The Lake Abanakee Civic Association, Inc. (LACA) was formed around 1990 due to a shared concern about the future of the lake.
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The Lake Abanakee Dam
The Town of Indian Lake is the owner of the Lake Abanakee Dam, which was built in the mid-1950s, and is the entity that is making pulsing releases from that dam to facilitate commercial rafting. Water is released by the Town over a period of about two hours to flush the rafts on a wave down the Indian River and the Hudson River to the take-out location at North River.
The Town of Indian Lake is the owner of the Lake Abanakee Dam, which was built in the mid-1950s, and is the entity that is making pulsing releases from that dam to facilitate commercial rafting. Water is released by the Town over a period of about two hours to flush the rafts on a wave down the Indian River and the Hudson River to the take-out location at North River.
History of the Dam
"The Lake Abanakee Dam in Hamilton County, New York was constructed in the 1950s. Since 1997, regularly scheduled dam releases have made whitewater rafting on the Indian River possible — now rafts and kayaks can reach the Hudson River Gorge throughout the summer.
"The Lake Abanakee Dam in Hamilton County, New York was constructed in the 1950s. Since 1997, regularly scheduled dam releases have made whitewater rafting on the Indian River possible — now rafts and kayaks can reach the Hudson River Gorge throughout the summer.
The [original] structure is a gravity dam of earthen construction — it’s 15 feet high and 240 feet long. Maximum discharge is 6,870 cubic feet per second. Normal storage is 3,660 acre feet and capacity is 6,110 acre feet.
The dam brought jobs to the central Adirondacks from the very beginning. Hamilton County raised $60,000 in the summer of 1950 for land acquisition, clearing of the area, and the construction of the dam itself. Forty men were employed by the project." - NYskiblog.com/lake-abanakee-dam-ny/
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