TRUMBULL COUNTY Officials to discuss plan for Girard Lakes

People primarily fish at the lakes but they're also open to some camping and recreation.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
GIRARD -- The city's parks and recreation committee will meet at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday in council chambers to discuss options regarding Girard Lakes.
A plan is being developed by Burgess & amp; Niple, a Columbus-based engineering and architectural firm, to prepare the city in case the dam in Lower Girard Lake fails.
Mayor James Melfi has said he ordered an update of the emergency plan after being told by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources that although failure is unlikely, the concrete dam needs to be replaced.
Jim Stacchiotti, lakes manager, told council Monday the lakes are open to fishing and limited camping and recreation.
About 8,000 to 10,000 people visit the lakes annually, mostly to fish. That includes visitors from other parts of the state. A lot of Girard residents don't even know the lakes are there, he said.
The lakes are surrounded by about 1,000 acres, and the area is home to wild turkeys, beavers, deer, coyotes, birds and other wildlife.
Federal grant: The city received a $900,000 federal grant to pay for a study and preliminary engineering to replace the lower dam a few years ago, and city officials believed federal funds would be made available to replace the dam. Those funds never arrived.
The city has $585,000 remaining of the $900,000 grant, allowing the possibility of breaching the dam rather than replacing it.
The area includes a lot of trees that Stacchiotti believes have never been cut that could be sold for timber.
"You could do a selective harvest," he said. "The state has a program where they come in and mark the trees for you."
Other trees could be planted, replacing the ones that are cut down.
The city bought the lakes for $2.5 million in the mid-1990s and has defaulted on a loan from the Ohio Water Development Authority to finance the deal.
The city's initial plan was to sell water from the lakes, but that idea was shelved when it learned that a filtration system would cost about $15 million.