The Center for Land Use Interpretation Newsletter

Hydroelectric Mecca

Niagara Falls
Like a dipstick displaying the hydraulic head between the top and the bottom of Niagara Falls, the Prospect Point Observation Tower is the penstock for the flow of tourism on the US side of the falls. Up to eight million visitors a year line up on the gangplank and stream through elevators to head into the soaking vapor on the Maid of the Mist boats, at the base of the tower. While tourists migrate towards the falls, local hydroelectric projects have been all about how to avoid them. CLUI photo
CLUI photo
Like a dipstick displaying the hydraulic head between the top and the bottom of Niagara Falls, the Prospect Point Observation Tower is the penstock for the flow of tourism on the US side of the falls. Up to eight million visitors a year line up on the gangplank and stream through elevators to head into the soaking vapor on the Maid of the Mist boats, at the base of the tower. While tourists migrate towards the falls, local hydroelectric projects have been all about how to avoid them. CLUI photo

NIAGARA FALLS IS THE PROGENITOR of mega-hydropower in the USA, and in many ways still reigns the realm. Its river, the Niagara, only 35 miles long, drains Lake Erie (and the rest of the drainage basin of the Great Lakes all the way west to Minnesota) into Lake Ontario, dropping dramatically 325 feet from end to end, and nearly all of it at the falls. This hydraulic head has been the biggest and lowest hanging power fruit to pluck from the earliest industrial days of America’s Eden.

While inspiring many grand visionary plans and capitalist utopias, Niagara Falls—the falls and the community that shares the name—became something else entirely. Some might say it’s a rotten tourist ruin, with crummy motels and casinos feeding on the dead wastes of a fallen industrial empire, an epic ode to a society gone astray. To others it’s a monument to innovation, where humans rose to the level of the colossal forces of nature, becoming like gods. To still others it stands as a pre-human wonder, proving the dominance of the forces of nature, above all, putting us in our place, down to size, like ants in hi-vis rain gear plying the misty trails at the bottom of the falls.

Niagara Falls is, of course, all these things, and more. But at its base it is a hydropower mecca, where the forces of “nature” (whatever that is anymore), meet the forces of “mankind” (whatever that is anymore), head on, stupendously.

Apart from the tourist industry, development at Niagara Falls has always been about how to avoid Niagara Falls. First for transportation, by the Erie Canal, which opened in 1825, and ended its westward trek across New York State at Tonawanda, ten miles upstream from the falls, on the Niagara River. Then, on the Canadian side, the Welland Canal, which opened in 1829, and runs parallel to the river, connecting Lake Ontario to Lake Erie directly, raising ships up and down the 325-foot elevation difference between them through a staggering battery of locks.

For hydropower, and the industrial development it made possible, there were three principal diversions of the flow around the falls, on the American side, each representing a different stage of history and technology (the Canadians, meanwhile, did their own thing at a similar scale). Each has left its mark on the place in different ways, as they leap-frogged one another, leaving outmoded monuments to rot underground, and building concrete dams that rival the Pyramids in scale.

As shown in this image from a New York State Park display, the Schoellkopf Power Station was built at the bottom of the gorge, half a mile downstream of the falls, where mills and plants were developed along the Hydraulic Canal, the first major diversion of water around the falls. CLUI photo
CLUI photo
As shown in this image from a New York State Park display, the Schoellkopf Power Station was built at the bottom of the gorge, half a mile downstream of the falls, where mills and plants were developed along the Hydraulic Canal, the first major diversion of water around the falls. CLUI photo
The remains of the Schoellkopf Power Station at the base of the gorge were removed in 1962, when the area was cleaned up during the third wave of hydroelectric transformation at Niagara Falls. Today the power station site is accessed by the old elevator shaft on the edge of the gorge (right), and is the winter home of the Maid of the Mist tour boats, which are picked out of the river with a giant crane (left). CLUI photo
CLUI photo
The remains of the Schoellkopf Power Station at the base of the gorge were removed in 1962, when the area was cleaned up during the third wave of hydroelectric transformation at Niagara Falls. Today the power station site is accessed by the old elevator shaft on the edge of the gorge (right), and is the winter home of the Maid of the Mist tour boats, which are picked out of the river with a giant crane (left). CLUI photo

Hydraulic Canal
The first significant diversion was the hydraulic canal, which opened in 1861. A surface canal 35 feet wide, eight feet deep, and nearly a mile long, it started a mile upstream of the falls and ran through town to the bluffs above the gorge, a half mile downstream of the falls. By diverting water from the canal and discharging it at a lower elevation through pipes and trenches along the gorge, businesses along its path powered mills for a variety of industries. Most of these mills were clustered along the top of the gorge, discharging water down the cliff, making a kind of second, industrial Niagara Falls, spectacular especially in winter, when it formed a massive drapery of ice along the 210-foot-tall cliffs of the gorge.

The first hydroelectric plant in the region was installed in a flour mill on the bluff in 1881, and provided power to streetlights illuminating downtown. It was built using Charles Brush’s carbon arc lighting system, powered by a DC generator, spun by flowing water. Similar versions of the Brush system were being installed for municipal lighting in several cities and towns in the Northeast and Midwest around this time.

Bigger hydroelectric plants were built later along this stretch of the gorge (which some refer to now as the Historic Mill District, as it was soon to be replaced by a bigger industrial area upstream). These plants, known as the Schoellkopf Power Plants, built in stages over decades, were clustered next to the river at the base of the cliffs, fed by falling water from above, enclosed in penstock pipes. When completed in 1924, the three adjacent plants lining the base of the cliff comprised the largest privately owned hydroelectric plant in the world, generating more than 400 megawatts.

On June 7, 1956 a rockslide along the battered and poorly engineered cliffs of the gorge destroyed two of the three Schoellkopf Power Plants. There was only one fatality, miraculously. This sudden loss of power production at the falls led to the passing of the emergency Niagara Redevelopment Act, where much, much bigger plants and canals would be made as part of the third wave of hydrodevelopment at Niagara Falls.

By the early 1960s, the Hydraulic Canal had been filled in, its era over. The historic mill district it enabled at the top of the gorge has been demolished, and most of the land is now part of Niagara State Park. The mile-long canal connecting it to the river above the falls now has parking lots and buildings on top of it, and its upstream end is paved over as John Daly Boulevard. The boulevard terminates at a traffic circle connecting the riverway and the Niagara Scenic Parkway, and is a transportation gateway to the city, park, and falls, built on the shore of the river with fill from modern hydropower excavations.

This image, from a New York Power Authority display, depicts the three Adams Power Station buildings clustered around the canal bringing water from above the falls to the plant at the upstream end of the Hydraulic Tunnel: 1) the Adams Power Station’s first powerhouse, which went into operation in 1895; 2) the second powerhouse, which was added in 1904; and 3) the transformer building. CLUI photo
CLUI photo
This image, from a New York Power Authority display, depicts the three Adams Power Station buildings clustered around the canal bringing water from above the falls to the plant at the upstream end of the Hydraulic Tunnel: 1) the Adams Power Station’s first powerhouse, which went into operation in 1895; 2) the second powerhouse, which was added in 1904; and 3) the transformer building. CLUI photo
The transformer building, designed by McKim, Mead and White, is the only remaining structure from the Adams plant. Though it is in disrepair, there is talk of turning it into a museum about the site’s important hydropower history. CLUI photo
CLUI photo
The transformer building, designed by McKim, Mead and White, is the only remaining structure from the Adams plant. Though it is in disrepair, there is talk of turning it into a museum about the site’s important hydropower history. CLUI photo

Hydraulic Tunnel
Upstream a few hundred yards from the rotary is the stub of the canal that fed the second major hydropower diversion of the river: the hydraulic tunnel, and the Adams Power Station. The canal diverted water from the river a few hundred yards inland, to a deep vertical excavation, dropping 150 feet down to a tunnel, 21 feet wide and 6,500 feet long, dug under the city, leading to an outfall on the other side of the falls, at the base of the gorge. At the base of the 150-foot drop were wheel pits, housing turbines, spun by the falling water, connected to shafts that rotated electrical generators in a powerhouse at ground level.

This operation, the Adams Power Station, came online in 1885, and was the first large-scale electrical generating station in the world to use alternating current (which Nikola Tesla had developed and proven as a superior technology to direct current, aggressively promoted by Thomas Edison).

Early DC power diminished as it traveled through wires, limiting the distance from plant to customer to a few miles. Not so with AC, and the power generated at the Adams Station was connected throughout the region, including Buffalo, spurring the industrial development there. It was the first plant to enable the transmission of electricity to occur in the manner that quickly became the norm: large centralized power plants feeding cities, and places far away, through a network of high-tension lines and substations. Some consider the Adams Station the first true hydroelectric plant in the world.  

The hydraulic tunnel system and the power plant were part of a successful industrial development plan for a two-mile stretch of riverfront, extending upstream from the power station. The industrial area continues to this day, with occupants including a Linde industrial gas plant, that once generated material for the Manhattan Project, and a chemical complex operated by Solvent, DuPont, and Olin, that made chlorine, caustic soda, and other organic chemicals, directly on the river. Portions of the site have been addressed by the EPA Superfund program. Also located here is Occidental Chemical’s Niagara Falls Complex, which earlier, as Hooker Chemicals, became famous for its disposal of toxic wastes at Love Canal, located a few miles upstream.

The façade of the main entry of the Adams Power Plant was moved to Goat Island, to form a gateway into the park’s concession area. CLUI photo
CLUI photo
The façade of the main entry of the Adams Power Plant was moved to Goat Island, to form a gateway into the park’s concession area. CLUI photo

The Adams Power Station  was expanded with a second powerhouse, and operated until 1927, when the latest Schoellkopf Power Plant in the gorge took much of its business. The Adams Power Station operated intermittently after that too, and was brought back online to help fill the power gap when the Schoellkopf Power Plant was destroyed in 1956. Adams was terminally obsolete by 1961, when the massive Niagara Power Project went online. At that time, too, the city wastewater treatment plant next to it was expanded, and most of the plant was demolished. The tall arched entryway of the Adams Power Station was relocated to Goat Island, at the top of the falls, and reconstructed stone by stone to become the Power Portal, a gateway between parking lot and park, and part of a memorial to the power of the falls, in front of a large bronze statue of a seated Nikola Tesla.

The two intake towers for the Niagara Power Project are located on the river, across the highway from the Occidental Chemical Plant. The intakes control how much water flows over the American side of Niagara Falls, and how much is diverted into the Niagara Power Project. A few years ago the “Power Authority” lettering was removed. CLUI photo
CLUI photo
The two intake towers for the Niagara Power Project are located on the river, across the highway from the Occidental Chemical Plant. The intakes control how much water flows over the American side of Niagara Falls, and how much is diverted into the Niagara Power Project. A few years ago the “Power Authority” lettering was removed. CLUI photo

Robert Moses’ Parting of the Waters
When the rockslide knocked out the Schoellkopf Power Plant in 1956, local and state planners went into action to reassess and rebuild the hydropower of the Niagara Falls. The plan that was drawn up, called the Niagara Power Project, included the biggest hydropower plant since the Grand Coulee Dam. Led by the notorious New York master planner and power broker Robert Moses (who transformed modern New York City) the plan would transform the city of Niagara Falls and the park overlooking the falls and the gorge.

The Robert Moses Power Plant (on the right, across from a similar plant on the Canadian side of the river), as seen from the Power Vista, at the downstream end of the Niagara Power Project. CLUI photo
CLUI photo
The Robert Moses Power Plant (on the right, across from a similar plant on the Canadian side of the river), as seen from the Power Vista, at the downstream end of the Niagara Power Project. CLUI photo

The Niagara Power Project begins two and a half miles upstream of the falls, on the shore next to the Occidental Chemical plant, at a site sometimes called Intake Park, where two towers control valves that divert water from the river into two massive underground pipes that feed the power plants below the falls. The parallel pipes run through the city, just under the surface, in an open swath of ground a few hundred feet wide, undeveloped except for high tension line towers, recreation fields, and crossings by roads and rail.

The pipes drain into the Robert Moses Forebay, an interstitial reservoir nearly a mile long, with a hydropower plant on either end. The Lewiston Power Plant, at one end, is a pumped storage plant, which lifts water out of the forebay into a 1,900-acre reservoir, which drains back through the plant to make electricity during the day, when it is more in demand, and more valuable. The Robert Moses Power Station, at the other end, with a capacity of 2,000 megawatts, is the third largest hydroelectric plant in the nation.

The Power Vista, accessed by a skybridge over the Robert Moses Parkway (also known as the Niagara Scenic Parkway), perched atop the gorge, with a view up and down the river, is the ne plus ultra of hydropower visitor centers in the USA. CLUI photo
CLUI photo
The Power Vista, accessed by a skybridge over the Robert Moses Parkway (also known as the Niagara Scenic Parkway), perched atop the gorge, with a view up and down the river, is the ne plus ultra of hydropower visitor centers in the USA. CLUI photo

All this was created in three years, ending in 1961, led by Robert Moses, head of the New York Power Authority. It is celebrated in the Power Vista, an elaborate visitor center operated by the Authority, dramatically perched above the Niagara River Gorge, overlooking the Robert Moses Plant, and the equally large Adam Beck Plant, operated by the Canadians, on the opposite side. Upstream a few miles are the distant mists of Niagara Falls. ♦

A mural by Thomas Hart Benton looms above the lower level of the Power Vista. The mural, commissioned by Robert Moses, shows the Franciscan missionary Father Louis Hennepin delivering the gospel at Niagara Falls in 1678. According to a nearby plaque, Father Hennepin was the first white man to see and describe the falls. CLUI photo
CLUI photo
A mural by Thomas Hart Benton looms above the lower level of the Power Vista. The mural, commissioned by Robert Moses, shows the Franciscan missionary Father Louis Hennepin delivering the gospel at Niagara Falls in 1678. According to a nearby plaque, Father Hennepin was the first white man to see and describe the falls. CLUI photo