Kinzua Dam was completed in 1965, and the project had already become the center of a long fight over the federal government's acquisition of Seneca land in western New York. The dam was built on the Allegheny River in northwestern Pennsylvania as part of a flood-control system for the Ohio River Basin. But the reservoir behind it extended into New York, which affected the Seneca Nation's Allegany Territory and forced families from communities along the river. Today, the same project sits at the center of one of the largest outdoor recreation complexes in the northeastern United States, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers .
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