Laurie Gagnon of Tilton snaps a photograph of a missing river outside Epsom’s Old Mill Restaurant after the Suncook fled its banks for about a mile. State officials are studying the effects the displaced river may have on Epsom residents. Officials are considering whether it is possible to divert the water back to its original course. (The Hooksett Banner/Nicholas Brown)

By Nicholas Brown
taff Writer

EPSOM – State and local officials are uncertain whether the Suncook River in Epsom will be rerouted after the recent floodwaters forced it to jump its banks and forge a new mile-long course.

Erosion on a bank about a quarter-mile south of Route 4 caused the river to bypass a sharp curve on the morning of Tuesday, May 16. It now funnels through an active sandpit and meanders through several different low-lying points before returning to its normal course about 6,000 feet downstream, said Epsom Fire Chief Stewart Yeaton.

“(The river) just decided to go straight instead of making the hairpin turn,” Epsom Selectman Robert McKechnie said of the breach.

Safety officials had feared two dams in the mile-long stretch could breach during the torrential storms, but instead, said Yeaton, “it wasn’t the dams – it was weakness in the banks.”

The site of the Old Mill Restaurant and Tavern as well as the Concord Elks Lodge has since been a popular spot for witnesses of a hollow riverbed, where the Suncook is eerily missing.

“It’s devastating,” said Mariette Biron, a former Epsom resident of 37 years, pointing at the vacuous riverbed. “This used to be such a beautiful spot.”

Stan Deno, secretary of the Concord Elks, witnessed the river’s change during the flooding.
“The water was coming up and up real good – then it was gone,” he said.

On Monday, May 22, Epsom selectmen met with a representative from the state Department of Environmental Services to discuss a plan of action, though Selectman Julie Clermont said many studies still have to be done.

No official action was taken regarding the Suncook, and selectmen said DES representatives may come back to the town with some plan of action within about two weeks.

“There are still a lot of questions that are in the state’s hands right now,” said McKechnie.
Steve Couture, a representative of the DES Watershed Management Bureau who is working with local officials, couldn’t be reached by press time.

McKechnie said the state is planning to study the potential effects of the river’s change on local residents.

“This is the first time the state has seen this too,” he said.

The river’s change has also sparked New Hampshire Fish and Game Department workers to search for brook floater mussels along the former riverbed, selectmen said.

The small mussels are on the state’s endangered species list, and workers labored for two days, up to press time, to save them for a fishery in Nashua.

See more on the river’s change at the Friends of the Suncook River’s Web site: www.friendsofsuncookriver.org