Regarding rumors of a dam on the Suwannee River or in the Okefenokee Swamp

[Bill Oigarden]

They posted this at work today.

Regarding rumors of a dam: There is no operational dam on the Suwannee River or in the Okefenokee Swamp. No one has opened any dam, nor has any dam failed. The Suwannee flooding is the result of a large swath of 20-25" rain downstream of the Okefenokee in Columbia and Hamilton Counties. There is an old pair of control structures embedded in a 5-mile-long dike south of the Okefenokee. All that's left of the structures, built in 1960, is crumbling concrete and broken floodgates that remain permanently open, allowing for continuous free flow of water from the Swamp to the Suwannee. The project was intended to hold back water into the Swamp during drought but did not work as intended. Picture of "Dam" at Okefenokee
http://www.srwmd.state.fl.us/DocumentCenter/Home/View/6781

[FW]

Interesting, since they managed to close that non-operational "dam" to attempt controlling the fire there about 5 years ago. When they re-opened it in the spring, then the flooding in the Suwanee was caused by the damn dam.

[hunabku]

The Sill was breached in several places a couple of years ago. Even if the gates were closed it wouldn't matter anymore because the sill is no longer intact.

It was intact a few years ago. I volunteer quite a bit for the FWS and have driven up and down the sill before they breached it. It was a earthworks dam several miles long. It had gates in at least three locations.

[FW]

The Sill was breached in several places a couple of years ago. Even if the gates were closed it wouldn't matter anymore because the sill is no longer intact.

It was intact a few years ago. I volunteer quite a bit for the FWS and have driven up and down the sill before they breached it. It was a earthworks dam several miles long. It had gates in at least three locations.

Here is what happened last time: http://www.cavediver.net/forum/archi...hp/t-7612.html

It really is Sill, not Rill like I typed back then.

[hunabku]

I guess I should clarify that by "Breached" I mean that the FWS used bulldozers and backhoes to permenantly remove portions of the Sill.

Here is an aerial image of the Sill for those still confused. There really was (still there just not intact) a dam in the Okefenokee seperating the Oke from the headwaters of the Suwannee. It is the white line in the image running north that looks like a half hexagon. As you can see it from the scale it was several miles long.

The picture Bill posted may have been one of the several gates along the length of the Sill.

[Puttzer]

So: is the damn dam working now or not?

And will the damn dam be working in the future?

[hunabku]

Why don't you go down to the dam thing and take a dam tour. You can take some dam pictures and maybe even get a dam t-shirt. Probably be the best dam time you ever have.

Just be warned that the don't allow any dam diving. Not even if you have a dam c card.

[gasdiver]

Just watch out for black water Hattie. She lives back in the swamp where strange green reptiles crawl and the snakes hang thick from the cypress trees like sausage on the smoke house wall...

Oh, I forgot, snakes don't climb trees so you should be good to go

[Leslie Sapp]

And the swamp is alive with a thousand eyes, and all of 'em watchin' you!