Safety work on dam finished
By Elise Franco
Salem
Work to alleviate major safety concerns at Ponderosa Park Dam is completed, said the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
ODNR began lowering and draining the 21-foot-high dam in early July after a recent inspection revealed significant erosion and slippage that posed a potential safety risk for state Route 45, which runs near the dam.
Rodney Tornes, of ODNR soil and water resources, said the department attempted to notify the various property owners of the hazard many times over the past several years, but to no avail.
“They’d been notified over the years to take care of the problems there that had been ignored,” Tornes said. “We sent them more recent notices over the past few months. They were given ample time.”
Tornes said the most recent owner, Bruce Howell, of Resort Management in Southern California, did meet on-site with ODNR personnel but never took any action.
Howell offered no explanation, but said: “At this point I have no comment ... I’m done with it.”
The park, a long-running venue of top country acts at 9362 S. Salem-Warren Road, closed June 15.
Tornes said the reason behind draining the dam was twofold.
“The dam was in very poor condition. It was an older dam and needed to be taken care of immediately from the standpoint of there’s no guarantee when the next flood could come through and cause the dam to fail catastrophically,” he said. “That would then release a lot of the sediments in the lake which would have a negative impact on the stream. It was a stream-quality as well as a dam-safety issue.”
Tornes said the work, which was expected to take about a month, took only a week and was completed about July 15. He said the dam is now safe.
“The Ohio [Environmental Protection Agency] has put in some rocks and sediment to slow that flow down and keep it in good condition,” he said.
“The dam is lowered and drained, and the hazard is gone at this point. The lake should start re-establishing itself into a wetland situation.”