May 16, 2025

Scott Sackett, a documentary filmmaker, public media producer and Jandoli School of Communication lecturer, co-presented his documentary work on Kinzua Dam and the Seneca Nation of Indians at the Yager Museum of Art & Culture at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York, on April 11. The screening and panel discussion were hosted by Dr. Quentin Lewis, museum curator.

The story of Kinzua Dam and the Seneca people was documented by Sackett and his production partners Paul Lamont and Caleb Abrams in the 2017 national public television film "Lake of Betrayal."

Built on the Allegheny River in Warren, Pennsylvania, the dam was planned as part of an extensive flood control system to protect Pittsburgh, more than 200 miles downriver. But at the time of its construction in 1965, there were undisclosed plans for a hydropower facility to drive economic development.

Ten thousand acres of the Seneca Nation’s treaty-protected lands were taken for the reservoir. This was the era of Indian Termination, when Native American tribes were removed from protected status in the U.S. and their lands were sold to nonindigenous people.

Resistance by the Senecas failed to prevent the dam’s construction, but the nation still retains title to its flooded land. Kinzua Dam spurred strong activism among the Seneca people to protect their sovereignty, the effects of which are still evident today.

Sackett continues his documentary work on Seneca history and culture for the Seneca Nation with Abrams, a Seneca citizen from the Allegany Territory. Their research and development on oral histories and community storytelling is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities