Sometime within the next five to seven years, a section of Niagara Falls will go dry [wired.com]. This isn’t a case of the great western drought creeping east, but rather New York’s plan to, for lack of a better term, turn off the famed waterfall. The most astonishing part of the whole idea is that it’s not nearly as crazy, difficult, expensive, or novel as it may sound.
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Niagara Falls sits as the western edge of New York, on the Canadian border. The Niagara River connects Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, and about halfway between the two, drops more than 100 feet. There are actually three distinct waterfalls. On the western, Canadian side of Goat Island is Horseshoe Falls, the massive 165-foot drop that accounts for about 85 percent of the river’s flow. On the US side of the island are the smaller American and Bridal Veil Falls.This round of dewatering needs to happen so engineers with the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation can scrap two 115-year-old bridges that have reached—well, exceeded—the end of their useful lives. The bridges cross the Niagara River above the American Falls, and were built to carry cars, trolleys, and pedestrians between the town of Niagara Falls and Goat Island, one of the prime viewing spots for both the American and Horseshoe falls.
The Canadian side is better anyway.