Pike Drive Dam Project Information

The NPS is considering decommissioning an earthen dam and reclaiming the 1.25-acre impounded area as a wetland. The dam and pond, located in New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, are failing and hazardous to human safety, natural resources, and infrastructure below the dam. Action is needed to remove these hazards and protect human safety and resources.

Pike Drive Pond is located at latitude 37.771, longitude -81.048, perched on a large, excavated bench adjacent to Interstate 64 in Raleigh County, West Virginia (see map). The pond is accessed by driving south on Grandview Road (toward Shady Spring) from I-64 Exit 129A, turning left onto Pike Drive and driving for approximately 1.1 miles to the NPS gate on the left.

An engineer with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection inspected the dam in April 2021, and noted severe deficiencies due to improper construction and maintenance. Recommended actions were (1) to drain and dredge the pond, clear all woody vegetation from the dam, and rebuild the dam with proper spillways, or (2) drain the pond, decommission the dam, and reclaim the impounded area. The estimated cost to rebuild the dam is $500,000. Because of the present hazards, high cost of repair, unavailability of funding, and relatively low value of the pond for natural resources and visitor use, NPS is considering implementing action 2.

Decommissioning the dam and reclaiming the impounded area will consist of the following primary steps:

1. Prior to other steps, the NPS Natural Resource Team will treat non-native invasive plants within the project area.

2. The NPS Roads and Trails Crew will add gravel to the existing gravel access road to the pond to harden the surface to make equipment transport more efficient. They will also clear the existing road corridor of vegetation.

3. NPS staff will use mobile pumps to drain the pond.

4. Stranded fish and other aquatic organisms will be relocated to another suitable location.

5. NPS staff will cut all trees growing on the dam that could otherwise be hazardous to work crews decommissioning the dam.

6. The NPS Roads and Trails Crew will use an excavator and loader to remove soil/fill from the dam, creating a large notch in the dam with an appropriate angle of repose to ensure long-term stability, and leaving a 1-foot-high impoundment to trap enough water to support wetland vegetation. The work crew will harden the base of the notch with sandstone rip-rap and place silt fence below the notch to trap sediment. They will cache or spread all excavated soil/fill on the existing disturbed bench.

7. The NPS Natural Resource Team will revegetate the formerly impounded area with cuttings of wetland shrubs and seeds of wetland grasses, sedges, and forbs, sourced from the nearby Kate's Branch wetland. They will also revegetate the adjacent disturbed bench with trees, shrubs, grasses, and forbs sourced from within the park or on the commercial market.

Topic Questions Instructions:

Please consider the topic questions above then number your responses to match the corresponding question. Please feel free to provide general responses as well.

Topic Questions:

1. Are there any visitor use, wildlife, vegetation, aquatic, or cultural resources impacts that the NPS should consider?

2. 2. Are there any visitor opportunities or considerations that you would like to see addressed in this area?

Document Content:

NERI Pike Drive Dam map.pdf   (382.2 KB, PDF file) FailedOverflowPipe.JPG   (341.3 KB, Image file) FailedOverflowPipe2.JPG   (6.5 MB, Image file) PondViewTowardDam.JPG   (338.5 KB, Image file) Disclaimer: Links within the above document(s) were valid as of the date published. Note: Some of the files may be in PDF format and can be viewed using the Adobe Acrobat Reader software. You may download a free copy of from Adobe Systems.