Valley residents mustering support for Pumpy revival
KAYLEE LINDENMUTH / SHENANDOAH SENTINEL FILE - The Pumping Station Dam in April of 2020.
BRANDONVILLE – A grassroots effort is underway to revive the borough-owned Pumping Station Dam recreation area between here and Girard Manor.
The Pumpy, as locals know it, was a once-legendary fishing and recreation area until its closure around 2010, when the Commonwealth Department of Environmental Protection ordered Shenandoah Borough to make repairs to the dam, which would’ve cost nearly $2 Million at the time.
Borough Council said last month that they have no plans for the property.
Dave Sarno, of East Union Township and a group of Ringtown Valley residents are working to muster support for the dam’s revival.
“We have a lot of community support,” Sarno said at a general town hall meeting hosted by State Senator David G. Argall and State Representative Dane Watro Thursday night. “It’s a very emotional community project.”
Argall asked Sarno to keep him in the loop and Watro said he would meet with the group about the project.
“We want to expand and put camping in there,” Sarno told the legislators.
Sarno told the Sentinel after the town hall that a committee is being formed to lead the effort. On March 22, he said they plan to present their ideas to the Northern Schuylkill Council of Governments, hoping to find regional support for the project.
He said they envision the Pumpy becoming a “Sweet Arrow [Lake] of the north.”
Sarno said, along with restoring fishing, the group hopes to add nature trails and carry-in campsites at the dam.
He said if the plans get off the ground, the group plans to organize a clean-up of the woodlands surrounding the dam.
Any action would require the approval of Shenandoah Council, and Sarno said plans will be presented to council when they have details ironed out and support found. Sarno was joined at Thursday’s town hall by David Briggs, Union Township, who expressed support for the project. He said he believed the breast of the dam was in good condition, but the spillway and drain pipe needed repair.
The Pumpy has sat in a state of disrepair since around 2010, when the dam was deemed deficient. Without $2 Million to remedy the situation, the borough closed the dam as a recreation area and it is often drained.
Shenandoah Borough has owned the facility since the early 20th century when it was a primary source of drinking water for the borough-owned Shenandoah Public Water Works, a predecessor to the current Municipal Authority.
When MABS was formed in the 1940s, merging the three companies, the Pumping Station Dam became a recreational area under the purview of the the Shenandoah Pumping Station Project Booster Club, the Pumping Station Recreation Committee, and most recently, the Shenandoah Pumping Station Preservation Association.
A 1961 article in the Shenandoah Evening Herald described the facility as “among the finest trout waters in the state.”
Following a brush fire which burned much of the grove at the dam, East Union Township Supervisor Kyle Mummey approached the borough about a potential revitalization. An agreement was drafted but not executed, and East Union briefly considered taking the dam by eminent domain.
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