Saturday, July 25, 2015
YOUNGSTOWN
Lakes Newport, Cohassset and Glacier are part of the historic essence of Mill Creek Park and any move to eliminate them by removing the dams that form them would be a major park board decision, a park landscape architect said.
“The water bodies create an ambience – a parklike atmosphere,” said Stephen Avery, MetroParks planning and natural resources director. They are among the features that give the park its “uniqueness,” he said.
“It’s not as simple as saying, ‘We’re going to take out a dam,’” to restore Mill Creek to its natural flow, he added.
Avery was reacting to an Ohio Environmental Protection Agency statement that removing the Lake Newport dam and restoring Mill Creek to its natural flow would be the cheapest remedy for poor water quality.
In a meeting with park officials last week, agency officials offered to help pay for dam removal but weren’t specific about costs or cost-sharing arrangements for doing so.
lakes indefinitely closed
The park district closed lakes Newport, Cohasset and Glacier to recreational use indefinitely July 10 after Mahoning County District Board of Health tests showed elevated E. coli sewage bacteria levels in Lake Newport.
The closures, which bar fishing and boating, followed a massive fish kill in Lake Newport, which the OEPA attributed primarily to a combined city storm and sanitary-sewer overflow discharge due to heavy rains in late June.
Park features, including the lakes, were designed “with great thought and intention” by some of the country’s most-prominent landscape architects of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Avery observed.
These included Frederick Law Olmsted Sr., who also designed Central and Prospect parks in New York City, he noted.
Lakes Cohasset, Glacier and Newport are artificial lakes created in 1897, 1906 and 1928, respectively. Volney Rogers founded the park in 1891.
Loss of lakes Newport or Glacier would result in curtailment of boating, Avery noted. No boating or fishing is allowed at Lake Cohasset.
DAM UNDER REPAIR
Despite the OEPA’s suggestion that it be removed, the Lake Newport dam is now undergoing repair of its inoperable gate mechanism under a $21,977 contract with W.E. Downie Co. of Poland.
Another state agency, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which regulates and inspects the park lakes and dams, requires that gate controls be operable, Avery said.
The gates, which can discharge water from inside the dam, can be used to drain the lake, but do not serve as a storm-water control system, Avery explained. “The [lake surface] elevation is controlled based on the spillway,” over which water flows out of the lake at the top of the dam, he said.
water-testing arrangement
Under an agreement reached Thursday, the Mahoning County District Board of Health will test the waters of Mill Creek and Lake Newport for E. coli over the next 12 weeks.
The park district will pay up to $3,000 for the testing program, which will begin next week, said Ryan Tekac, environmental health director for the health board.
Three water samples will be collected weekly at each of three locations by health board sanitarians and tested in the health board lab, with additional samples being collected 24 to 48 hours after rain events, which could sweep additional pollutants into the creek and the lake.
Because of the 12-week testing period, it’s unlikely any more boats will be rented by the park this year at lakes Glacier and Newport, Avery said.
Boat rentals normally end on Labor Day, but canoeists and kayakers normally may use those lakes through November.
The three testing locations will be: the footbridge over Mill Creek just downstream from Shields Road, which also is just downstream from the points where Anderson and Cranberry runs enter the creek; a location at the midpoint of the lake on the east side of the lake; and the Lake Newport boat-rental house on West Newport Drive, which is near two city combined sewer overflows, which discharge a mix of storm water and sewage into the lake after heavy rains.
Aaron Young, park district executive director, approved the testing program in a Thursday email to Tekac, in which Young said test results could be emailed to him weekly once they are available.
Tekac said the water-quality problem in Mill Creek and Lake Newport stems from a combination of the combined sewer overflows, failing septic systems and agricultural and lawn-fertilizer runoff.
‘watershed awareness problem’
“It’s a watershed awareness problem” that goes far beyond city combined sewer overflows, Tekac said. “A lot of it’s going to come down to public participation” in watershed improvement efforts, he said.
“We know the CSOs are there. The bigger picture now is the watershed problem, and we want a better understanding of what’s going on,” he said.
The health board regulates septic systems and inspects them whenever a home is sold or new construction occurs, but he said finding and repairing or closing every failing septic system would be a difficult task. There are more than 15,000 known septic systems in Mahoning County, he said.
The number of favorable test results required to reopen lakes Newport and Glacier to boating and fishing won’t be known until test results in this series start coming in, he said.