HONESDALE, PA — Waymart Borough Council member and historian Jane Varcoe on July 19 turned in some 125 signatures she gathered to support a drive to save the former Hankins Pond Dam from demolition.

The Wayne County Commissioners, who are sponsoring the petition, last week estimated that approximately 1,000 signatures have been gathered thus far, and Commissioner Joseph Adams said numerous paper petitions have yet to be returned. More than 400 of those were collected on a petition page on the county’s website. Petitioning was scheduled to end on August 1.

The 190-year-old stone dam once impounded a branch of the Lackawaxen River to provide water for the historic Delaware & Hudson Canal, creating Hankins Pond behind it. The pond and 1,000-foot-long dam, which stands 26 feet at its center, was later used to propagate trout for the Pleasant Mount State Fish Hatchery. The 90-acre pond disappeared when the state deemed it a high-hazard dam and breached it in 2013.

Despite that breach, officials said the structure remained a hazard, still capable of impounding enough water to cause danger to downstream residents should the remainder of the dam then fail. The demolition, now scheduled for this fall, would remove 75 feet of the structure on either side of the existing breach outlet. Based on the petition effort and a July letter, the commissioners are hopeful that Gov. Tom Wolf will intervene before demolition begins.