Quiet crisis

Aug. 14—Editor's note: This is the fourth in a series of stories about the history and future of Lawrence's canals. This installment in "Canal Crossroads" explores the condition of the North Canal, and plans to restore water levels.

The mile-long North Canal ends between Island and Canal streets at three broken sluice gates through which water flows down to the Spicket River.

It's here, across from Lawrence General Hospital, that the canal's owner — Central Rivers Power and its subsidiary the Essex Company — plans to replace the sluice gates and raise the canal's water level to a regular operating level.

Lifelong Lawrencian Evelyn Rodriguez remembers when the North Canal water was high, especially here, where she would bring her children and grandchildren to relax to the sound of moving water.

On Friday, she stared at the sluice and wasteway and its state of disrepair. The canal's meager flow gurgled into three submerged pipes like water into bathtub drains.

"I hate to see it this way," said Rodriguez, a resident member of Lawrence Pa' Lante, which promotes healthy urban living through scenic and safe walking and biking paths, among other projects.

The historic canal, completed in 1848, once delivered water power to mills and stood as a gushing symbol of the city's founding as a textile hub.

Along an elm-lined walkway next to the canal was a promenade where residents strolled with pride.

Now, little trees and other vegetation grow from the canal's exposed stone walls, which, in places, buckle, bow and lean.

Comments filed by parties interested in the waterway as well as an engineering assessment and conversations with residents who frequent the North Canal reveal it's at a critical crossroads.

Canal advocates worry the waterway is headed, after decades of neglect, for accelerated decline without major work, or slower decline forestalled by stopgap repairs.

A full-fledged restoration excites many people but how to pay its extreme cost is the question.

According to a 2019 visual assessment commissioned by the city of Lawrence in cooperation with Groundwork Lawrence and done by Woodard and Curran engineering of Andover, 17% of the North Canal's length was at high risk of failure and another 12% had a moderate to high risk of failure.

The largest areas that the report identified at the highest risk of collapsing was a stretch on the north side of the canal near Franklin Street and on the south side across from Museum Square.

Photographs show wall sections leaning significantly into the canal, with uneven tops and major voids in the wall.

The report recommended a detailed, close-up assessment of the canal and stated the work needed to be done within four years though canal sections could collapse at any time.

In 2020, Central Rivers Power hydroelectric company — through its subsidiary the Essex Company — bought the Lawrence hydro operation including the Great Stone Dam and North and South canals from its previous owner, Enel, a worldwide energy company.

Under Enel's ownership, going back to about 2010, the company raised canal water levels periodically, elevation changes that led to water seeping into abutting properties including the Pacific Mills and a Verizon utility vault.

Lawrence City Council President Marc Laplante has urged Central Rivers Power to carry out assessments to avoid flooding problems at nearby properties.

The council and other stakeholders including Groundwork Lawrence say they are glad to know Central Rivers plans to elevate the canal water.

"We are all concerned about getting water back in the canal so it doesn't look like a sewer," said Brad Buschur, project director at Groundwork Lawrence, an environmental justice and public health group that for decades has advocated for a clean and restored canal.

Groundwork also remains concerned about the capacity of the canal walls to hold water.

"The lack of structural integrity of the canal walls limits efforts to restore historic water levels and creates unsafe conditions for current public and private infrastructure," the group wrote this spring in comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

A Central Rivers spokesman said in late July that it "performs quarterly inspections of all of its facilities, including the Lawrence Canals. We seek key stakeholder input to ensure work is prioritized with the input of all concerned parties."

The spokesman said Central Rivers has completed North Canal wall assessments and repairs, though he did not indicate the extent of the assessments and how many and where repairs were made.

The company has yet to respond to questions about when it will replace the broken gates at the wasteway, what the planned North Canal water height will be and whether it plans to test the canal walls' water-tightness.

In May, Central Rivers submitted to the state's historic officer plans for repairs to the North Canal and South Canal.

The company states it will remove the North Canal's broken sluice gates, disassemble the mechanisms that raise and lower the gates and replace the sluice gates and return the lifting mechanisms.

It will also repair the seal to an intake structure that controls the flow of water — a penstock.

On the 3/4-mile South Canal, Central Rivers has rebuilt the lower gates adjacent to the New Balance property to better control the flows and prevent further erosion and worked with property owners in the assessment and repair of the South Canal walls, the spokesman said.

The South Canal was built in 1866 and has been added on to over the years. It has fewer properties along its length and its water level is high, flowing at what looks to be historic levels.

Water in both canals originate in the Merrimack River. The canals are gravity fed, the water moved by the North Canal's six-inch slope from beginning to end.

The North Canal is in the North Canal Historic District and on the National Register of Historic Places.

Central Rivers, which operates its 14 megawatt hydroelectric plant below the Great Stone Dam, is required by its federal operating license to maintain Lawrence's canals.

Discussions about repairs to and maintenance of the canals, and even whether they will remain part of the hydroelectric project area, are expected to emerge next year when Central Powers begins relicensing from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.