Solitude

May 09, 2008

Bill Wolfe

[Update: 5/2/20 - In the throes of COVID pandemic lockdown, I thought this was a good piece to repost. See: Solitude, originally published on my column at NJ.com on May 9, 2008.

There used to be several beautiful photos here, but they've been taken down. Ask the assholes at http://NJ.com where they went. Saving a few bucks on bandwidth to destroy beauty is vandalism, not journalism. ~~~ end update]

I recently read an interesting story about Lake Solitude dam in High Bridge (Hunterdon County, South Branch Raritan River). Dams are anathema to environmentalists and many efforts are underway to breach them to restore natural river flows. So I was surprised to learn that a leading environmentalist I respect supported preservation of the dam on historic grounds. I then read that restoring small scale hydro-power was contemplated at the site, so now the issues got even more interesting, as global warming will require these kinds of zero carbon local micro-power renewable energy sources. I've been told that there may be up to 100 old dam sites in NJ where small scale hydro power may be feasible. So I took a ride up to High Bridge to poke around and here's some of the Solitude I found (links to information source at the end of the photo's):

Bill Wolfe

Bill WolfeThe End!

Save our Dam http://www.saveourdam.com/ Preservation New Jersey - top 10 endangered historic sites http://preservationnj.org/ten_most/ten_most_property_detail.asp?COUNTY=Hunterdon%20County&PropID=151 DEP Bureau of Dam Safety http://www.nj.gov/dep/damsafety/staff.htm [Note - the below comment was posted by "Agust" but was screened by NJ Voices spam filer due to "Dick Cheney" - so, don't want folks to think I am supressing it: "Leading environmentalist supports keeping the largest source of thermal pollution on the Raritan, is this environmentalist Dick Cheney? Come back in July when the water entering the lake is 70 degrees and the water flowing over the top of the dam is 85. This is a prime example of an old, useless dam killing one of the finest trout streams in the state. People come from all over to fish the Gorge but beyond the lake the only trout are the ones stocked and even they are usually dead by 4th of July. The dam raises temperature, prevents movement of silt and is classified as dangerous. Please reconsider your praise, while the intricate industrial dam may look pretty but it is in fact poison. Restore the river, breach the dam."]

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