SAVE THE LAKE
SAVE THE TOWN…
Shadow Lake, located in Orleans County in the Town of Glover, Vermont, is a small but deep inland lake nestled within the hills. This area, historically known as Slab City offered farmland, sawmills, cider mills, blacksmithing, ice harvesting and woodworking shops. The Shadow Lake dam provided both the power and the people necessary to support this robust little community.
The mill is gone but the dam and the people remain. Residents at the lake can be seen swimming, boating, fishing, waterskiing, paddling and walking around Shadow Lake in the summer. In the winter, ice fishermen populate the frozen landscape and the serene beauty of Shadow casts its spell on those that remain. It’s a community where people know each other and look forward to the peace and tranquility of the lake in every season.
The July floods of 2024 created underground erosion letting water stream into the embankment eroding the embankment and exit at the bottom of the secondary spillway which can be seen in the video on this page. This caused extensive damage to the surface of the embankment where one could see, 5′ down, a stream of water running underground and through the embankment. Vermont Dam Safety Program rated the dam as Significant Hazard. The town stabilized the bank with oversight of Dubois & King. It is the goal of the town to bring the dam into compliance.
The community will come together to raise money to help subsidize the cost of repairs to the dam. The town has signed a contract with Weston and Sampson, an engineering company, to perform an analysis study on the embankment at the dam. This includes 9 tasks which can be seen on proposal page. This will cost the town $69,500 and the analysis will be done by the end of December 2024. In 2025 they will work on getting the permits to do the work on the dam. Renovations of the dam will begin in 2026.
Doing nothing will cause economic, physical, and social damage beyond the loss of the tax base. Loss of the lake would be an enormous loss to the Town of Glover which relies on summer visitors for their busiest season. Please support your community.
Aerial photo of Shadow Lake by Watershed Environmental Consulting, Burlington, Vermont
The water that was in the sinkhole found its way to the bottom of the secondary spillway.
A copy of Slab City/South Glover, Vermont – A Busy Hamlet, Now Vanished, written by Joan Alexander, Connie Ashe, and Jack Sumberg, can be purchased at the Glover Town Clerks Office.