Whitewater Park

Wouldn’t it be nice to see a Whitewater Park where the Mill is today? 

Why a Whitewater Park?

§         To create enthusiasm by attracting locals and visitors to the park

§         To create a venue for paddling competitions

§         To enhance the fish habitat in the river

§         To restore riparian vegetation along the banks of the river

§         To create a family-friendly and easily accessible riverside park

§         To provide local economic stimulation

The Iowa Whitewater Coalition has developed a video about river renewal through dam removal and whitewater feature construction. 

The video can be viewed online at http://www.iowawhitewater.org/RORvideo.html.

Economic Stimulation:

Whitewater Parks have the ability to stimulate local economies.  There are many success stories tied to existing parks.  For example, Clear Creek Whitewater Park in Golden, CO was built for $165,000 and now grosses between 1.4 and 2.1 million dollars annually for the city.

If we built this it will provide a venue that will attract boaters from all over the area, perhaps even the whole country.

Thank you to Stacia R. for sending this guest blog in. 

Comments

[Peter R.]

Right on with the whitewater park concept. Don’t stop there.

Berlin has world class whitewater which would attract international competitors to the section directly behind City Hall (Tondreau Park?).
The beauty of this stretch is that it could be altered by a crane on the banks moving large boulders in and out of place and slalom gates could easily be hung in the gorge.

Best of all, water flow is easily controlled by the gates at the East Mason dam.

But why stop there. Let’s take a look at other adventure opportunities in Berlin.

How about a rock climbing outfitter and school using Mt. Jasper and Mt. Forist? How about training students with those inclinations in a recreation management course at the high school’s vocational programs.

While we’re at it, how about restoring the Nansen ski jump (OK let’s modernize the hill’s profile while we’re at it and perhaps add some smaller jumps so we can recapture some of the city’s ski heritage).

Then Berlin could become an outdoor adventure center to compete with any other. Consider the possibilities: street luge, rally car racing on skidder roads and Success Pond Road, rock climbing, bouldering, orienteering, whitewater paddling, marathon flat water paddling, Cross Country skiing and on and on.

The city could become the outfitter capital for the Great North Woods and take its place alongside similar jump off points like Ely, Minnesotta at the edge of the Boundary Waters National Park and Quetico Wilderness Area on the Canadian border.

It’s not so hard to imagine.

[Dan Leveille]

Very interesting idea! That would be really cool. I don't know if it will work, but its interesting!

(your link is broken - video not vidoe!)

:)

[Alberto Teatro]

If I had a hudred million dollars to spend in COOS county, I would spend it on the reconstruction of Berlin. Her roads, her structures, new street scapes, new green scapes and spaces. Asignature building on the "Rite Aid misadventure" Lot.... The rest of the former mill property would be green space, fields, woods, riverwalks..... I wise man once told me that money follows good idea. Berlin could feasibily aquire 10 million dollars to implement a comprehensive green infrastructure plan. A master plan for streetscape, new green scapes and spaces. There is a lot of money for green infrastructure. A lot of these burned sites and dilapidated structures would make good candidates for green space and that federal money is easier to come by than looking for grants for "just demolition".

[heather]

I'm not sure a white water park would necessarily significantly help my business. The people coming to use the white water park would be bringing hard shell white water kayaks...a part of the boating business that we are not involved in. If you look a little more closely, I think you'll see that my goal isn't just for this white water park, but for a tourism based economy in the Berlin area...a white water park could be a part of that. My interest is in that, with a knowledge of white water, we may be able to assist in studying the area to see if it is a feasible option. I would be just as willing to help on a committee to plan any tourist activity in the area, for instance mountain bike trails. So, if you don't think a white water park is a good idea and a mall is also a bad idea, what DO you suggest? I don't think concerts and events at the Lancaster fair grounds are a bad idea, but I think they will be a draw for the locals, not tourists, therefore not bringing additional money to the area. I just think the defeatist attitude needs to go. Look at facts and statistics from other places and do some research before shooting down every idea that comes to the table.

[Pat Bacon]

After listening to all the great comments going on I vote for the water park. There seems to be alot of positive thinking coming from these people. Can't agree with the mall thing. Welfare recipients are not coming here to get find low paying jobs working in malls. They are here to receive welfare. Malls steal customers from private sector businesses. The last thing we need is more competition from big companies-like Walmart.Look up the data on this. It's not hard to find. I vote water park. Hey KD, how about putting an opinion poll on this subject now that we have voted about the ATV park regulations? Seems to be lots of opinions available.

[Jana]

I don't share your enthusiasm Heather. Congratulations on getting 700 people down the river and for them stopping at local gas, food, whatever stores. That is totally respectable and I applaud you. Great job. Now I fully understand why you are cheering on a whitewater park. That would significantly help your business. But at what expense? Someone said to me today, "Why not a mall?" With the influx of welfare recipients that would provide them with employment opportunities that you don't need knowledge for......not to say that the people moving here are uneducated...I don't want to get blasted for that.... just that most probably don't have degrees beyond high school and this would give them all an opportunity to have work while providing a HUGE amount of taxes for the city and bringing in people from Maine, Vermont and Canada. How close is the nearest MAJOR mall to us? I say Manchester or Portland. Concord's mall is pitiful. I don't travel into Vermont unless I have to ..... so wouldn't this make more sense? Perhaps put a water park INSIDE the mall? Make it a logging themed mall? 100s of jobs, tons of tax dollars, pulling people into the area.... sounds good to me. And I do agree with all of you, this is something to be discussed on a blog site, but this sure does help to get the ideas flowing. I love this blog. I would like to know how many people are visiting it.

[cass]

Mayor Danderson has talked for years about holding whitewater competitions on the Androscoggin. I don't think city hall would be at all unresponsive to an effort to get some fun going on the river (look at RiverFire). Get a committee together, organize an event and GO FOR IT! This country was founded by people who got off their butts and did stuff - you can too!

[Heather]

I think it's important to remember that the city planners, officials and citizens need to work together to improve tourism and the economy and that creating an "us against them" situation will be counterproductive. Jana, I appreciate your opinion about the white water park, but I think the feasibility is not for a few people on a blog site to decide. I don't know if it is feasible for that site in particular...I hope it is, but if it's not, then there's no reason to shut down the idea...the river is long. I think one main focus of this area SHOULD be tourism. A white water park is a great way to boost tourism...so are bike trails...so is rock climbing...so are events at the fairgrounds. I'd like to see the summer concerts in the gazebo start again. The possibilities are endless. It just takes vision and teamwork. When my husband and I started our white water rafting company, some people thought we were stupid because the water wasn't big enough...well, so far, we're succeeding thanks to the help from several people and our drive to succeed. We brought almost 700 people down the river last year. I'm sure some of them stopped to eat, get gas, but a snack, shop on Main St., etc. Imagine what a white water park could add to that!

[Lincoln]

Really, the idea of a whitewater park next to the old mill is an excellent idea. As far as water temperatures and levels go, there are only about 3 - 4 months out of the year when it could not be paddled by even marginally competent paddlers. It would be a great place to teach paddling skills, and would foster businesses for miles around.

Sure, we might have to do a little bit of work in the river bed, but we wouldn't have to spend the kind of money that other towns have needed to spend because we would really just be clearing out debris, rather than starting from scratch. The white water is, for the most part, already there.

I understand that some people are worried about the take out above the dam behind Town Hall. My feeling that this presents no more (and no less) of a danger than the damn at Pontook. Sure, people can go over the dam at both locations, but with decent signage and a cable system, I don;t know of anybody going over the dam at Pontook for quite some time.

As far as the pollution above the gorge, most people won't care. Look at how many people fish between Gorham and Gilead. It is the same water.

As a paddler, I think that it would be a draw for the area. As a business owner, I think that paddlers tend to have a lot of discretionary income, and very little negative impact.

lsr

[Pete B]

Hi Jana, I don't claim to know what Laidlaw is thinking. I just know a little bit about boilers and the pulp mill site.

Could a whitewater park work. I think there is a great run about half a mile long from just below the Riverside dam to the dead water just above the Smith Hydro dam (Mason St. Bridge). If you put in below Mason St there is a HUGE drop just under where the power lines cross the river (this is where the old International Paper Mill dam was located. I don't believe that stretch is doable (although I've seen some pretty wild videos of kayaks going off of some pretty high waterfalls-There is probably somebody out there who would try it).

There is only enough water in the river when flow is above 5,000-7500 cfs (that's cubic feet per second). That only happens during spring run-off and during really big rainy stretches in the fall. Otherwise most of the water is running through the Penstock (that is the big tube) to the turbines making the ultimate clean, green power. Arrangements have been made with the various owners of the Pontook Hydro to have controlled releases for the benefit of canoers and kayakers on the stretch below the Pontook dam. Similar agreements would have to be made (forced on) the owners of the dams in Berlin. They can be expected to fight it kicking and screaming all the way. Any water that does not go through their turbines is money out of their pockets (and represents electricity that has to be made elsewhere, probably by some dirty coal fired plant in Ohio that is dropping acid rain on our heads...)

A lot of work would have to be done in the river between the Riverside and Smith Hydro dams to make it runnable by kayaks/canoes. The riverbed is full of old concrete from old pipe bridges, foot bridges, etc. all with steel reinforcing rod sticking out that could impale unwary boaters.

With all that being said, I think a whitewater park would be a GREAT idea, even if it is only seasonal when ther is plenty of water for the hydros and boats.

As far as fine particles blowing in the wind? That is why there is a 320' stack. Whatever particles are not captured by the "Best Available Technology" emission control system are released high enough so they will land some where between Goose Eye Mt and Katahdin. Hey, If the midwest can drop all their pollution on us, we can send ours over to Maine...

Could whitewater park coexist with a power plant? I think so. It would take a lot of work, but I think it is a great idea.

[Jana]

THIS IS TO ALL OF THE PEOPLE IN CITY HALL THAT READ THIS: I want to know what your thoughts are for a white water park? Is it feasible? Is it something that can be done and would be wanted? Could something like this coexist with wood trucks, wood chips, turbines, fine particles blowing in the wind??? What do you think? What is something we can put on the mill site that will draw in tourists and boost the economy? Where are you Pete B.? You seem to know a lot about what Laidlaw is proposing.......could this work?????????????

[Jana]

Alberto......I'm sure the whole city isn't against you and there are people here that love and adore you and your family. If we let beaurocracy alone determine our happiness.....the Democrats would have fled this country back in 2000 when Dubya was elected. Home is what you make of it....I can't wait to get home every night to spend time with my family and to leave all the B.S. outside of my door....just remember Alberto.....the city does not have dominance over your entire life....you choose to care about what happens....but you don't have to let it rule life.

[Alberto Teatro]

Jana you are right in the money. I have been fighting and doing everything the hard way and we are tired, my kids are tired and I am taking my notes and maps to the woodstove too. Eventually this is home and having to fight and be hated is not what home is supposed to be at the end of the day.

[Jana]

See? That's the problem. Too many people get overwhelmed and instead of fighting, they cower and do the old "RUN FORREST RUN!" Alberto, it is not time to duck and cover and run. We are all born with fight or flight and it's time to let your fight instinct kick in and teach the son of a guns in city hall a thing or two. Let's take turns writing into the paper. Let's call Dateline, 20/20, Primetime, Good Morning America, WMUR News etc or email them and tell them about the fleecing in our own town and what is being done to us. It's not fair dang it all, and I am tired of trying to do this myself. The letters I write go unanswered but if we had a whole crap load of people - there are no ends to what we can accomplish. Let's picket City Hall. Let's show up to the meetings and if they laugh at us, SO WHAT! Let's videotape the public meetings so that they HAVE to be held accountable for their actions. Let's demand that they put in writing what their evil plans are and put it to a city wide vote. Don't run Alberto.......you are too smart for that. And Heather...... I agree..... public places do share recreational areas.... enjoy inhaling those fine particles! .......It will NEVER happen. I hope I have to eat my words, but I just know that it is not feasible and is basically hilarious to think that a "WHITE WATER" park would be placed there. May as well put a marina too. hehehehehehehe

[Alberto Teatro]

It is my birthday, good to know there are people like Rocky and Heather here in the area, one of you should run for mayor, Bob got in because no one else put their name down. I will be leaving and boarding up our place soon and it is good to know there are a few reasonable peole left to watch over the place when we are gone. My neighbours are gone now too, they already had two break-ins. I started mowing their grass, so it looks lived in for a while. Soon all their glass will be broken out, I caught the kids, they live in the apartment building next door. Going to miss my friends and neighbours, the mountains and the rivers and our beautiful home, that we spent four years reconstructing. Tough knowing we have an arson on the loose and seeing my neighbours house broken into after three days empty... Eleven years but never my town.

[Heather]

There are precedents for power companies and other industry allowing for recreational usage of their property. So, whether the site is sold or not, studies can be done. The EPA is going to want a plan for that site.

[Rocky]

I can't agree with Alberto on a couple of very important points in his comments, yet I agree in general terms with his view of the outcome at the mill site. The visioning funds were not "pocketed", I believe a very unfortunate decision was made not to follow up or somebody dropped the ball. In either case, nobody made the appropriate party/parties accountable for that failure. The mill site belongs to North American Dismantling and they remain the sole owner. Laidlaw has made an offer while they do due dilligence and it's my hope that during that process they will discover that the project is not feasible and for several reasons. One reason being the available capacity to connect to the grid and the time (years) for that capacity to be put into place. A second reason is the fact that Laidlaw is tied up financially and legally in another conversion project in northern New York and the stock holders are getting restless. This might help to explain the premature announcement/hype about Berlin, it makes good headlines and it appears that there's something happening. It's spin/bs and it makes people believe that it's a done deal, keeps folks like us out of their hair.(and it works) Long term, unless we make something happen or, somebody in City Hall wakes up or, the project falls under its own weight(due dilligence)Alberto is right, Berlin will again settle for "whatever". It's a process that both City Hall and we the citizens know very well, it's what we've done for past 50 years and it's very familiar.

[Alberto Teatro]

The mill site is sold, any other ideas for that site are extinguished and were never considered, grant money for "visioning" and considering other and best uses for that land was pocketed. This is an industrial town and the leadership here has no use for silly ideas, improving the quality of life makes no sense, you can't tax it. Industry and renting to welfare, Berlins past and Berlins future.

[Heather]

White water paddling is one of the fastest growing outdoor industries. What needs to happen before people close their minds to this idea is a study. The EPA is working on a plan to clean the river. I think the mill site is a good site because the white water already exists there. Some modifications might need to be made to the river, anyway, so I'm sure a safe exit could be designed. This isn't something that can happen overnight, but it should be explored. A white water park won't just bring in tax dollars, it will bring revenue to existing businesses and it would entice new businesses to open. The main street could flourish if this were located on the mill site. People would be able to walk from the park to local businesses. A bike trail could be designed to pass through town and the park. There are a lot of possibilities.

[Alberto Teatro]

I could paddle it...

[Jana]

Alberto.....yes, cleaning the mercury from the river is a worthy and attainable goal....just not overnight.

My brother happens to be a prison guard and he does come home and says "Hi honey - what's for dinner/lunch/breakfast?" This isn't Riker's Island. Perhaps the fed prison will bring in more scumbags or more violent crime offenders.......even so.....the guards are trained to leave that at work.

Competition below the east mason street bridge???? Most days all you can do down in there is rock hop. That would take the cooperation of all of the dams along the river.........and how long is that stretch before the unsuspecting competitor gets caught in the dam just below Irvings on Glen Ave???? And if they go around that dam - "Welcome to Cascade!!!" Eeeks. No offense, but it isn't going to happen in downtown Berlin. It's practically laughable to think that it would and a no-brainer to know that it is not feasible.

Why not put it further up Route 16 if anywhere at all???? Oh.......tax dollars for Berlin. There are other ways people... think.

[Alberto Teatro]

Cleaning the mercury from the river is an attainable and worthy goal. There should be a safe, designated place along the Androscoggin or Dead river where we can get wet (it gets hot here sometimes). A park on the former mill site, nothing would change our downtown for the better!

Rocky is right, one cannot go to prison every day, even as a guard, and not come home a negatively different. Hi honey I am home, "I had a wonderful day at the prison, only one person tried to knife me"! If we are in the construction trades the next few years will be positive, the question is if us grasshoppers are smart enough to captalize on this uptempo.

One could definately have a white water competition below the Mason street bridge and there are excellent locations for spectators and vendors.

[KD Paine]

In response to the comments about the "prison town" mentality, I for one would love to live in a place where lots of citizens have gone thru hostage negotiation training. Makes you much more reasonable and effective in almost any situation.

[Rocky]

Well Pat, my personal opinion is that the Federal Prison will have very little effect on the tourism potential of the region. I base my opinion on several factors. First, the location which is as far from city center as can be and really out of the way. Second, although larger than the State Prison, I haven't observed any negative impact from the State Prison other than some light pollution which most tourist do not notice and for several reasons. Third, places like Lake Placid New York have a very prosperous tourism industry in spite of their prison. Personally I'm more concerned about the prison culture that might evolve in our communities. I don't believe that a person can be in a prison environment 40hrs/wk without it having a negative impact on their character, outlook on life and, in the manner they deal with conflicts in general. What is a survival mechanism in a prison can be an agressive posture in the outside world.

[Pat Bacon]

Jana and Stacia put forth some really terrific and, by the sounds of it, feasable ideas to boost the area economy. Projects such as these are exciting and positive. I would like to bring up one question to see how people in the area feel about boosting tourism in a city that will be home to a medium security Federal Prison. The developed area of this prison will cover 250 acres! It will make the lights from the state prison look like candlelight. Is this the way to bring tourists to the area? How will this effect the future of tourism and development in the Berlin area? Thanks Judd Gregg and all your faithful followers.I look forward to comments on this topic.