In last week’s Transitions column, a question was raised concerning the outlet of Little Wolf Lake. “Who,” we asked, and “why” and “when” was the crooked stream straightened out from the Pine Street bridge to the creek’s confluence with Racquette Pond?
An item in the Jan. 23, 1936, issue of the Tupper Lake Herald provided an answer, which may be of great interest:
A great change, improvement and betterment of conditions of residents in certain sections of Faust will be a thing of the past if WPA approval of a project to straighten out many of the tortuous kinks in Little Wolf Creek and thereby prevent the accumulation of refuse against the banks at the numerous bends is obtained.
Low water in past years along the creek (frequently dubbed “Dead Creek”) has brought with it unpleasant exhalations from decaying refuse and consequent unhealthful conditions. It is proposed to straighten the channel, widening and deepening it where necessary, between Main Street bridge, just beyond Washington Street, and the outlet at Raquette Pond. Engineers point out that cutting across many of the twists and “S” bends of the creek would result in a faster flow of current and obviate the backwater areas where refuse tends to accumulate.
If approved the project would provide about three month’s work for 60 men. The job would extend over about 3,770 feet of channel. Some 9,000 cubic yards of soft ground would have to be excavated and 5,000 cubic yards of fill would have to be placed to affect the changes in the direction of the creek’s flow. About 1,850 feet of sewer and drainage lines would be laid to extend to present lines. It is proposed to make the straightened channel average three feet in depth and ten feet in width at the bottom.
And as Paul Harvey would say, “Now we know the rest of the story!”
Note that in the above news item, sewer lines were to be extended to Little Wolf Creek. Local kids in my day had another less flattering name for that creek: SH-- Creek. In fairness, it should be remembered that the village at the time was only 36 years old. It was still undergoing “growing pains,” and as former historian Louis Simmons has noted, “In justice to the community, there wasn’t much of any other solution for sewage disposal in those days.”
Yet, while it may be hard to believe in this day and age, as late as 1960, 17 public sanitation sewer outlets, in addition to the VA line from Sunmount and numerous individual lines, were polluting area waters, pumping sewage directly into our ponds, lakes and streams.
This was, of course, highly unacceptable to most residents and, in particular, to the VA hospital, which threatened to build its own system if the situation was not improved. Fortunately, as the community struggled for a solution, Public Law 660, passed by the 84th Congress, authorized grants of federal aid that amounted to $250,000. The Veterans’ Administration agreed to a $127,000 contribution as a connecting charge. This left a balance of $253,000 toward the estimated maximum cost of $630,000 to be raised locally.
Community taxpayers quickly approved that amount by a 3-1 margin in a special March 1960 election. One year later, in 1961, Tupper Lake had a water pollution control system.
Disgusting, indiscriminate pollution that had been, in the words of one official, “a reproach to the citizens of Tupper Lake,” was now history (almost).
Today, a modern, well-managed state-of-the-art pollution control system sits proudly on a former Santa Clara Company mill site. Here, its unappetizing, pea-green exterior – painted to presumably meet APA visual guidelines – overlooks a recovered Racquette Pond, whose waters are once again as clean as the days when members of the Indian nations camped on its shores. The days when, in early times, it was called “Lough Neah,” after a beautiful lake in Ireland.