Porąbka Dam

One of the minds behind this dam was Gabriel Narutowicz – a hydraulic engineer who had designed a dam on the Aare in Switzerland and later became the first President of interwar Poland. Since 1936 the concrete dam on the Soła river in Międzybrodzie Bialskie has held back Lake Międzybrodzie and protected the valley from floods. Despite its name it does not stand in Porąbka – the village boundary is about 200 metres away.

History: 15 years of fighting the river and the budget

For centuries the Soła could be dangerous: in 1813 it flowed through the market square of Kęty, and the great flood of 1903 in particular spurred the drive for flood defences. The first dam designs were drawn up in the early 20th century by engineers including Tadeusz Baecker and Kazimierz Maćkowski, but the First World War halted the plans. After the war the design was discussed with Narutowicz, and a narrowing of the valley between the Żar and Zasolnica massifs was chosen as the site. Work began in 1921 but was interrupted many times for lack of money – it only got going in earnest in 1934 under engineer Jerzy Skrzyński.

Some 2,500 workers and several hundred young labour-corps volunteers passed through the site, and waterproof cement from Goleszów went into the concrete. The project cost more than 20 million złoty of the day and was the largest hydraulic engineering project of the Second Polish Republic; President Ignacy Mościcki visited the site. The official opening took place on 13 December 1936, attended by Deputy Prime Minister Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski and Cardinal Adam Sapieha, among others.

What you'll see

The dam is a concrete gravity dam founded on bedrock, 260 m long and about 37 m high. From the crest you see Lake Międzybrodzie on one side, closed off to the east by the slopes of Żar, and the Soła gorge below the dam on the other. A hydroelectric plant built in 1951–1954 operates at the dam – the first element of the Soła hydropower system, which also includes Tresna and the Porąbka-Żar pumped-storage plant. It has two Kaplan turbine units of 6.1 MW each.

Did you know?

• Why the misleading name? The construction management was based in the so-called Colony in Porąbka and mail was addressed there – the name stuck, although the dam stands in Międzybrodzie Bialskie.
• Site manager Jerzy Skrzyński received the Gold Cross of Merit the day before the dam was opened.
• For the 90th anniversary celebrations on 12 September 2026, the Polish Waters authority scheduled the unveiling of a plaque to Narutowicz on the crest and rare group tours of the dam's interior.
• The dam still needs work: in 2026 about PLN 4.5 million was spent sealing the grout curtain in the bedrock, with some 880 m of core drilling.

Tripto tip

The dam itself takes 15–30 minutes, but it combines well with a walk by Lake Międzybrodzie or a trip up Żar. Crossing the crest is free, but a road runs along it – with children, watch for cars. The inside of the dam and the power plant are normally closed; tours are organised only occasionally, during Polish Waters events. The best light for photos of the lake is in the afternoon, when the sun is on the slopes of Żar.