Debris at the base of The American Falls was starting to concern everyone. So, in 1969, the U.S Army decided to intervene. The Army Corp of Engineers started studying what measures they could take, if any, to remove the blockage.
But before anything could be done, the International Joint Commission had to be consulted. After all, this wasn’t just the U.S involved, since the falls are in Canada, as well.
People who live in the area are accustomed to the sound of the rushing waters – and they have been since there were people living in the area. So, you can imagine how if that sound were to suddenly come to a halt, residents may be a little shocked. That’s exactly what happened when, for the first time in 1848, the Niagara Falls stopped, well, falling.
For 30 hours, on March 29th, millions of tons of ice blocked the flow from Lake Erie. And, just as Mother Nature had caused the dam, she took it away with some strong gusts of winds just over a full day later.
After the 30-hour debacle in March of 1848, engineers knew they had to spring into action to prevent anything like that from happening again. Now, to stop ice from blocking the flow, yearly precautions are taken. A three-kilometer ice boom is installed where the mouth of The Niagara River meets Lake Erie.
22 steel pontoons work together to control the amount of ice that makes it into the river. But 1848 wouldn’t be the last time the water would stop falling. Only the next time, it was man who made it happen.
The Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side of Niagara was the first one to be sculpted to give it a better appearance, at the request of citizens and those who oversaw everything. In the late 1950’s, cofferdams had been erected to dry out the area so everything could be chiseled and contoured.
This resulted in the Horseshoe Falls area being the most desirable viewing spot in all of Niagara. And because of that, the citizens of Niagara Falls, New York, decided that it was time their side get a makeover, too. And thus, they began the 1969 American Falls projects.
To find out exactly what it was that was causing the issues, researchers tried to figure out how they would restore the falls to their natural beauty. The solution? The American Falls were completely shut off from June to December of 69’. There were about 27,000 tons of rock dumped upstream, which created a cofferdam that ran from the mainland all the way to Goat Island.
Once the rock bed was exposed, researchers could begin looking underneath it all. And when they did – they found some things that shocked them.