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Transcribed from the Belmont Dispatch, July 29, 1904.


 

CUBA RESERVOIR

Comments on Matter of its Ownership by Rochester Paper

Cuba Lake is on a Divide and Some of its Waters Which Should Belong to the Genesee River are Escaping to the Southward

For several years it has been necessary for a representative of the state, the city of Rochester and those interested in the use [of the ???] for power purposes to visit the Cuba reservoir situated about three miles from the village of Cuba, says the Rochester Chronicle, to obtain normal flow of its waters from the northward.

The outlet of the reservoir runs for a considerable distance on the right of way, and grading and other necessary operations usually result in filling of the outlet with gravel and diverting the flow to the other side of the Allegany divide and the accumulations of gravel has been removed.

The Cuba reservoir which contains 600 acres belongs to New York state. It was constructed as a storage reservoir to supply water for the operation of the Genesee valley canal. It is situated on the divide of the [Allegheny] Mountains. So exactly is it balanced that water for one or two outlet pipes on the northern side flows northward into the Genesee River, while waters from another pipe flows to the southward into [Oil Creek?]. During the panic caused by the letting go of the Johnstown dam several years ago, farmers living at the Allegany end of the big pond became alarmed and cutaway about six feet of the big embankment, allowing the water to flow to the southward into the headwaters of the [Allegheny River]. Later a spillway was constructed to the southward at this point, and the water now flows freely toward the Gulf of Mexico.

It has never been seriously denied that the entire output of water from the Cuba reservoir belongs to the Genesee Valley. No very strenuous efforts have been made, however, to add this source of supply to the other upper river sources. Usually the endeavor has been merely to induce the railway officials to remove the gravel with which they had obstructed the northern outlet.