Mourning a Dam to Love a River
The Destruction of the Mitchell River's Kapps Mill Dam
The entire Southeast suffered from Hurricane Michael, the first category 5 storm to make landfall in the United States since 1992. Millions lost power, the storm caused $25 billion in damages, and at least 45 people lost their lives. Unaccounted for by the statistics, one corner of North Carolina experienced a unique kind of damage from the hurricane. Elkin, Dobson, and Surry County lost a symbol of their community: the Kapps Mill Dam.
Nestled in the valleys running from Roaring Gap to Elkin, the Mitchell River’s gentle waters meander through fields of tobacco and corn for roughly 20 miles before joining the Yadkin River. Fly-fisherman drive from across the Old North State to try for rainbow trout and smallmouth bass in the clear, cold water. The granite dome of Stone Mountain, overlooking the streams of the river’s headwaters, attracts rock climbers and hikers alike.
Just down the road from the town of Mountain Park, the river bends around a small set of cliffs and for a half a mile runs along a thinly forested bank. Nestled at the bottom of a steep hill and overlooking the river sits a vermilion-painted house, initially built as a post office and general store. Just south of the old post office still stands Kapps Mill, built in 1827 to grind grains into flour.
The now-ancient millstones gather dust, and the old spillway has been dry since the mill stopped operating in 1935, but for almost two centuries the mill listened to the soft roar of the water tumbling over a twenty-foot-high dam that stretched across the length of the river.
These buildings and the dam mean a lot to me: I spent much of my childhood in that old post office, bought by my grandparents in the 70s and converted into a cozy house full of articles of Americana and good memories. The environmental ethic that has shaped my life and career was born in treks through the wooded trails bordering the Mitchell River with my grandfather, and in fishing, kayaking, and wading through its chilly, clear waters.
In 2018, though, the thunder of the falls subsided for the first time since before the Civil War. Hurricane Michael, which unfortunately shares my own name, dumped more than 10 inches of rain on Surry County on October 11, 2018, causing extreme flooding that proved too much for the 19th-century timbers of the dam to endure.
The dam had been damaged before; storms had knocked out significant portions of the dam on at least two prior occasions in the roughly fifty years my grandparents have acted as stewards of this portion of the river. Always, though, they found a way to repair it; growing up, I never failed to laugh seeing the sign made by my grandfather requesting assistance:
HELP WANTED: DAM HELP, DAM MATERIALS, DAM VOLUNTEERS, DAM MONEY!
This time, though, the destruction was absolute. The floodwaters rose all day as the relentless rains poured down the slopes of the valley. Stormwater inundated the low-lying areas above the dam, water spilling over the dam’s sides as the river reclaimed its floodway.
The flooding ripped shrubs, grasses, and whole trees free of their roots, causing severe erosion as the vegetation holding the streambank in place flowed downstream to join the Yadkin River. It was one of those whole trees, ferried by the angry waters of the river, that slammed into the dam that afternoon.
Ned Eldridge lives a tenth of a mile downstream from the Kapps Mill Dam. He was present for the destruction that day.
“Normally, the river is about 35 feet wide,” Eldridge said. “During the flood, it was probably closer to 150 feet wide.”
He went to the bridge that overlooks the dam to watch the disaster unfold. Sometime in the early afternoon, a tree punched through the center of the dam like it was made of Styrofoam. Eldridge watched subsequent whole trees, roots and all, passing easily through the newly-opened hole.
My grandparents had been away all day visiting antique shops with some friends. An accident on the highway delayed their return to Kapps Mill until later in the evening, but a neighbor called them on their drive back to ask if they were at the house. The neighbor warned them, “Expect some changes when you get back.”
I asked another local, Raleigh Scales, about the fateful day. He reported seeing pieces of the dam float by more than a mile downstream. “I recall the day well,” Raleigh mused. “I’ve lived here over 13 years—my wife her entire life—and this was the most flooding either of us have ever seen.”
Tons of silt and sandy sediment that had quietly accumulated behind the timbers of the dam since the presidency of John Quincy Adams saturated the waters of the Mitchell, further worsening erosion and water quality downstream. The banks of the river, especially in the areas upstream of the dam, collapsed. Part of the state highway running parallel to the road was almost completely washed out before the state conducted emergency erosion control, placing riprap in the gashes in the bank opened up by the flood.
Ned Eldridge grieved for the dam like my grandparents. “It’s a tremendous loss. I am 74, and I have memories of going up there after church on a Sunday and picnicking at the dam, just looking at it. It was one of the reasons I wanted to move back to the area. From our house, you could sit on the porch and listen to the water... You could feel the rumble and pulse of the river.”
In a Facebook post showing a video of the destruction, hundreds of people shared ways that the dam had played a small role in their lives over the years. Photos of prom dates, brides, and grooms are scattered throughout the comments with the dam as a backdrop, as are adults recalling childhood afternoons of splashing in the water, photos of fly fisherman casting into the whitewater below the falls, and people lamenting the loss of a local landmark and meeting place.
One comment in particular struck me:
This comment hit me hard because of how often I had already heard it from members of my family. Every year of my life we have assembled at Kapps Mill on Christmas Day, and Christmas 2018 was no exception. That year, though, the kaleidoscopic glow of Christmas lights, painstakingly hung underneath the dam each year to shine through the tumbling water, was conspicuously absent. Instead, discussions over what to do about the dam dominated the holiday retreat. We made no progress toward a satisfying conclusion.
Early the following spring, I received an email from an environmental restoration firm. My grandparents had not been idle over the winter. A representative from the firm had just conducted a site visit and sent over a proposal with three options for moving forward:
1. Remove dam debris and 800 feet of river bank stabilization: $135,000
2. Repair the existing structure as-is with minor improvements (more cross bracing, tongue in groove, flat top walkway for mud gate controls, etc.). $280,000.
3. Install a concrete gravity dam. Acquire Phase 1 Design, FEMA no-rise certification, and permits = $150,000 (6 months) Construction estimated at $730,000 but would be re-estimated upon completion of Phase 1. Total: $880,000
I was stunned at the scale of the costs. More than that, though, I was dismayed for my grandparents. I could only imagine how crushed they must have felt reading that email. Over the decades they had put in tens of thousands of hours of their time and hundreds of thousands of dollars of their own money maintaining and repairing the dam, but this project dwarfed the scale of all of their previous efforts combined. Furthermore, I was torn about the dam.
At the time, I was a student at the University of Virginia. I was just finishing up a master’s program after studying environmental sustainability and global development in undergrad. Many of my courses in undergrad had touched on dams and what I had read was, well, damning.
Built for recreation, power production, flood control, irrigation, and municipal water supply, dams are one of the most dramatic ways humans impact the planet. Sediments, blocked by the dam, are unable to flow downstream to nourish the rest of the river with key nutrients. The dam warms the temperature and slows the speed of the water upstream, harming the riverine flora and fauna. Fish and other critters also can’t migrate upstream when a dam obstructs the flow of water. In fact, I had seen trout making futile attempts to jump up the waterfall of the dam at Kapps Mill. Shooting out of the roiling whitewater at the base of the waterfall, they would only make it a foot or two up the twenty-foot span that guarded the upper half of the river.
Dams have negative social impacts, too. An estimated 80 million people have been displaced by dams, and the formation of reservoirs can destroy cultural sites. And while many dams create somewhat clean and affordable energy, the picture there is complicated, and most energy experts see the future as belonging to a combination of wind, solar, and batteries.
Most of these factors weren’t relevant for the humble Kapps Mill Dam. No one was being displaced by this dam; no cultural sites were being destroyed; there was no associated power production; the only endangered species present in the river, as far as I could determine, was a single species of freshwater mollusk.
But still, you couldn’t argue that the dam was good for the river in any sense, really. It just looked nice. People liked having it around.
Environmentalist David Brower once declared, “If you are against a dam, you are for a river.” I do not believe, though, that my grandparents, or Ned Eldridge, or any of the dozens of other people I’ve spoken to about the loss of the dam are against the Mitchell River. In fact, I know they’re the people most “for” the river. The people that are closest to the land care about it a lot, but they care about it in their own cultural context. There is something to be said about the parochial logic of this folk environmentalism that permeates Appalachia. The fisherman cares about the health of a river in a different way than the environmental scientist. For this reason, I don’t find it contradictory that locals, who love their river, also loved the dam.
Ambivalence colored my thinking on this topic from the start, and late-night debates over value systems, Beauty and Goodness, and environmentalism with friends failed to distill an answer. Even as the part of my brain indoctrinated by economics classes cried about negative externalities, I couldn’t help but miss the soft thunder of the falls vibrating the foundations of the house as I drifted off to sleep on a cold winter night.
Six years since the landfall of Hurricane Michael, the decision has been made for me: the dam will remain a memory. The state of North Carolina, along with private partners at Resource Institute, restored the section of the river upstream from the dam, mitigating the severe erosion and building resiliency into the new, undammed flow of the river. The river itself, which had initially gaped like a fresh wound as the newly-exposed earth collapsed and fell in on itself, has healed without much scarring. Native vegetation reclaimed the banks, stabilizing the soil and providing new habitat for beavers and waterfowl.
Fisherman debate on forums and at the local diner whether the quality of the fishing has improved or not—this debate is to be expected no matter the objective truth of the matter—and where exists the best spot to find lurking trout among the new contours of the river.
A group of extended family members, with my grandfather as foreman, naturally, cleaned up the tattered debris of the dam itself a couple years back. A short section of the dam still stands in memoriam, not only for my family but for the community; Ned Eldridge, Raleigh Scales, and the dozens of other locals that responded to my outreach about the dam get a small reminder of what once was as they pass that stretch of the Mitchell River.
Regarding if the dam’s significance as a community and family symbol outweighed its deleterious impacts to the Mitchell River ecosystem, I am still undecided. I’m clear-eyed about the environmental costs. Even the most heartless utilitarian, though, has to find way to make room in their system for some aesthetic values like beauty.
My grandparents cared for the dam like more than just a piece of infrastructure; they respected it like a living being. The destruction of this symbol, traumatic as it was, felt like a death in the family. Fittingly, there was, for my grandparents, a period of intense bereavement. But, just as the river has healed over the past few years, so have they.
Thanks to my mom, sister, and Aunt Jenny for providing photos. Thanks to Jake Jose for feedback.
Michael what a great tribute to such a special place for our entire family. Your words have stirred up a wave of emotions for us all and I know they mean so much to your grandparents who have poured their hearts and souls into Kapps Mill over the years. As you know we have shared countless memories at the "Damn" at Kapps Mill which has served as the heartbeat for that community for decades and also for 4 generations in our family going back to your great grandparents that bought the property so many years ago. After weathering countless storms and floods over the years it is incredibly ironic that Hurricane Michael ultimately delivered the fatal blow to this historic structure. Your mom and Aunt Jennifer spent endless summers and holidays there that are forever etched in their minds as well as you, Anna and Natalie over the years. I too miss the rumbling of water cascading over the damn and the vibrations in the bones of the house as I drifted off to sleep at the end of so many great days since my first visit 37 years ago. Although the storm washed away such an iconic symbol for our family and the community as a whole, it did not, nor will it ever wash away the incredible memories and times that we have shared there together. Kapps Mill and the "Damn" will forever hold a special place in our hearts and collective "Memory Banks" forever!
I too, was lulled to sleep by the dam rattling the front door of our house. We lived close to the bridge and my parents are still there. I am pretty sure they are friends with your grandparents. They once had a garden in the bottom close to the river behind their house. You may have played there too. Mom remembers seeing that tree come down the river that washed the dam away and how it got stuck along the way. My parent have lived and loved the river and the dam since they moved there in 1972.