High Point Lake in the Pennsylvania mountains is home to a diverse fish and wildlife population.
Let’s save the High Point Lake fishery and bird sanctuary now!
Fish and Boat Commission — Proposed dam repair project
By early 2020, the Somerset Daily American reported that Paul Urbanik, Director of Engineering for the Commission, listed the High Point Lake as a candidate for a dam rehabilitation project with an estimated cost of $6.4 million.
In 2023, those estimated costs rose to $7.5 million, though we believe that to be an inaccurate number due to historic inflation, among other things, laid out in our May 15, 2024 letter.
Somerset Lake (2012-2022)
The Commission has compared the proposed project at High Point Lake to a $10.1 million project at Somerset Lake completed in 2022, but this was not an apt comparison. In the case of Lake Somerset, dam repairs were needed.
Local residents observed that the Lake Somerset dam breast had ongoing muddy seepage areas in multiple locations. Plus, the dam project ultimately took more than 10 years to complete!
The Fish and Boat Commission considers the dam rehabilitation efforts at Lake Somerset to be a success, but our opinion differs. We see many problems. Please read more in our letter.
High Point’s 1965 dam
The High Point Lake dam recently has been repaired and inspected to be functioning normally after a relatively minor seepage incident in September 2018.
The Commission completed repairs to the dam in 2019, and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection assessed the dam in March of 2021 to be in satisfactory condition, giving it the highest PA DEP rating:
“No existing or potential dam safety deficiencies are recognized. Acceptable performance is expected under all loading conditions. . . .”
“Old” doesn’t mean broken
Just because the High Point Lake dam was built in 1965 does not mean somehow that it is due for a major dam replacement project.
Much larger dams in western Pennsylvania were built well before 1965, such as the nearby Youghiogheny Dam built in 1944, and costly and disruptive dam replacement projects have not been needed for their continued safe functioning.
The Youghiogheny Dam controls a watershed of over 430 square miles – over 100 times the size of High Point Lake, which has a 3.7 square mile watershed, as detailed in our letter.
Open Records Act request
In response to a Pennsylvania Open Records Act Request submitted in late 2023, the Commission has refused to produce pertinent documents in an unredacted form which may contain a rationale for the proposed High Point Lake Dam rehabilitation project.
We are perplexed why the Commission will not inform the public about the engineering rationale for this contemplated project.
Taxpayer money waste
The most recent estimate by the Commission was for $7.5 million in 2023, when the real expected costs likely exceed $16 million, as explained in our letter.
If the Commission dewatered High Point Lake in 2025, relying on an unreliable construction estimate, the dam replacement project could be stalled for years.
Imagine this beautiful lake turned into a large, dewatered mud flat for years, with the fishery and bird habitat destroyed, while the construction project is stalled due to lack of funds.
Beyond all of this, there appears to be no compelling need for this project at the High Point Lake Dam based upon the limited publicly available information.
The current dam
The photos below show the High Point Dam facility in May of 2024; functioning as designed after peak seasonal precipitation, with heavy rainfall in April of 2024.
Note the absence of any visible muddy seepage areas in the dam breast. It looks like a golf course! And this is after near record rainfall for the area!
