robert

Tue, Oct 26, 2010 : 12:31 p.m.

Everyone has an agenda. I've been trying to understand why it is so critically important to remove this dam. There are pluses and minuses either way. Now I know why it's got to come out. The word "pre-European" gives it away. Seriously? Let's just return everything to before the nasty imperialistic Europeans got here. No towns, cities, streets, water treatment plants, farms - nothing. Let's all live in huts and die from cholera before age 30. Why do some political groups feel the need to take civilization and society either backwards or to total anarchy?

Rod Johnson

Mon, Oct 25, 2010 : 9:32 a.m.

I've been reflecting on this discussion, and I think what irritates me most about the original opinion piece is Dr. Bonder's attempt to use his (genuine) professional prestige to camouflage what is, at root, simply an opinion like any other. His invocation of Decision Theory (in caps, yet) suggests that he has actually created a model of this situation and run the numbers. But anyone knows that a model is only as good as the data it's given, and this discussion has clearly shown that Dr. Bonder's data inaccurately reflects the complexity of the issue. He lowballs the benefit of the dam-in option, tendentiously characterizing it as "just for the benefit of a few high school rowers"--ignoring the value of the landscape for many other constituencies--and he lowballs the cost of the dam-out option ("a one-time cost of $1 million," which numerous posts here have shown is not the case). And when his slanted data is run through his model, voila! Amazingly, his thesis is Scientifically Proven! So I am left with to interpretations: one, he really did do some kind of analysis, but with selective data that pretty obviously conforms to his opinion--which is ethically pretty suspect, although not unusual in political discourse, or two, and more likely, he really didn't do a quantitative analysis, and this is all just opinion. So what I resent is his dressing up of that opinion in the trappings of authority, with talk of his membership in the National Academy of Engineering, his experience advising the Federal Government (caps again), and his experience teaching Decision Theory. None of those things are in any way meaningful if this really just represents his opinion. I compare that with the thoughts of Don Gray, who is genuinely knowledgable and has written and spoken on this subject, most recently at the Parks Advisory Commission on Oct. 19. Strangely enough, he has a more nuanced opinion. But, as Ronald Reagan famously said, "facts are stupid things." Annarbor.com should be embarrassed to have let this exercise in pomposity go out cloaked as substantive analysis.

AlphaAlpha

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 11:02 p.m.

Perhaps it is particularly telling that the author who offered this opinion piece, the self-described "member of the National Academy of Engineering and an advisor to Departments in the Federal Government on the use of cost-benefit methods" didn't even bother to reply to any of the comments.

Oscar Lavista

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 9:57 p.m.

Lots of good points here. All of which make it clear we should keep the dam. I'm glad to see Wystan's contribution reiterated, since it alone should be justification enough. Maybe I've missed it, but it seems the dam-outers choose to ignore this historical argument rather than present any rebuttals.

Marshall Applewhite

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 9:23 p.m.

The rent is too dam high!!

Left is Right

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 7:48 p.m.

Hey Seth, Maybe we should remove all tennis courts and return those to natural areas? I don't use those very often. Don't see why I should pay for their upkeep. And then we can return the golf courses to natural areas. Only a few golfers use those. And those dang ice rinks. Pretty much taken up by hockey most of the time. The arboretum? I haven't been there for probably two years. Shut 'er down! Why am I paying for all these parks I'm not using? My environmentalist friends tell me that it would be "better" if they were returned to a "natural" state. Of course maybe we can look at the dam benefits. How many local high school rowers have won athletic scholarships? Look at the health benefits for adult rowers. As far as I remember, anyone is welcome to participate. And at one time (I don't know about now) there was an "adaptive rowing" program for those having disabilities. I remember a blind rower on Argo. As far as a place to row, Argo isn't great but it's a whole lot better than other nearby venues in regards to both length and access.

AlphaAlpha

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 7:12 p.m.

Well Cedric. hopefully you will also read the comments for a reality check.

Cedric Richner

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 7:06 p.m.

This is the best comment I've read on this issue to date. Seth Bonder described exactly how I feel about Argo Dam removal. It is difficult to justify continuing to invest in the Dam...

DonBee

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 6:54 p.m.

Oh and one more to think on, the average time from decision to remove a dam of this size and getting EPA, Department of Interior, DHS, FEMA, State and Local Permits is typically 3 to 5 years. Meaning, you probably will have to spend the money to fix it, before you have the permits to remove it.

AlphaAlpha

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 1:41 p.m.

Based on DonBee's evidence based experience, and the agreed likelihood of unexpected additional expenses being encountered, it would seem that a much more accurate estimate of the total cost of a dam removal project is $15 million dollars. No thanks.

Rod Johnson

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 1:18 p.m.

Mischaracterizing the dam-in alternative as "just for the benefit of a few high school rowers" pretty much means your cost-benefit analysis is worthless. Next!

Mick52

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 12:41 p.m.

In the parlance of makes sense theory I would recommend the dam be repaired and maintained. Argo pond has been around so long and is so attractive it is well worth keeping. It is part of Ann Arbor's history and an great sight for people entering the city on N. Main St. What city council would want to risk being the one that alters a big change in a traditional aspect of A2? I concur with Speachless, the removal will cost far more. And I refuse to agree unless an environment study is done on what harm removal will have on the turtle and fish populations.

David Cahill

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 12:26 p.m.

The overwhelming public support for the new plan approved by the Parks Advisory Commission leads me to believe that the handful of remaining dam-out folks should find themselves another issue. I see that the Huron River Watershed Council's real agenda is to restore the river to its "pre-European" state. That might make sense if we restored the city to its "pre-European" state of an oak arbor. 8-)

DonBee

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 11:16 a.m.

@81Wolverine - Add an unknown set of costs in testing soil and water. Add an unknown cost at fixing the downstream river banks, given the river will now change levels more frequently without the impound. Add any lawsuits that property owners on the pond may file either to stop the work or to get the stream bed put in an place they want it or to get the old pond bed graded and planted the way they think it should be. Add to that the cost that may come from the Canoe liveries wanting paid for loss of rentals and infrastructure. And I am sure I am missing some. Having just worked on 3 Western dams professionally. The cost of the dam removal was less than 10 percent of the final bill in each case. I am not opposed to the removal, just to people who are not willing to account for all the costs and potential overruns up front. I suspect when the dam is removed, that more "junk" will be found in the pond, and some of that will result in even more hazardous waste removal and disposal. I also suspect that the bridge, and other infrastructure will take longer and cost more than any current estimates (See the City/Court Building article last week for an example of this problem locally).

AlphaAlpha

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 9:50 a.m.

"an advisor to Departments in the Federal Government on the use of cost-benefit methods for choosing among alternative resource allocations." The Federal Government? Accurate estimates? Wise spending? Please. Your credibility is very suspect, as are your numbers.

lisap

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 9:25 a.m.

Right on target Wolverine. Mr. Bonder seems to come late and uninformed to the discussion. From his opinion piece, it is apparent he has not taken into consideration most of the information that has blanketed this issue - from both sides of the argument.

red9seven

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 9:25 a.m.

Seth raises a number of valid points. Wystan, historian extraordinaire, also contributes a number of worthwhile comments. As a taxpayer, I feel that this deserves yet a credible analysis before we spend $1M (millions?) on it. I am also an engineer (and on the faculty at a business school), and feel that a number of comments here and at many of the meetings so far, only serve the irrational in resolving this issue. Conjecture, words in capital letters and shouting do not contribute to the process in any meaningful manner.

Wystan Stevens

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 8:36 a.m.

Let's keep the dam for sentimental reasons. The pond now called Argo has been a fixture of the local landscape since 1832, when Anson Brown erected a grist mill beside an early wooden version of the Broadway Bridge, and built the first dam to hold water back to power the mill. (Born a New Yorker, Brown started the settlement known as Lower Town Ann Arbor, calling Broadway and Wall Street after thoroughfares in New York City. Brown owned the mill, but was not the miller, and he died in the cholera epidemic of 1834.) An internet search wont find early 19th-century references to Argo, because the pond didnt have that name until 1892, when a group of Ann Arbor businessmen, investors in the Michigan Milling Company, took over the operation (then known as the Sinclair Mills) and rebuilt the structure that they named the Argo Flouring Mills. The dam and pond took their name from the mills, but no one knows where that name came from. Did the mills golden grain suggest a comparison to the brave ship Argo of Greek myth, which bore Jason and his men in search of the Golden Fleece? (The Michigan Milling Company had its offices at the Central Mills on First Street, where the Blind Pig is now and where, Im told, a certain golden liquid flows a beverage made from grain.) Through the decades, the dam was rebuilt a few times (and probably made a little higher, after the Eastern Michigan Edison Company acquired the water rights). But in a freak calamity that drew a crowd of spectators, the Argo mill exploded and burned on January 4, 1904. Firemen came, and the water that doused the flames left a white pall of icicles on the tall buildings ruined skeleton, a scene captured in dramatic photographs. The companys plutocrat investors decided not to rebuild, and a picturesque milling era we might call it the Flouring of Ann Arbor came to an end. From Argos ashes rose the Phoenix of a new era of power generation. Within a few years, the company later known as Detroit Edison had erected a power generating station on the mill site, running its turbines and generators with water from the millrace. Three weeks after the mill disaster, on January 27, 1904, the Ann Arbor Railroads trestle collapsed, dropping a heavy freight train and its cargo onto the ice of Argo Pond. In the days that followed, parties of gawkers turned out for that spectacle too, including small boys like the late Ray Spokes, who went out onto the ice and looted water-soaked crates of Beemans Pepsin Gum. The inadequate early trestle which stood close to the dam got replaced months later with another of thick steel, on massive concrete piers, a landmark still in place. (That year, 1904, was a bad one at both ends: a winter with snow so deep that travelers in the countryside saw no farm fences -- all were buried in snow. And on the last day of December, the Ann Arbor High School burned to the ground.) Throughout the 19th century, and early decades of the 20th, winter ice was harvested on Argo Pond, and stored in great blocks in straw-lined ice houses on the Main Street riverbank. Some of the ice buildings were owned by downtown caterers like Jacob Hangsterfer, whose big emporium depended on a steady supply of ice to preserve meats and other perishables, and to refresh thirsty customers at his ballroom, year round. Another enterprising German immigrant was Paul G. Tessmer, who in 1898 sold his grocery business and opened a boat livery the U. of M. Boat House on the ponds Main Street side. By 1906, Tessmer had a stock of 160 canoes and 40 rowboats, all built by himself. He and his big family lived in a house on Sunset hill, overlooking the pond a building that became the Elks Pratt Lodge. Tessmers docks and boathouse later were moved across the pond, to the foot of Longshore Drive, and became William J. Saunders canoe livery, then Jack Wirths, until 1969, when the Ann Arbor parks department took over. On moonlit evenings in June, the pond was jammed with U-M students in canoes, boys in blazers treating their sweethearts to a mandolin serenade. Around 1900, these romantics began calling the path along the headrace embankment Lovers Lane. (In the 1930s and 40s, the embankment became part of Ann Arbors hobo jungle.) One of the citys public works projects during the Depression years was the building of a public bathing beach at the foot of Longshore Drive, where the canoe livery is now. Tons and tons of Lake Michigan white sand were hauled in and spread around, to make the beach comfortable and pretty. Repeated summer polio scares in the 1940s eventually led to its closing. The pond was drained in 1930, when Edison built a new dam, and again in the early 1970s, when Joe ONeals construction company built the present dam for the city a project completed in 1972. Treasure hunters prowled the muck for artifacts, and collectors found old Ann Arbor bottles for their collections. Construction workers pulled a particularly heavy souvenir out of the mud: a set of ribbed steel wheels, from one of the boxcars that fell off the old railroad trestle in 1904! Argo Pond is an essential element of the history of Ann Arbor; it helps define our citys character. In historical terms, Ann Arbor has always had that pond, has grown up around it, and would not be the same without it. Some folks have called it stagnant, but of course that is absurd. It is a dynamic body, as dynamic as the city itself. The waters of the Huron have flowed since time began, and they have been flowing through the pond and over the dam, ever since Ann Arbor was a tiny village in the wilderness west of Detroit. By all means let us maintain momentum, improve the ponds surroundings, clear out shabby factory buildings on North Main Street, and replace them with an attractive multi-use facility, one which includes cafes and a dining terrace that overlooks trees and water. It is a view to be enjoyed in every season. But let us not rashly sacrifice our beloved Argo Pond, Ann Arbors urban waterfront. Argo is an asset, an amenity of the type that other communities long for. We should consider every means of enhancing access to it, and keeping its shining surface intact. Dont pull the plug on Argo dont let it go down the drain. My enjoyment of the river has been passive. I havent been out in a boat, havent stopped to watch the oarsmen, never even dipped a toe in Argo Pond but I appreciate Argos contribution to the quality of life in this place, and I like to see it now and then, and know that it is there. I hope that it will forever remain in the heart of our city, where it has been bubbling and rippling for 178 years.

faypatri

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 8:21 a.m.

I would love to see the dam removed. Let mother nature preserve herself for free. Ann arbor is making a huge mistake it is about note than money this time. It's about sustainability and doing the right thing.

81wolverine

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 8:11 a.m.

Seth: Very impressive credentials indeed. Using "cost-benefit methods for choosing among alternative resource allocations" IS a very good idea. However, if you had bothered to attend any of the public information meetings, Environmental Commission and Parks Commission meetings, and City Council forums over the last year and a half OR read the final version of the original HRIMP (Huron River Impoundment Management Plan), you would understand that the City HAS considered multiple options including removing the dam. In that report, there were different costs/benefits associated with each option. Here is a key fact that is often not brought out in articles on the Argo Dam debate. The TOTAL cost to remove the dam involves a lot more individual costs than simply dismantling and removing the physical dam. The $1 million you cite does NOT take into account other big ticket costs that the city will need to spend if the dam is removed. Hear are a few of the largest items: 1. Building a new pedestrian bridge across the river, since the dam now acts as one. The HRIMP report estimated around $550K, but the real number is probably more like $1 million (I'm an engineer too BTW). 2. Cleaning up and restoring about 30 acres of reclaimed land including hauling away potentially contaminated soil (never clearly investigated, but probable), regrading, planting native plants, etc). And throw in a known contaminated site along the river path (Michcon property) that will be disturbed if the river returns to its normal path, and you have a very high restoration cost. The report was not very clear on this cost, but $2 million at least is very likely. 3. Restoring infrastructure such as walkways, docks, roads, and parking adjacent to the river. No one has an idea how much this will amount to. The cost could easily be $500 K to $1 million - or more. 4. Moving the rowing community to a new location. Your statement that "there are other rowing facilities for the high school students" is uninformed at best, and ignorant at worst. A new property would need to be found, a parking lot created, and boat house built. Right now the rowing community leases the boat house from the city, which is on a public park space. The cost to do all this is unknown again. No accurate estimate has ever been done by the City. So, you can see that conservatively, the TOTAL cost to remove the dam will run into the $4-$5 million range easily. It is absurd to not include the TOTAL cost of removal into any "DECISION THEORY". When you consider the debate in this like, the proposal to upgrade the earthen dam and berm so that Argo Pond can be enjoyed by thousands of people for years to come (a lot more than just rowers) seems very wise.

jcj

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 7:59 a.m.

"Removing the dam would be the recommended alternative of any cost-benefit analysis of this decision problem" IF all that was ever considered was "cost-benefit" we would not have ANY diversified buildings! Everything school. store or office building would be a big box with no aesthetic value. Keep the dam & pond!

Speechless

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 7:57 a.m.

"...the $numbers provided by the HRWC show that dam removal is the best financial solution for the long term...." Per previous discussion on this topic (linked at top), HRWC's numbers are deceptive due to costly post-removal projects which they choose to leave out of their calculations. There's a lot more than just taking out the dam itself.

golfbum

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 7:53 a.m.

Dam the long term cost. Full spending ahead. Love ya A2.

bobr

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 7:46 a.m.

Keep the Dam, keep the pond. Keep the pond and the city has a place for rowers, kayakers, residents who line the pond, etc. Back when this was being debated by the City, part of the reason the levellers lost the argument was that it seemed like they were playing games with the numbers and the plan with the least fuzzy math and other problems was to keep everything the way it is.

braggslaw

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 7:35 a.m.

Speechless the $numbers provided by the HRWC show that dam removal is the best financial solution for the long term. Restoring a river to its pre-European "historic" flow with all of the environmental and financial benefits is the best solution.

Speechless

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 7:02 a.m.

A vernacular translation for the above letter:  Those dam kid rowers! It's unbecoming of environmentalists to beat up on high school students. Plus, as always, a member of the dam-out crowd neglects to note that, in the end, dam removal will cost several times as much as fixing the toe drains.

braggslaw

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 6:33 a.m.

Dam out All rational fiscal and environmental arguments point to the removal of the dam

Chip Reed

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 : 6:21 a.m.

it does seem like there are other impoundments (barton, dixboro, ford, belleville) that could be used be rowers.