Why Paterson officials want to recreate what occurred 230 years ago at the Great Falls

PATERSON — Rewatering the city’s raceways, the man-made canals that used to power 19th-century industries around the Great Falls, has been a high priority for national park advocates who want to re-create its history.

Having water flowing through the three levels of raceways at the Great Falls would give park visitors the best understanding of how the waterfall helped launch the Industrial Revolution in America, along with the founding of the city of Paterson, advocates say.

But a new study by the Passaic Valley Water Commission has deemed one option for rewatering the raceways as impractical: using the retention basins at the nearby Levine Reservoir.

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Now officials are back to the drawing board in their effort to replicate what was first done more than 230 years ago, diverting water from the Passaic River to flow through the raceways.

The challenge isn’t so much about finding a way to send some of the river water through the canals, experts said. The problem is that the raceways sprang leaks that flooded nearby properties and forced officials 15 years ago to shut down the gatehouse that directed river water through the canals.

A report from several years ago put the cost of making the raceways impermeable at about $14 million, said Frank Blesso, an engineer and redevelopment consultant who has worked on raceway projects for several decades.

Blesso said he never had any doubt about the impracticality of the idea to use the Levine Reservoir for watering the canals. He said it was always clear that the cost of pumping water from the reservoir system through the canals would be prohibitive, calling the three years of the study a waste of time and money.

An engineering marvel

Darren Boch, superintendent of the Great Falls national park, said he is ready to move on to the next option for the raceways.

“There's a lot to consider in rewatering what amounts to a 1-mile canal running through a dense urban landscape — engineering, archeology, operations and maintenance, to start,” Boch said. “But the raceway system is integral to the story of why America's first planned industrial city was located in and would power what would become Paterson.

“It's an engineering marvel and the single most important extant historic resource in the park, and it remains a priority to once again have water coursing through the system,” Boch added.

He said the National Park Service would team up with Paterson on the raceway initiative.

Mayor Andre Sayegh’s chief of staff, Habib Kader, said the findings of the recent study will prompt “stakeholders to explore next steps to water the raceways.”

“The project aligns with our shared vision of revitalizing the area and transforming Paterson into a vibrant destination that celebrates its rich history and natural beauty,” Kader said.

Link to man who designed layout of Washington, D.C.

Bob Guarasci recalled looking at the raceways from the windows of his organization’s headquarters on Spruce Street.

“It was really quite nice,” said Guarasci, executive director of the New Jersey Community Development Corporation nonprofit group. “I used to be able to watch the water run down one of the spillways.”

Pierre Charles L’Enfant, the man who designed the layout for Washington, D.C., engineered Paterson’s first raceway in the 1790s, which drew water from the river through a wooden dam, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.

As the number of mills around the Great Falls increased, the raceway was expanded to include different levels of canals for industries on the upper, middle and lower grounds near the waterfall. The raceways eventually gave way as a source of power when a hydroelectric power station was built at the Great Falls in the years before World War I.

But the canals still carried water into the 21st century, until the leak problem got worse.

“Whatever approach works, we need to find it,” said Guarasci. “Rewatering the raceways is critical to people’s interpretation of Paterson’s history.”

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Why Paterson officials want to recreate what occurred 230 years ago at the Great Falls