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Jacksonville dam leaks Mail Tribune / Steve Johnson Forester Paul Kangas talks about the future of the Jackson Creek dam behind him on Reservoir Road outside Jacksonville. Because the dam is leaking water, it was labeled a "high hazard currently unsafe to store water" in an engineer�s report. Jacksonville will further study the dam to determine whether it should be repaired or removed. By Melissa Martin JACKSONVILLE � An 88-year-old earth dam that�s leaking a streamful of water every day has been labeled a hazard to homes below it, according to an engineer�s report. The city of Jacksonville received a $7,000 lottery grant to further study the dam and determine whether it should be removed or repaired. The dam�s future is part of a Jackson Creek Watershed Assessment study done by the city and the Rogue Valley Council of Governments. "If the dam had a lot of water in it and if they take out the sand and gravel silt so that there�s a full reservoir, there�s potential for loss of life downstream," said Jim Boernge, a Denver engineer with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. He examined the dam last October and called it a "high hazard currently unsafe to store water." The dam is located at the end of Jackson County�s maintained portion of Reservoir Road, also called Jackson Creek Road, on the edge of 1,800 acres owned by the city of Jacksonville. Dozens of homes are located below it. It�s leaking about .25 cubic foot of water per second daily, creating a side channel of Jackson Creek, said city forester Paul Kangas. By comparison, the Rogue River flows at 2,000 cubic feet per second. "The dam was opened for service in 1912 and provided drinking water for the city and fire protection," Kangas said. "Newspaper articles written at the time described it as the nicest dam between Portland and Jacksonville." But the dam has been leaking for years, despite city attempts to repair it. Water is seeping through the 40-foot-high concrete wall, possibly through pipes placed at the time of construction, he said. It might take an earthquake to break the dam, Kangas said. Even then, the reservoir has little water left to burst down the canyon to Jacksonville. Walter Craig, who lives below the dam on Kanaka Flats road, agreed. "I don�t think it would hurt a whole lot if the dam broke," Craig said. "There�s not much water in the reservoir now and it would come right down the Jackson Creek bed, which is dry." Built to hold 800 acre feet of water, the reservoir has only 7.1 acre feet, Boernge said. By comparison, Lost Creek Lake holds 329,621 acre feet of water. The reservoir has been silting in from the day it was built, filling up with sand and gravel eroding from hillsides above. The 1964 flood contributed its own share of silt, Kangas said. The city has a permit to remove 2,000 cubic yards of sand and gravel annually but hasn�t done so because there is no market for it, Kangas said. "The sand and gravel in there is like a sponge and the seepage is moving slowly through," Boernge said. "If the sand and gravel were gone, there would be nothing to impede the flow." Besides its benefit as a sediment trap, the reservoir provides a place to dip a helicopter bucket during a forest fire, Kangas said. And the city�s forest is ripe for fire, he said. This may be the highest fire danger year since 1955, when the Timber Mountain Fire raged through surrounding forests. Fire protection is critical in the city�s forest, which serves as a resource for wildlife, people seeking recreation and for the city budget when the timber is thinned and sold. Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA