Silver Lake residents press again for dam study funds

LACONIA — For the second time in less than a year residents of the area around Silver Lake are pleading to have more than a half-million dollars in federal funds to pay for a study for construction of a dam on the Winnipesaukee River.

However, county commissioners say while they are not opposed to funding the study, they repeatedly insisted Monday that the residents need to to press legislators to build political support to fund the construction of a new dam. Otherwise, commissioners say, the study will be a waste of money.

The residents told commissioners that using $530,000 from nearly $13 million the county has received from the American Rescue Plan Act would help jump-start the dam construction project.

However, Commission Chair Peter Spanos told the Silver Lake contingent that unless there is significant and concerted political support to build the dam — he roughly estimated the cost at between $5 million and $10 million — the study will be money down the drain.

“We are sympathetic,” Spanos told the group. “But it has to be done the right way.”

He said it was imperative that the residents lobby their legislators to persuade them to introduce legislation to ensure that the project is on the state’s agenda. Spanos specifically urged the group to reach out to state Sen. Bob Guida, whose district includes Tilton which, along with Belmont, borders Silver Lake.

“We will put pressure (on the legislators),” resident Paul O’Connell told the commissioners, “but you have to get it started. This is the best chance to get this done. Why not use this money to stimulate the process?”

But Spanos insisted that without any assurance that the state will follow through the plan to build a gated dam to control the release of water, a new study would gather dust just like others conducted in the past.

Silver Lake residents first made their case for using ARPA funds to pay for the study at a hearing held before the County Board of Commissioners last August.

A report by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1985 found the Winnipesaukee River lacked sufficient capacity to draw down Silver Lake in time to provide storage for future rainfall and increased flows. It recommended dredging 6,000 feet of the river channel below the outlet from Silver Lake and building a dam where the river crosses under Route 140 on the Tilton-Northfield line.

Silver Lake, bordered by Tilton and Belmont, is the southernmost of the chain of water bodies, beginning at Lake Winnipesaukee and threaded by Winnipesaukee River, that forms the Winnipesaukee watershed. Lake Winnipesaukee drains through the Weirs Channel into Paugus Bay to the Lakeport Dam, then to Lake Opechee, where the river flows through Laconia to Lake Winnisquam then to Silver Lake.

The entire watershed covers some 566 square miles, of which Silver Lake accounts for less than a third of a square mile. In fact, Lake Winnipesaukee is 220 times the size of Silver Lake. When soils are saturated, an inch of rain can raise the lake 5 inches or more.

Spanos noted that the county has until the end of 2024 to spend its ARPA funds and, as an assurance to the group, promised to hold the $530,000 aside to give those pushing for the study time to muster the necessary political support in Concord.