Havre de Grace Sports & Outdoors

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The Conowingo Dam spans the Susquehanna River about 9 miles upstream from Havre de Grace. The area, as per the 1612 John Smith map, was originally known as Smyth's Falls. This hydroelectric dam also serves as a bridge for US-1 across the river. The original US-1 crossing, Conowingo Bridge, would have been submerged after the completion of the dam, so it was demolished in 1928. The dam also has 53 flood control gates, starting at the northeastern end of the powerhouse and spanning the majority of the dam. Just below the dam is the Conowingo Fisherman's Park, which is open to the public.

According to Wikipedia, the Conowingo Dam, and to a lesser extent the Holtwood and Safe Harbor Dams further upstream, severely impacted the migratory fish species, especially the American shad, that would swim up the Susquehanna River to spawn. In 1984 a fish capture feature was added at Conowingo and the shad were trucked upstream above all three dams and released. This program ended in 1999. A fish lift was installed at Conowingo in 1991. All three dams completed installation of fish lifts in time for the 2000 season. During the 2000 migration season, 153,000 American shad passed through the Conowingo fish lift. "However, passage rates of shad from Conowingo to Holtwood have been only 30 to 50 percent, suggesting that fish are having difficulty moving upstream in the waters of the Conowingo pool." This may not be good for the shad but probably explains why the fishing is good in the pool.