The Bristol County Water Authority will be looking for money to remove two dams used as part of its century-old water system around the Kickemuit Reservoir in Warren.

The board of directors already approved a plan to remove an old earthen dike across the upper Kickemuit River just north of Schoolhouse Road in Warren. They have now approved a plan to remove a lower dam on Child Street, at the opposite end of the reservoir.

The board of directors approved a $120,000 contract with the Pare Corporation for design and permitting work involved with the lower dam’s removal. Water authority executive director Pam Marchand said the work will cost about $1 million and is expected to occur in 2022, concurrent with the upper dam’s removal.

Ms. Marchand said that with the authority’s abandonment of the Kickemuit Reservoir as a water source, there is no incentive to keep either dam in place. Removing it will help re-establish natural tidal flow up and through the upper Kickemuit area, she said.

“Right now the dam doesn’t serve any purpose,” she said. “When the tide is high, the water goes over the dam. (Removing it) would restore the natural channel through the whole area.”

Though the lower dam’s removal has not been talked about as much as the $1.6 million removal of the upper dam, Ms. Marchand said it makes sense from a planning perspective to further the project along. The water authority hopes to pay for much of the projects’ cost through grants, and doing them together could make grants easier to obtain.

“Doing them at the same time makes (them) more available for grant funding because (both dams’ removals) will open up the whole estuary area” north of the upper dam, she said.

Rather than removing all of the lower dam structure, Ms. Marchand said the plan will likely be to breach a channel across its length. She does not know how wide that breach will be.

Meanwhile, planning for the removal of the upper dam continues.

The old earthen dam, approximately 60 years old, was found to be failing several years ago and DEM officials found the structure in violation of state environmental regulations.

Making the repairs and upgrades, as well as ongoing maintenance that would be required by DEM, would cost roughly $1.5 million. With the BCWA’s long-term water supply strategy, which eliminates the need for the dam and the Kickemuit Reservoir water source, a better long-term plan is to remove it, Ms. Marchand said.