Let that river flow

Together, they stood for a total of more than 500 years. But in the end, all it took was a couple days' work with an excavator, and the dams, one built as long ago as 1697, were reduced to rubble.

Pennypack Creek began to flow free, or freer, than it had in living memory.

With plans to remove or modify four more barriers, opening 22 miles of stream to flow unchecked into the Delaware River, officials from as far away as Virginia and Connecticut came streamside recently to cheer the advent of a new Pennypack.

Make that a return to the old Pennypack.

Before colonial times, before the dams, the Pennypack, like so many other Delaware tributaries, had a thriving shad fishery. The water seemed to boil with shad every spring, when they migrated from the ocean to spawn far upstream.

Today, the Pennypack is part of a much larger fish and dam story, one that is being played out in waterways across the region, from the Darby to the Ridley, the Brandywine to the Schuylkill.

Dozens of smaller dams either have been removed or are targeted for removal - so many that Pennsylvania is considered a leader in a national movement to unclog rivers and streams, ridding them of obstructions that slow the water, trap sediment, block fish passage and, in some cases, constitute safety hazards.

Pennsylvania has a lot of miles of river. And, given its geography and industrial history, a lot of dams - indeed, about 5,000.

Now, however, most of the river mills have long since closed, and the dams are considered obsolete.

Before the 1970s, the closing of the mills wouldn't have mattered. Most waterways were too polluted to support new fish populations. But now, the waters are cleaner.

In an act of both optimism and desire, millions of shad fry - so young and tiny they are often referred to as "two eyes and a wiggle" - have been released upstream on many area waterways where dams are being removed.

Many will die or be eaten. But many will make it to the ocean and grow to adulthood. Four or five years later, compelled by scents and memories scientists still do not fully understand, they will return to the streams where they were released. By then, fisheries managers hope, the streams will be ready for them.

"I can't take the smile off my face, being here," said State Rep. Michael P. McGeehan (D., Phila.), as he stood at a podium on the banks of the Pennypack, overlooking the site of the former Rhawn Street Dam.

Built in 1799, it powered mills that cut lumber and ground corn. Later, they became textile facilities famed for their printed handkerchiefs.

Since 1995 the Department of Environmental Protection has spent $5 million across the Commonwealth, taking down more than 100 dams, with 75 more on a removal list. "To maintain them costs four to five times as much," says DEP Secretary Kathleen A. McGinty. "We'd be into it for 20 to 25 million."

Biologists and waterways scientists have known intuitively that returning a waterway to its free-running state is good for the environment.

But researchers at the Academy of Natural Sciences have spent several years now quantifying the effects on the Manatawny Creek, which flows into the Schuylkill at Pottstown. In 2000, a small dam was removed. Scientists waded its waters, sampled its creatures and logged data on the chemistry and other aspects.

Diagnosis? "I would say it's more back to its natural flow conditions . . . healthier," said Academy senior scientist David Velinsky.

Fisheries experts predict not just a return of shad, but also other migratory species, like eels. Striped bass could follow.

Danielle Kreeger, science director of the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary, said even fish that stay in the stream year-round can benefit from the increased health of the stream and more mixing among the aquatic populations.

But this return to nature does have its compromises. Not all dams can be removed. A sanitary line, but in effect a dam, owned by the Philadelphia Water Department that crosses the Pennypack is the first obstacle fish face as they swim upstream from the Delaware.

This summer, if the permits come through, workers will haul in massive boulders to create a "rock ramp" that will narrow the stream enough to raise the water level to submerge the pipe so fish can swim over it.

And some dams do have their defenders. Historians balk at removing the Verree Dam, farther up the Pennypack, which still has remnants of a thriving mill complex once owned by a member of Congress.

It helps "tell the story of the industrialization of the Pennypack," says Theresa Stuhlman, Fairmount Park's historic preservation officer.

So officials are adapting - looking at alternatives, such as rock ramps and bypass channels.

One thing all this takes is money, of course. And coordination among a myriad of owners and agencies. And, above all, time.

An effort to deal with several dams along the Schuylkill River shows just how long.

Back in 1999, officials gathered at the Flat Rock Dam in Lower Merion to herald the cornerstone of a new project that would open 79 miles of the river - all the way to Reading - from a fish ladder at the Fairmount Dam near Philadelphia's Boathouse Row.

A fish ladder is a series of chambers that hold back the water much as a dam would, but with small slits the fish can swim through.

They announced the release of funds to install a fish ladder at Flat Rock, too - by 2002. Then, the rest of the dams between there and Reading would be demolished or get ladders as well.

The Flat Rock ladder was finished only last year; according to the current timetable, the other projects won't be finished until the end of 2008.

Meanwhile, the Fairmount fish ladder needs to be rebuilt. The Army Corps of Engineers and Philadelphia Water Department expect to get bids later this summer, with the work to be completed by the end of next year.

If the humans haven't quite held to the schedule, some of the 5.4 million American shad stocked in the Schuylkill in recent years seem to be holding up their end of the deal.

Joe Perillo, an aquatic biologist with the Philadelphia Water Department, has been monitoring their numbers below the Fairmount Dam and watching video of them swimming through the Fairmount fish ladder, taken through an underwater window that also has a "fishcam" linked to a screen at the Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center and posted online.

Every spring, more and more arrive, and Perillo has even seen some spawning activity on sandbanks below the dam.

Elsewhere along tributaries that flow to the Delaware - and that have so far had barriers to its shad - more dams are coming out.

Two have come down so far on Ridley Creek, at the instigation of the Delco Anglers and Conservationists.

"We now have clear running water" to a small dam at the Upper Banks Nursery, 7.1 miles up from where it meets the Delaware, said Delco member Steve Kosiak. And that has portals the fish can swim through.

On Darby Creek, the first three dams upstream from the Delaware are targeted for removal.

And just weeks ago, the Brandywine Conservancy held an event to celebrate agreements to "move forward" with the owners of 11 dams along the Delaware stretch of Brandywine Creek.

The projects could cost upwards of $3.5 million and take years, said Robert Lonsdorf, manager of the conservancy's shad-restoration project. But to him, "it really signals a major rebirth of the Brandywine."

View maps and status of dam removal projects around the region via http://go. philly.com/earth

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