The city of Lexington is hosting an open-house style meeting for citizens who wish to learn more about the planned decommissioning of Moores Creek Dam.
The meeting, which will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 6, from 10 a.m. to noon in the second-floor conference room at the temporary city offices at 539 Nelson St., will include engineers and scientists with the Timmons Group, the engineering firm that is working with the city on this project. In a press release announcing the meeting, the city said that the meeting will offer “community stakeholders the chance to learn more about the city’s restoration plans for the area early in the design process,” and will allow residents an “opportunity to offer views and suggestions for the reforestation of the almost 60-acre Moores Creek reservoir.”
Lexington is also working with the Virginia Department of Forestry on this project and intends to convey the 60 acres where the dam currently sits to the state once the dam is removed. The state owns and manages the Moores Creek Forest which is adjacent to the dam, so the land will remain open to the public under the Department of Forestry’s management after the dam is decommissioned.
“Having the design engineers in the same room with [city] residents, environmental activists, recreational enthusiasts and county residents early will help ensure that we achieve a great restoration and reforestation project,” Lexington City Manager Tom Carroll said in the press release. “We invite everyone concerned about the Moores Creek Dam and Reservoir to attend during this open house meeting so we can learn their hopes and hear any concerns.”
The dam was originally built between 1912 and 1914, with the reservoir providing the majority of Lexington’s drinking water until the Maury Service Authority opened the water treatment plant along the Maury River. Lexington and Rockbridge County entered into an agreement to keep the dam and reservoir maintained as an emergency water supply for the MSA, though a waterline connecting the reservoir to the MSA plant was never completed. In December of 2024, a small sinkhole was discovered near the base of the dam, which prompted the city to begin into looking into options to either repair or decommission the dam. Lexington and Rockbridge County entered into an agreement earlier this year to remove the reservoir as an emergency water supply, allowing the city to move forward with decommissioning the dam.
The cost to remove the dam is estimated to be between $3 million and $4 million. The city has secured a $500,000 grant from the Department of Natural Resources and an additional $3 million in federal funding through the Virginia Department of Forestry to cover costs associated with the dam’s removal. Any additional costs will be paid by the city from its utility fund. The Timmons Group estimates that the plans for the dam’s removal should be “about 60 percent completed” by the end of the year and the project should be ready to go out for bids by July 2027, with work beginning in August.
Anyone with any questions about the Moores Creek Dam project is encouraged to reach out to Carroll by email at [email protected].
