Kinzua Dam from Below Dam
1 2018-08-15T14:26:39-07:00 Dana Reijerkerk 3c44fb85ab096c2290175e81dd4f16f0002a41e0 30861 5 Photograph of the nearly completed Kinzua Dam in 1965. plain 2018-08-21T17:27:01-07:00 National Archives at Chicago 2018-08-13 stillimage NAD-009 independent sovereign nations, native peoples reservations, rivers, topography (attribute), flood dams, gravity dams, rolled-fill dams Seneca-Iroquois National Museum The U.S. National Archives eng Photograph of the nearly completed Kinzua Dam in 1965. Original caption: Kinzua Dam from below dam. Held at the National Archives at Chicago. Public Domain reformatted digital print, electronic image/jpeg Record has been transformed into MODS from the original accession record. Metadata originally created in a locally modified version of qualified Dublin Core. languageOfCataloging authority = "iso639-2b"; dcTerm:language recordCreation Date encoding = "w3cdtf"; dcTerm:date subject authority = "aat"; dcTerm:subject subject authority = "tgn"; dcTerm:coverage dateCreated encoding= "w3cdtf"; dcTerm:temporal New York (state), Cattaraugus (county), Allegany Reservation, Allegany (county), Allegany River, Kinzua Reservoir (reservoir), This record was created by Dana Reijerkerk. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Region 9 (Eastern Region), 1965 (creator) 1 photograph 1965-01-01 Dana Reijerkerk 3c44fb85ab096c2290175e81dd4f16f0002a41e0This page is referenced by:
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The Kinzua Dam Project
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Our elders fought for our land and sovereignty in the 1950s and 1960s. They fought to stop the construction of Kinzua Dam.
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On April 14th, 1958 the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could take our land to build Kinzua Dam, a proposed flood control project originating in the 1930s, in Warren, Pennsylvania.
For the next four years, the Seneca Nation and our Seneca people fought to prevent the dam from being built. Its construction would mean the taking and subsequent flooding of our Seneca communities in our Allegany Territory.What Kind of Dam is it?
Kinzua Dam is a combination concrete gravity structure and rolled-earth embankment dam. Between October 15, 1960 and September 29, 1961, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the two rolled-earth embankments that sat on either side of the concrete gravity structure. The earth embankments alone were made up of over one-half million yards of earth.
The construction of Kinzua Dam in Warren, Pennsylvania was completed in December of 1965.
On June 3rd, 2017, a local news station, WGRZ-TV, reported on the history of the Kinzua Dam and the Seneca Nation. View that coverage here: https://youtu.be/ToGeLwIaP9w.
For more information about Kinzua Dam's construction, see the Additional Resources page.
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Kinzua Dam's Environmental Impacts
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The creation of Kinzua Dam has had lasting environmental impacts on our land and water. Learn more here.
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The Allegheny Reservoir, extending into the greater Western portions of our Allegany Territory, has significantly changed the river's borders and boundaries. The Seneca Nation of Indians Geographic Information Services (GIS) Department has created a story map of aerial imagery of Ohi:yo' that shows the changes to the shoreline of Ohi:yo'.
Kinzua Dam was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1960 and 1966. Once it began operations in 1967, Ohi:yo' was only able to move up, spilling past its banks and inundating our land.
For the past five decades portions of Ohi:yo' have operated as a reservoir in the summer months. Come fall of every year, much of the water reserves are lowered at the discretion of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Ohi:yo' now follows a new cycle, forming new shorelines with deadly ecological effects.
The main environmental impacts of Kinzua Dam are:- Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs)
- Riparian Zone Degradation
- Invasive Plant Species
- Degraded Fish Habitat
- Sedimentation
