History
The Mt. Morris Dam was built between 1948 and 1952 by the Buffalo District office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). The project was authorized by the United States Congress in the Flood Control Act of 1944 at a cost of $25 million.
Records show that the Genesee River Valley and the City of Rochester had experienced flooding since 1800. The flood of 1865, which developed flows exceeding 24 million gallons per minute, resulted in massive destructions with flows equating half the flows of Niagara Falls. Severe floods occurred every seven years between 1865 and 1950.
The USACE states that, in the years since the completion of the dam, an estimated $1 billion in flooding damages have been prevented, and that during Hurricane Agnes in 1972, $210 million in damages was prevented, primarily to the city of Rochester. The water inflow due to Hurricane Agnes exceeded the storage capacity of the reservoir and it was necessary to release water through the gates of the dam, causing minor downstream flooding. These releases were made to prevent overtopping of the spillway. Had the spillway overtopped, accumulated debris in the reservoir would have passed downstream, causing log jams and additional damage. Inflows of this magnitude are only expected to happen an average of every 300 years.
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