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Belchertown Land Trust releases Upper Bondsville Dam report

The Pioneer Valley Planning Commission has researched funding sources for repair or demolition at the Upper Bondsville Dam.

BELCHERTOWN – A report commissioned by the Belchertown Land Trust states that there are potential grants that could help defray the cost of demolition of the Upper Bondsville Dam and strategies for combining different funding sources for its repair and maintenance.

The report, produced by the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, states “there are no funding sources specifically for repair and maintenance of dams,” but there are “possible strategies that could be pursued and some combination of these could conceivably raise sufficient monies for repair and maintenance of the Upper Bondsville Dam.”

Its findings are important to the Belchertown Land Trust, which reluctantly owns the Upper Bondsville Dam, which has been described in engineering reports accepted by the state as being in poor condition and a hazard.

The state has ordered the land trust to either take the dam down or repair it and continue to maintain it.

Preliminary cost estimates for repair or demolition have come in at about $350,000, an amount which Land Trust president James P. Fox said is considerably beyond his organization’s financial ability.

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Belchertown Land Trust president James P. Fox at the Upper Bondsville Dam.

Fox said Wednesday that the board of directors of the Land Trust have not decided whether to demolish or repair the dam.

He said they will look into funding strategies and would be willing to turn the dam over to any individual or organization that would take responsibility for it.

Because of the impoundment that the dam creates upstream, many riverbank landowners and people who use the Swift River for recreation have urged that the dam be kept intact.

An organization formed to advocate for keeping the Upper Bondsville Dam in place, the Swift River Preservation Association, has filed suit in state Land Court seeking to prevent the Belchertown Land Trust from demolishing the dam.

Fox said the lawsuit drains energy and money from his organization, but he said his board of directors are pursuing strategies for either repair or demolition, including suggestions from state Sen. Stanley C. Rosenberg, D-Amherst, related to involvement from the three towns along the Swift River – Palmer, Belchertown and Ware.

The Pioneer Valley Planning Commission report mentions selling Land Trust property, the state LAND program, the state environmental bond program, Belchertown’s Community Preservation program, state grants for hydropower and betterments as potential funding sources that could be put toward repair and maintenance.

The Planning Commission report lists government agencies and private organizations that provide grant money for habitat restoration that could be used toward demolition of the dam.

» Read the report:

Funding Prospects for the Future of the Upper Bondsville Dam


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