DEP REOPENS SHAVERTOWN HIKING TRAIL NEAR PEPACTON RESERVOIR
Trail in Delaware County was closed while DEP addressed damage at small pond
The New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced Wednesday that the Shavertown Trail in Delaware County will re-open to visitors on Friday, July 3, after engineers successfully addressed damage that was caused by beavers at a pond adjacent to the trail.
The trail, which opened in 2013 on a small mountain overlooking Pepacton Reservoir, features a 1.1-mile-long hike to a scenic overlook at Snake Pond. The trail was closed in late April after visitors informed DEP of significant beaver activity at Snake Pond. A review by water supply engineers found that beaver dams and lodges had allowed the pond to overfill and damage a small dam that impounded water at the half-acre pond.
Snake Pond
DEP quickly stabilized the site in April by using pumps to remove water from the pond. Engineers then designed and implemented a permanent breach of the pond by excavating a 5-foot-deep notch into the north side of its dam. The notch is shaped like a “V” with a flat bottom, measuring 3 feet wide at the bottom and 23 feet wide at the top. The notch was lined with stone to prevent erosion. If the pond rises above the elevation of the notch, water will pass through the channel and into the stream that originally carried water toward Pepacton Reservoir before the small dam was built by a private landowner in the 1970s.
The breach of the dam reduced the size of Snake Pond by about half. DEP scientists identified a native seed mix that was planted around the perimeter of the pond to help the area re-emerge as a pollinator-friendly wetland habitat. Although the breach of the small dam was completed on May 27, DEP kept the trail closed for the past five weeks while those seeds took root and began to grow.
DEP acquired the property through its land acquisition program in 2010, and opened the trail in partnership with the nonprofit Catskill Mountain Club in 2013. The small dam that created the pond was built many decades before DEP acquired the property. More information about the Shavertown Trail can be found on the Catskill Mountain Club website at https://catskillmountainclub.org/events/shavertown-trail/.
DEP manages New York City’s water supply, providing more than 1 billion gallons of high-quality water each day to more than 9.6 million New Yorkers. This includes more than 70 upstate communities and institutions in Ulster, Orange, Putnam and Westchester counties who consume an average of 110 million total gallons of drinking water daily from New York City’s water supply system. This water comes from the Catskill, Delaware, and Croton watersheds that extend more than 125 miles from the City, and the system comprises 19 reservoirs, three controlled lakes, and numerous tunnels and aqueducts. DEP has nearly 6,000 employees, including almost 1,000 scientists, engineers, surveyors, watershed maintainers and other professionals in the watershed. In addition to its $70 million payroll and $168.9 million in annual taxes paid in upstate counties, DEP has invested more than $1.7 billion in watershed protection programs—including partnership organizations such as the Catskill Watershed Corporation and the Watershed Agricultural Council—that support sustainable farming practices, environmentally sensitive economic development, and local economic opportunity. In addition, DEP has a robust capital program with $20.1 billion in investments planned over the next decade that will create up to 3,000 construction-related jobs per year. For more information, visit nyc.gov/dep, like us on Facebook at facebook.com/nycwater, or follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/nycwater.
###