“It’s the end of life as we know it at Buckeye Lake.”
That was the cut-to-the-chase verdict that general manager Deb Sturm delivered to her boss, Tracy Higginbotham, owner of the Buckeye Lake Winery, after returning Wednesday night from a hastily called meeting with a handful of area civic leaders. They had gathered to discuss the sobering Army Corps of Engineers’ report on the 177-year-old Buckeye Lake dam that was released on Wednesday.
Because of the dam’s poor condition, compromised by more than 370 homes built directly into the 4.1-mile earthen structure, the “likelihood of dam failure is high,” said the report, and it “poses a significant risk to the public.”
Among the options to prevent “catastrophic failure,” as recommended by the Corps to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which owns the dam and lake and paid for the study: Build a new dam or turn the lake into a 3,000-acre mud puddle by emptying it.
“The safest solution for eliminating the risk of flooding due to dam failure is to drain the lake permanently,” the report says.
Until remediation work can begin, the Corps recommends leaving the lake’s spillway open and keeping the lake at its current winter depth – about 3 feet deep – to increase its capacity for storm water and reduce the amount of water seeping through the dam.
The impact of that decision, however, would be massive, because it would end most boating on the lake.
It’s the boating during the summer recreation season that the marinas, bars, restaurants and numerous shops and rental businesses in Buckeye Lake, as well as surrounding Thornville and Millersport, count on for financial survival.
Click here to read more of this story from the Columbus Dispatch.
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