Reprinted with permission from The Alexander City Outlook

Students, including Tatyana Williams, from Dadeville Elementary School look over the edge of Martin Dam at the spillway and powerhouse Wednesday afternoon. (Cliff Williams/Alex City Outlook)

Some Dadeville Elementary School students got to take a tour of something in our area that is small compared to its impact – Martin Dam.

The 46 students from the school’s After School Summer Camp and Boys and Girls Program took a tour Wednesday taking a look at how the dam holds back the 44,000 acres of water and generates electricity for Alabama Power.

“This is cool,” Tatyana Williams said as she overlooked the spillway from the dam.

The students were able to see and walk along the 2,000-foot structure that backs water up the Tallapoosa River for some 30 miles.

While walking across the dam, students got to inspect a spare spillway gate atop the dam, used in place of one of the 20 others when dam employees need to work on it.

In addition to walking along the top of the dam, the students got to take an up-close look at the powerhouse.

“This was built in the 1926,” dam operations manger Billy Bryan told the students from the control room in the powerhouse on the Elmore County side of the river. “Everything used to be controlled here. We can still do that if needed, but an engineer in Birmingham controls it.

“When you turn on the light switch, we don’t want you to think about the electricity. Here we use water to generate electricity. Alabama Power and the Southern Company generate electricity with gas, coal, biomass and nuclear generators. We even have some solar plants. And we buy some wind generated power.”

The students also got to walk around the dam’s four massive generators.

Outside, between the dam and the powerhouse, some of the students were getting a little worried at seeing water coming through the dam, especially being some 75 feet below the lake’s surface.

“All dams leak,” Bryan told the students. “It does not matter if they are made from earth or concrete, they will leak. We monitor it to make sure everything is good. We have divers come in every five years to inspect the dam from the lake side.”

The students have been coming to the dam from Dadeville Elementary School for the past three years.

“With Camp Invention being so expensive, we started to look and see what we could do in house that did not cost so much,” Dadeville Elementary School After School Program director Sharyn Marshall said. “I knew Billy Bryan and we got started that way. We also went to Cheaha State Park and Horseshoe Bend Park the first two years when we had grants. This year we are doing the dam and Horseshoe Bend because of no grants.”

The highlight of the tour could have been tasting plums from the trees between the dam and powerhouse just outside the control room.

One student asked how they got there.

“I guess somebody planted them a long time ago, maybe a bird,” Bryan said. “I don’t know, but they sure are good.”