Updates

03/31/2025: At the March 31st Common Council meeting, the DPW Director gave an update on the current status of the dam. Ramboll is the City's engineering consultant. Ramboll is working on a stability analysis of the dam to determine how much repair work is needed. But, none of that repair work being looked at by Ramboll will bring the dam into capacity compliance with NR 333.06, which is the main issue. The repair work is just fixing deteriorating concrete, scouring, seepage, etc.

The High Hazard rating assigned to this dam requires the ability to handle a 1,000-year flood without failing. For this particular dam, that's a capacity of about 8,300 cfs. Right now, with its current length and height, it can handle about the 10-year storm event, at about 2,750 cfs.

Fortunately, some Common Council members seem to be understanding that none of these very expensive "repairs" do anything to bring the dam into compliance with the capacity requirement, which is the main issue, and asked that more information be presented before making any permanent spending decisions.

The Milwaukee Riverkeeper was asked to speak at the next Common Council meeting, likely April 28th if schedules allow.
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04/03/2025:  A representative from Inter-Fluve will also present at the next Common Council meeting to talk about the feasibility study process. The same representative gave a presentation in April, 2020 at a Common Council meeting. The City Administrator, not understanding what the presentation was about, invited a local resident to give a presentation that was supposed to counter Inter-Fluve's. It failed badly. The local resident gave very incorrect information. Hopefully, that won't be allowed to happen this time.
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05/08/2025: Letter to the Editor by Paul G. Hayes, and the many needed corrections.
"Cedarburg’s three dams were built by immigrant German settlers who saw opportunity in the water of Cedar Creek that falls 80 feet in less than a mile. They built three dams to put that water to work powering three mills, and our city grew up around them."

-- None of these dams were built by German settlers. Those dams are long gone. And the dam by Bridge Road that is currently being discussed - it was built in 1939 and not by the mill. It is the third dam at the site and it never powered the mill.

"The dams and mills are the reason the city is where it is and why it looks the way it does. My street, Columbia Road, was named for Columbia Mill dam, not the other way around. The first dam builder in the 1840s gave Cedarburg its name for the white cedar trees that grew on each side of Cedar Creek."

-- The river is the reason the city is where it is. And, Mr. Hayes has no evidence of how his street was named, and it is of no importance anyway. 

"There may be no other place in the United States where three pioneer dams are so close together."

-- This is incorrect and he was corrected with examples five years ago. He chooses to repeat this anyway. 

"The dams are a big reason for Cedarburg’s popularity as a tourist destination."
-- This is false just by common sense. I very highly doubt any visitor on any given Saturday has ever come because there are obsolete, non-historic dams here. Mr. Hayes will not be serious.

"The falling water provides soothing background music to creekside diners at the Anvil, at the restaurant at the Wittenberg Woolen Mill; or who drink at Rebellion, the craft brewery at the Hilgen-Schroeder Mill; or sit for a spell on a park bench to watch the graceful rapids below the mill while eating a bag lunch."

-- Mr. Hayes fails or refuses to understand why these dams were sited where they were. Mill dams were sited at areas of swift water and waterfalls, not slower-moving stretches which are nearly noiseless. Removing any of these dams would not mean the soothing sound of moving water would be lost. 

"I have written about Cedarburg’s dams for 25 years. And for 25 years I have heard from people who don’t like dams. Opponents want to remove abandoned, useless, deteriorating and possibly dangerous dams because of their expense and because of their environmental impact and for safety reasons. Mostly I agree. Wisconsin has 3,900 dams; many should be removed because they are neglected, dangerous or useless."

-- As far as I can tell, Mr. Hayes has been recycling this same piece for 25 years. It was incorrect then and it's incorrect now. 

"But Cedarburg’s pioneer dams are neither abandoned nor useless."

-- Again, these are not "pioneer dams" no matter how much he likes using that word. All of these dams have been abandoned. And all of them are in fact 100% useless; none of them provide any service or usefulness to anyone or any thing.

"Here is the debate: Dams block the passage of fish. This is true but in some cases, this may be a benefit. The fish they block are mostly non-native species of dying salmon and trout from Lake Michigan."

-- This is very incorrect. First of all, how do these dams block "mostly non-native species" but not block native species? The "dying salmon and trout from Lake Michigan" he mentions are not nuisance species at all. (And trout don't die after spawning.)

"Dams create ponds that warm unnaturally, catch silt and promote algae growth. All true, but this new environment supports the species I listed. Dams don’t degrade the environment, they change it and the changes often enable new uses and recreation."

-- This too is quite incorrect and is disrespectful of our natural environment. 

"Repairing dams is expensive. I believe that the expense of removing the dams would cost more than maintaining them."

-- Mr. Hayes knows this is untrue. This is not even a possibility.

"Dams are human artifacts and, like all things created by humans, they are destined to vanish if they are neglected. To survive, they must have human attention, investment and they must be valued."

-- Does everything need to be about white settlers here? Are there ever times when maybe a 12,000-year-old river might deserve a chance to be a healthy, functioning river again? Mr. Hayes is well aware that none of these dams are historic, and should be aware that history did not begin when settlers got here.

"Our dams are happily used by residents and visitors alike. They are beautiful, both visually and musically. And they are educational, telling us about the human uses of renewable energy before the age of petroleum. In our time of oil insecurity and global warming we should think about such things."

-- No one "happily" uses our dams. By ordinance, we aren't even allowed to be near them in our river.  Global warming? If Mr. Hayes was concerned about global warming, he would advocate for the removal of some of these obsolete dams. Now it's about "oil insecurity?" As far as dams in Cedarburg go, Mr. Hayes is not a reliable source of information.
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06/09/2025:  The Common Council was offered an updated feasibility outline from Inter-Fluve and a grant opportunity to pay for it. They rejected it. They said they will wait until the true dam repair/modification cost will be known around August or September. If that cost is too high for even them to defend, then they might consider the feasibility study and an informed decision for the first time. The grant funding will likely no longer be available any more, though. Mayor Pat Thome and the Common Council have probably strung along the funder for too long, too many times.

05/12/2026: Ramboll, the City's latest engineering consultant, completed a stability analysis of the Woolen Mill dam. The next step is to prepare a cost estimate and present it to the Common Council.