Bean Dam buy held up

Town could get lots more in the deal

The Conservation Commission is talking with the current owner of the Bean Dam on the Tioga River in an effort to resolve a problem that's arisen over the town's efforts to purchase the river embankment and more than 60 acres of mostly woodlands property surrounding it.

Several years ago the Dam Bureau of the state Department of Environmental Service (DES) issued an order to have the dam fixed or removed, according to Technician Rick Ball of the town's Land Use Office.

"Their fear is that if it backs up water suddenly, it would wash out Brown Hill Road," Ball said.

"I've got an intuitive feel that wouldn't happen but I'm not saying I'm really qualified to judge that," he added.

Commission Chairman Ken Knowlton agreed with Ball, pointing out the Tioga has reached several high points in the last few month — to the point of even going over the dam — but although it leaks there's no indication that it's likely to release water in such an extent as to cause damage to the heavily used neighborhood road.

But state officials are still concerned about the structure — and town officials understand those concerns.

The dam, which was built back some time in the 1920s or '30s when several mills along the Tioga River used dams to harness the water's power, is about 120-feet long and about 30-to-40-feet long at its base, Ball said. "It's a timber-crib dam which means they built the walls out of timbers, squared it off, then filled it it with rocks."

Now the stones, measuring between 8-inches and one-foot in diameter, are still there but all of the exposed wood has rotted away, said Knowlton. "Now it's just one rock stone dam and it's settling."

Last year the commission signed a purchase-and-sales agreement with property owner James Locke Sr. to buy 61-acres of land, including the dam, for $125,000. It would use funds the town gets when property owners take their land out of the "current use" property tax shelter program, a move Town Meeting voters approved last year. The current use change tax is 10-percent of a property's current market value.

The problem now seems to be that the deal is contingent upon Locke breaching the dam — making a hole in it big enough to insure a more steady water flow — but the property owner may be hesitant to pay for the work.

"Mr. Locke is looking to fulfill the DES requirement of breaching the dam and he's submitted a plan to do that that was rejected, and he's going to be submitting another one," Knowlton said. "So he's kind of caught between a rock and a hard place, no pun intended."

Locke was not available for comment yesterday and neither Knowlton nor Ball said they knew how much the breach work will cost.

But Ball said that at the commission's last meeting, the members indicated that they might be willing to reopen sales negotiations with Locke with the apparent goal of completing the buy and allowing the commission to pay for the breach.

Knowlton said the commission has long sought to purchase the dam — which, until Ball arrived several years ago, town officials already thought was Belmont property. The chairman said the 61 acres abut several other woodland and other pristine properties, including the "largest unfragmented piece of property in Belmont. It's close to pieces of property that have been given to the Conservation Commission from cluster developments," in which developers are allowed to put more homes than normally permitted on a piece of land if they 'cluster' the buildings together and leave other parts of the property in a pristine state.

Another reason the town would like to complete the Locke land purchase is that the property owner has indicated that there are several other lots around town that he owns — and that were once owned by the old Belmont Mill company — he would give to the town. That's partly because "the deed that transfers the land to him... was the most interesting and convoluted deed I've ever seen in my life," Ball said.

The deed indicates as many as 60 lots, has as many as 19 "reversals" — that is, if the land is not used for the originally intended purpose, it reverts to the past owner — and all flowage rights to the Tioga, the land use technician said.

"He (Locke) has already told us he would also give the town a lot of those remaining interests that are in the deed so that's fairly important to us," Ball said.

The Commission is expected to discuss the dam land purchase at its meeting Wednesday.