Impact of Dams Building in Bellefonte Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Impact of Dams Building in Bellefonte - Essay Example This place holds lots of water as it is connected to a canal which leads to Susquehanna River and ultimately falls into the ocean. Bellefonte is known for its active trade and economics and holds the value of an industrial center in the middle of rural surroundings. Many other dams on same architectural design were built. These dams were not very deep. They were a mere 10-15 feet deep (low head dams) but they powered the industry all through the 19th century. Now on the Spring Creek, only 10-20 of these dams remain. These dams generated water from the spring and had many impacts on the environment and for the economics. For instance; these dams blocked the way for trout. Trout can jump and it’s hard. These dams also trapped sediments and stopped almost all of the sea flow. Another impact of these dams is that they warm up the water through the dam stream. This dam stream slows down the water flow, which gets more heat from the sun. The sun bakes it and the water gets the relatively high temperature and the result is less vegetation and less shade for animals. Due to an elevated temperature of water, the warmer water rises to the surface and fish also remain near the surface whereas the cold water sinks to the bottom. There is also a large ponding area here which affects a larger portion of the stream. The Spring House here is run by an actual spring and lets 8-10 million gallons of water pass through in a day. A chunk of the area has been sold for natural gas drilling and for other manufacturing concern like drinking bottled water. Bellefonte is a water-rich area and has a huge surplus of water. As the area started developing, more and more industries started mushrooming and the place became noisy and dirty. The industries started dumping waste into the stream and disturbed the natural condition of water and caused disgusting contamination in it. But the good thing is that this was the case many years ago.