June / July 2017 Pocono Living Magazine

an environmental impact statement that included consideration of alternatives to a proposed project.

The Delaware River Basin Commission staff authorized a study that recommended building a $362-million network of sewage treatment plants around the perimeter of the federal project, from the Stroudsburgs to Milford, Port Jervis, N.Y., and along the New Jersey portion of federal property down to Delaware Water Gap. The central sewer system was aimed at preventing oxygen-depleting pollution of the reservoir. Matheson derisively called the sewer project “Frankenstein’s john.” • Federal officials demanded that New York State take steps to drastically reduce runoff of cow and chicken manure from upper Delaware River Valley farms, fearing the downstream flow of animal waste would turn the still waters of the proposed reservoir into a putrid green algae field that would destroy plant and animal life.

The governors of New Jersey and New York balked at the astronomical cost of complying with these anti-pollution measures. The growing antidam movement also objected to calls by downstream electrical utilities to harness mass quantities of Tocks reservoir waters to cool newly proposed nuclear power plants.

In July 1975, the governors voted 3-1 to suspend development of the dam. The federal government’s DRBC representative abstained.

Pennsylvania Gov. Milton Shapp was the lone holdout for building the dam. The entire 70,000-acre site, including the planned dam and reservoir, were added to the national recreation area.

Congress didn’t officially agree to de authorize the dam and reservoir until 1992.

Much of today’s McDade Recreational Trail would be under water if the dam had been built. The vibrant wetlands behind the National Park Service headquarters on River Road, near Fernwood, would have been part of the shoreline of the 37-mile artificial lake.

Conversion of the entire acreage to a national recreation area without a dam has forced the National Park Service to manage scores of rural roads and hundreds of decaying structures with a limited budget. A partial foundation is all that remains of a former Lutheran Church camp just north of Shawnee-On-Delaware. An historic brick church along the steep ridge above River Road survives – despite vandalism and one aborted government attempt to demolish it with heavy equipment so that squatters couldn’t occupy it.

Pardee’s Beach, once and still a popular Monroe County swimming site, is operated today as Smithfield Beach.

Hidden Lake, targeted in the mid-1960s as a private housing development even as the federal government prepared to buy the site for the recreation area, has been converted to a hiking and picnicking area.

The Eshback Boat launch in Pike County is named after the late former landowner – a Pennsylvania state legislator – who lost his property to forced government acquisition.

Today’s national recreation area exists for the public to enjoy, built on the sacrifices of those who lived there before. • JUNE/JULY 2017 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 45