EPN July Breakfast

The July EPN breakfast along with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) presents 'Issue-plagued 184-year old Buckeye Lake Dam get ODNR-led 21st Century Innovation Tech Fix.' This breakfast will be held at the Buckeye Lake Yacht Club.

After years of less-than-productive interaction and planning among local residents and state officials, the US Army Corps of Engineers in March 2015 issued a report commissioned by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources indicating the 4.1 mile earthen dam, with 370 homes and structures built into or on it, was at imminent risk of failure. The State quickly ordered the water level  of the lake to be lowered to mitigate this risk while new remediation plans were developed.  Immense local resident and business pressure for a quick remedy grew, and ODNR and its engineering consulting firm for the project were able to develop an innovative technological fix that allowed rehabilitation work to begin within months and construction work to proceed more quickly than originally estimated.

Following a warm buffet breakfast at the 110-year old Buckeye Lake Yacht Club’s 1912 clubhouse on the lake, ODNR and Gannett-Fleming, Inc. representatives will discuss the situation, the ODNR Buckeye Lake Project and the innovative methods to be used. Participants will then visit dam rehabilitation construction sites and interact with local leaders.

Participation will be limited to the first 50 attendees who will travel by an OSU charter bus from Nationwide and Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Center to Buckeye Lake, departing at 7:10 AM. In addition, up to ten other attendees may register and travel independently to the Buckeye Lake Yacht Club (5019 Northbank Rd., Buckeye Lake, OH 43008), arriving by 8:05 AM; they will carpool to the construction sites following the program. The charter bus will return to OSU no later than 12:30 PM.

Learn more about this EPN on the EPN website.

We have confirmed important details for the OSU Environmental Professionals Network field trip and breakfast July 12 at Buckeye Lake. Gannett Fleming's VP and deputy manager for dams and hydraulics, Robert Kline, PE, will provide the principal comments on the dam rehabilitation project, after breakfast at the historic Buckeye Lake Yacht Club's Fireside Room and outdoor porch overlooking the lake.  On the bus from OSU, Jonathan Ferbrache, Resource Manager and landscape architect with Fairfield Soil and Water Conservation District will provide information about the history of Buckeye Lake, hydrology of the watershed and lake, and water quality issues and activities in the lake and watershed. Ferbrache is a wealth of information on these matters and has even walked every foot of every tributary draining into and out of Buckeye Lake.