Wiped out by the floods that wracked Long Island last summer, the dam that created Stump Pond in Smithtown will be rebuilt by the county under a $6.6 million emergency appropriation approved by the Suffolk Legislature.
The dam was created in 1798 when Isaac Blydenburgh and his cousins stopped up the headwaters of the Nissequogue River to power a grist mill. The pond’s name derives from the tree stumps protruding through the water on what were previously the riverbanks.
Following a deluge of up to 10 inches of rain on the night of August 18, the dam let loose and acres of water drained into the Long Island Sound. The pond, a key feature of the popular Blydenburgh Park, was reduced to a trickle of stream water, its ancient stumps exposed for the first time in centuries.
“This project represents a critical investment in our parks and infrastructure,” said County Executive Ed Romaine in requesting the funds, $600,000 of which will go to planning the new levy. “By acting now, we are ensuring our residents’ safety and preserving one of our county’s most cherished natural spaces.”
Sponsoring the bill, which directs money from the county’s Emergency Mitigation Fund, was the legislature’s presiding officer, Kevin McCaffrey, who noted: “Suffolk’s parks are an incredible asset and the legislature takes pride in their preservation and enhancement.”
Not everyone is on board with bottling up the Stump watershed. John Turner, a naturalist with the Seatuck Environmental Association, argues that the two streams that fed the pond should be left to run freely into the Nissequogue. “From a public user perspective, from a financial perspective, from an environmental and ecological perspective, a free-flowing system is much more preferable to what the county's proposing to do,” he said. According to Turner, the pond area should be allowed to return to its natural state by allowing native plant and animal species to repopulate it. “This would save the taxpayers $6.6 million and actually provide for a better park,” he said.
The need to hold back water to run the historic grist mill that’s still located at the park is long gone, Turner noted. “The stream can still be used to run the mill if that’s what they want to do, but it hasn’t been operational in years,” he said. Like other structures built during a different time in Long Island’s history, the dam blocks vital fish species, such as eels and alewives, from returning to their native breeding grounds.
The dam that created Mill Pond in Stony Brook was also washed out during the August storm, which Brookhaven officials called “Biblical” in scope. Homes along the path to Stony Brook Harbor were destroyed, along with Harbor Road, which was built on top of the centuries-old dam. Efforts to rebuild it are also underway.