him only a 40% chance of survival in the wild. This assumes, of course, that Zach would not have earned his “Wilderness Survival” Merit Badge, which would undoubtedly increase his chances considerably. But despite these odds, Zach’s Eagle Scout Service Project will certainly help to increase our population of Wood Ducks along the Sangamon River.

Scouting does in fact last a lifetime. Talking to my old buddy Steve on the phone recently, I was telling him about my life on the river and the things I get to do with the USRC, and Steve said “y’know, you’re still just a Boy Scout!”

When standing with young people like Zach, I realize I couldn’t be more proud. 

Appeared as Notes from the River, Mahomet Citizen, March 7, 2012, by Scott P. Hays

Share on Facebook

Driving across the Sangamon River at Reas Bridge Road, my first thought was, “They were going to dam the Sangamon here?”  My second thought was, “Just where the heck is the Sangamon River anyway?”

‘Here’ was on a bluff by an old cemetery just north of Reas Bridge Road overlooking the Sangamon River, also known in these parts as Lake Decatur.

As I looked out over the north end of Lake Decatur, it occurred to that sometimes the largest and proudest monument to a monumental effort is something you don’t even see. This is the story of this unseen monument to that monumental effort.

Lake Decatur was constructed in 1922 as a water source for Decatur and to supply water for one of its largest companies at the time, A.E. Staley. Building a dam in the main channel of the Sangamon River (as opposed to a tributary) was something of a risk due to the possibility of heavy sedimentation. So Lake Decatur was also considered to be an experiment at the time to determine the feasibility for building dams in flat agricultural areas.

The heavy sedimentation on the Sangamon River is a result of agricultural runoff. To reduce sedimentation, farmers were frequently urged to use soil conservation methods to keep topsoil from rushing off of their farmland and into the Sangamon River. 

Nonetheless, between 1922 and 1936, Lake Decatur lost 14% of its storage capacity to sedimentation. By 1946, a survey of sedimentation in Lake Decatur revealed that it was filling with silt at the alarming rate of 236 acre feet per year.

And by the mid 1960’s, another sedimentation survey of Lake Decatur revealed that it had lost 35% of its storage capacity due to siltation and had become laced with farm chemicals.

At this point, you or I might quite logically conclude that the Lake Decatur dam experiment was a failure and that building dams in flat agricultural areas was probably not such a good idea after all.

But to government officials, the solution to a failing dam seemed obvious: build another dam!

For years, the Army Corps of Engineers had been planning “Oakley Dam” on the Sangamon River near the rural town of Oakley for flood control purposes. With Decatur joining in support, Oakley Dam was authorized by Congress in 1962.

Along with the political powers in Decatur, the project was enthusiastically supported over the years by U.S. Senators Everett Dirksen, Charles Percy, Adlai Stevenson and Paul Douglas. Area Republican Congressmen William Springer and Edward Madigan were also supporters along with a succession of Illinois governors: Otto Kerner, Richard Ogilvie and Dan Walker.

In 1966, to provide for new benefits of the project, including water supply for Decatur, recreation and tourism, and pollution control, the Corps more than doubled the scope of the project. The original reservoir was to have been 8 miles long; this new lake would be 24 miles long. However, it would also extend the reservoir to just south of Monticello, ending agricultural production on 35,000 acres of land and displacing 110 families.

This expanded project would “reduce pollution” by allowing “low flow augmentation” to maintain a 2 foot depth of flow in the Sangamon River downstream from Lake Decatur. This would reduce pollution, not by actually reducing it, but by diluting the partially treated wastes from the Decatur Sanitary District just below the Decatur dam. Sometimes during those pesky dry periods, the flow of the Sangamon below the Lake consisted entirely of this partially treated effluent from this sewage treatment plant. This was “pollution control”, late 60’s style.

And upstream of the dam, one consequence of this “low flow augmentation” would be the expansive mudflats which would be exposed when the low flow water is released exposing the reservoir bottom. One report suggested these “malodorous mudflats” would “hamper recreation.”  As for me, it’s hard to imagine any fun recreational activities in malodorous mudflats, but no matter.

A 1973 report by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency stated that this expanded Oakley Reservoir was expected to be “shallow, silty, turbid, algae ridden and frequently in violation of public health standards.”

I’m guessing these guys probably weren’t going to be hired to draft the tourist brochures.

Finally, in backing up the river 24 miles, this expansion would also necessitate permanently flooding Allerton Park with 5 to 6 feet of water. The Corps sought special “flowage easements” on 1100 acres of Allerton, including all of the bottomland forest. For the record, Allerton Park is about 1500 acres.

By this point, dear readers, you’re probably left wondering, well, why wouldn’t Decatur want a water supply that would frequently violate public health standards and create a nifty shallow, algae ridden reservoir that would inundate most of Allerton Park and would provide fun recreational activities in malodorous mudflats?

It turns out that this was precisely what these several Senators, Congressmen, the Corps of Engineers, and a parade of Illinois Governors and Decatur public officials did want.  Plans were set to begin construction in 1969!

But in threatening Allerton Park, the dam builders were about to find out that they had just messed with the wrong people.

…to be continued…

Appeared as "Notes from the River", Mahomet Citizen, February 21, 2012, by Scott P. Hays

Share on Facebook