Kinzua Dam

• Length of dam: 1,877 feet (572 m)
• Maximum height of dam: 179 feet (55 m)
• Earthfill: 3 million cubic yards (2.3 million m³)
• Concrete: 500,000 cubic yards (380,000 m³)
• Penstocks (pipes through dam): Eight 5’ 8" x 10’ discharge sluices and two hydroelectric penstocks, 15 feet (4.6 m) in diameter
• Hydroelectric generating capacity: 400 megawatts
• Construction Costs: $108 million

"Finished in 1965 at a cost of almost $120 million, it is the largest concrete and earth-fill dam in the eastern United States."[1]

The total cost of construction was approximately $108 million. According to the US Army Corps of Engineers, Kinzua more than paid for itself in 1972 when tropical storm Agnes dumped continual heavy rains on the watershed, bringing the reservoir to within three feet of its maximum storage capacity. Downstream flood damages were avoided of an estimated $247 million. The dam at Kinzua has prevented an estimated $1 billion in flood damages since it became operational.[3]

Construction of the dam condemned 10,000 acres (4,000 ha) of the Allegany Reservation, nearly one third of its territory, which had been granted to the Seneca nation in the Treaty of Canandaigua, signed by President Washington.[9] That resulted in the loss of considerable fertile farmland and the displacement and forced relocation of 600 Seneca from their community within the reservation. In 1961, citing the immediate need for flood control, President John F. Kennedy denied a request by the Seneca to halt construction.[10]

Following the relocation were major changes to the displaced persons' way of life. Until the mid-20th century, numerous Seneca tribe members, particularly those in the floodplain, had lived simply according to traditional ways, with no modern conveniences such as electricity. Two residential resettlement areas were constructed, Jimersontown and an area south of Steamburg, both of which included modern amenities. The forced modernization is one source of the still-simmering resentment that Seneca have toward the dam.[11]

In addition, the Seneca lost a 1964 appeal over the related relocation of a four-lane highway through the remaining portion of the Allegany Reservation.[12] That caused them to lose more land to the interstate, which divides the reservation territory. (The reservation was allowed to reclaim land around the old highway that the interstate replaced.)

In Pennsylvania, the government also condemned most of the historic Cornplanter Tract, a grant made by the state legislature to Cornplanter after the Revolutionary War to him and his heirs "forever." The area included an historic cemetery containing the remains of Cornplanter and 300 descendants and followers, as well as a state memorial monument erected in 1866. The Seneca called the cemetery their "Arlington" in reference to the national cemetery near Washington, DC.[13]

The state exhumed and reinterred the Seneca remains in a new cemetery, located west of the north-central Pennsylvania town of Bradford, about 100 yards from the New York state line. The cemetery also contains remains of white residents of Corydon, a town submerged by the reservoir.[1] However, by 2009 Seneca observers and whites said there was erosion of the bluff where the cemetery was located. They pleaded for the state or Corps of Engineers to protect this area.[13][14] Other remains were reinterred at a cemetery in Steamburg.

Cornplanter's last direct heir and great-great-great-grandson, Jesse Cornplanter, an artist, had died without issue in 1957. By the 1960s, Cornplanter's indirect descendants had already moved to Salamanca, New York, near the northern shore of the new Allegheny Reservoir.[15]

The construction of the dam and the filling of the Allegheny Reservoir required the condemnation of several towns and communities in the reservoir's floodplain. Two townships, Kinzua in Pennsylvania and Elko (Quaker Bridge) in New York, dissolved their incorporations, while the Warren County portion of Corydon was likewise subsumed. Others, such as the McKean County portion of Corydon, Pennsylvania and Onoville, New York, retained their government but lost much of their population when the cores of their communities were flooded. All residents were forced out by the government's use of eminent domain and were required to relocate.[16]

Red House, New York, was also indirectly affected by the changes. Although it was not directly flooded, the dam's first stress test in 1967 submerged New York State Route 17 west of Red House, and a new highway, the Southern Tier Expressway, would have to be constructed. The path of the highway was run almost directly through Red House's population center, which combined with the dam and the expansion of Allegany State Park prompted the state and the Army Corps of Engineers to forcibly condemn most of the town. Some of the town's residents bought parcels in what was then the hamlet of Baystate, located in the town a mile south of the highway, and were able to thwart efforts to forcibly dissolve the town when Allegany State Park proposed to expand again in 1973. Red House (population 38 as of 2010) has maintained its incorporation, with a few remaining families still holding onto their properties.[17] In preparation for the eviction, the Onoville, Quaker Bridge, and Red House post offices were closed in summer 1964, and as a result, the ZIP codes for those towns were never officially used.[18]

To partially compensate for the loss of the communities, the government set aside 305 acres of land for Seneca resettlement upstream in two New York communities: Steamburg (160 one-acre plots of land located south of the existing hamlet of the same name) and Jimerson Town (145 one-acre plots of land located west of the city of Salamanca, near the then-extant community of Shongo). Jimerson Town has become designated as one of the two capitals of the Seneca Nation.

The dam project also forced the displacement of Camp Olmsted, owned by the Chief Cornplanter Council of the Boy Scouts of America. The campsite had been located on bottomland along the Allegheny River, but the dam's construction forced it to be moved up the hillside.