C&O Canal superintendent talks about Conococheague Aqueduct restoration, canal flooding

The Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park stretches 184 miles along the Potomac River, from the mouth of Rock Creek at Georgetown in Washington, D.C., to Cumberland, Md.

The canal attracts about 5 million visitors a year, and a number of towns in the Tri-State area enjoy the economic benefits of the landmark, including Hancock, Sharpsburg and Williamsport, and the West Virginia communities of Shepherdstown and Harpers Ferry.

Williamsport has been witnessing a unique project along the canal with the decision by the National Park Service to restore the Conococheague Aqueduct, a water-filled bridge that allowed cargo boats to pass over Conococheague Creek next to the Cushwa Basin when the canal was in operation. When the aqueduct is restored — an $8.3 million project — it will restore the aqueduct's 1920s appearance and allow it to become the first watered, operational aqueduct on the canal since 1924.

Herald-Mail Media reporter Dave McMillion sat down this past week with C&O Canal park Superintendent Kevin Brandt to ask him about the progress of the aqueduct and other questions about the canal.

Q - How is the Conococheague Aqueduct restoration going? Is it still be expected to be completed by January?

A - The aqueduct is still under construction, still under restoration. And you know, it's going OK. But if anyone has looked out the window, it has rained a lot. And there's been flood waters and high water and it really has slowed the contractor down from the plan of attack that they had developed. So it probably won't be January of next year realistically. I expect that it will be sometime after that, but I don't think it’s going to be very long after that. I certainly expect that next spring, we'll be having a big celebration there.

Q - What are some examples of challenges that have developed in the restoration project?

A - When the masonry collapsed off the aqueduct (during the crash of a canal boat in the aqueduct on April 29, 1920), the canal company pulled a lot of the stone out of the Conococheague Creek. But apparently there was a lot more down there than anybody realized. In order to get the porta dams set up around the piers so that they could pump the water out and work in the dry, they had to have a nice, smooth bottom. Now it didn't have to be bedrock, but what they found is that there were a lot of rubble stones in the bottom of the Conococheague, in the creek, that had to be pulled out before they could get their porta dam in. And that was something we weren't anticipating, and neither were they.

Q - What was the extent of flood damage on the canal following heavy rainfall in the region last month?

A - I haven't got an update this week, but as of the middle of last week, there were more miles of the towpath we couldn't get to than we could get to. But for those parts that we were able to get to and evaluate, we had close to $14 million worth of damages. The worst of which is just downstream from Brunswick, where the little Catoctin Creek washed out, and washed away, literally an entire culvert. There's a big gap in the towpath now and there is really no good way, no safe way to detour around it. We've not posted a detour on the roads. We've got lots of signs and in fact were going to be putting up more signs this week to deter people from going out there. Because what happens is, people get to the end of the towpath (and) they can see there is a big chunk missing. The water is too deep really to go down and across on foot. And so people are trying to go up on the CSX right of way, and that's just a really dangerous place to go as well. So we're trying to inform people to stay away from that area in terms of trying to transit up and down the towpath. People can go and look at it, but it just is a really dangerous place to try and cross.

Q - Is there significant flooding damage closer up here, in Washington County?

A - There's a lot of miles of towpath here in Washington County that were covered with water, so they have inches of silt built up on them. Once it dries, it's hard enough you can ride a bike or walk on it, but when it's wet like when we have these thunderstorms like we've been having this week, it's remoistens that silt and it's very hard to ride a bike through, hard to walk through even. (There's) lots and lots of trees down, and other areas where mostly the side streams have eroded up against culverts and the towpath. There's an area up by milepost 64 where the towpath has been severed by a small stream. That break we actually have a small bridge across there. (You) can't get an emergency vehicle across it, but people can walk their bike across.

Q - How long will it take to recover from the damage?

A - Some of these things it could take a while because we don't have any money to make the repairs. The one good thing though is that with the transportation alternative program money that we were awarded from the state of Maryland, along with some park service money, we are about to advertise a contract or award a contract that will resurface the towpath from Brunswick pretty much all the way up to Shepherdstown. It will be our longest towpath resurfacing project in the 20-plus years I've been here where we've done it all at once.

Q - How long will it take to complete that work?

A - To be perfectly honest, I don't know. I would say it will be several months but it's not a year-long project.

Q - What's the latest development involving a proposal to move the C&O Canal's headquarters into the former Miller Lumber Co. building in Williamsport?

A - Well as much as I'd like to say that I have some big, exciting announcement, we don't at this point. We're still very interested in finding a way to move our visitor center out of the flood plain and relocate our administrative headquarters there. And we're still working on it. There's maybe some light at the end of the tunnel and I'm pretty sure it's not a train. But we don't have any announcement at this point.

Q - Can you say anything about the town's idea of building a new Williamsport library in the Miller Lumber Co. building and making it part of an "adventures in learning" environment that would be shared with the C&O Canal headquarters?

A - I guess the short answer is we're open to talking with the community and the county about how something like that or something else might work at that site. Williamsport, in particular, I think identifies itself with the canal. We think of Williamsport as the classic canal town. You know if it can be done in conjunction with the library system here in Washington County, that would be great. It's an incredibly smart institution, well-run, and well executed here in the county. And I think we would love to be associated with them if that some way works out and makes sense for everybody.

Q - The C&O Canal Trust started an initiative known as the Canal Towns Partnership, where local towns along the canal generate mutually beneficial economic activity by providing amenities and services to canal visitors. How is that going?

A - Well the Canal Towns Partnership is still ongoing. I don't know that I would necessarily say that it's thriving. But I think it's a great idea. The townspeople that we're working with are extremely committed to it. They're all volunteers as far as the partnership is concerned. And I think everybody gets it that as long as we're all working together, the visitor's experience is going to be deeper and richer. And when that occurs, more people are going to want to come here. And we've seen that steadily over the last 10 or 15 years as visitation has grown to 5 million (people), and in some years, more.

Q - The C&O Canal has been working with the C&O Canal Trust to offer lodging in historic lockhouses along the canal. How is that going?

A - Well, soon, we will be opening the seventh Canal Quarters (Lockhouse). It's down in Montgomery County at Swains Lock. We haven't picked a date with our partner, the C&O Canal Trust, but we'll be collaborating on a grand opening for that and it's probably the September-October time frame. And that will be the seventh one. We're still trying to find a way of growing that further out west here into Washington and maybe eventually out into Allegany County. It's such a unique experience that I believe that in time, we will accomplish the overall goal which, is this hut-to-hut experience. So that if people are coming from Europe, where they do this quite frequently, they can start in one end of the canal and bike or hike from one lockhouse to the next and have different experiences about different eras of the canal's history.