Moose Pond Dam Repair Update

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by Mark Patterson • Middle Basin resident • MPA board member since 2008 • 40+ years on the lake

The Moose Pond Dam is located near the center of Denmark at the intersection of Route 160, West Main Street and the Denmark Road. It holds back the water we know as Moose Pond. The dam is inspected on a regular basis and repairs are scheduled as required. The dam was reportedly originally built in 1792 with a major reconstruction in 1941 which introduced the concrete components.

The dam is approximately 75-feet wide with a crest height of 12-feet. It consists of three channels separated by concrete buttress walls varying from two-to-three feet in thickness. The sluice gates were repaired in the 1980s. The stop logs and center support posts were replaced in April of 2000. The dam underwent a major rehab in 2004 upgrading deteriorated concrete buttress walls, supports, and slabs, painting all exposed steel and replacing a heavily deteriorated concrete walkway with a fiberglass grated walkway over the West Spillway.

In 2019, the Town of Denmark – who owns and maintains the dam – requested an inspection of the existing conditions to be performed by Woodward & Curran, an engineering firm. The firm identified several major issues including:

• Concrete deterioration to several areas of the buttress walls and horizontal concrete slabs.
• The need to replace the East Spillway stop logs, which had visible deterioration and considerable leakage through the logs.
• Painted steel railings, supports, and other components that needed repainting. 
• The need to replace the failing concrete letter sign on face of the Center Spillway with a new prefabricated sign mounted to this face, as desired by the Town.
• Needed repairs to the West Spillway cap slab and, if desired, repointing of open joints in the dry-laid stepped granite spillway.
• Cleaning of existing fiberglass grating which have a visible accumulation of algae growth but are otherwise in good condition.

As mentioned earlier, the town of Denmark is responsible for the maintenance of the Moose Pond Dam but, as is customary in other lakefront communities, Denmark contacted the other towns with tax paying properties on the lake, to see if they would share the cost associated with the necessary repairs. The town of Bridgton agreed to participate. Sweden did not originally agree to do so but the Town’s selectmen are currently asking their residents to consider it.

A contract was awarded to Knowles Industrial Services out of Gorham, Maine. The Proposed repairs are expected to cost a little over $170,000. Repairs to the concrete and gates were completed this fall when the level of the lake was lowered by approximately one foot. Painting of the steel structures and replacement of the sign will be completed in the spring of 2022. The level of the lake will not need to be lowered to complete that final phase of the work.