Lake Cohasset drained so crew can fix road shoulder


RELATED: Letter to editor miffs MetroParks commissioner

By JORDYN GRZELEWSKI

jgrzelewski@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Those who noticed an odd sight in Mill Creek Metro-Parks – an empty lake – soon will be able to observe Lake Cohasset refilling with water.

Workers are wrapping up reconstruction of a collapsed shoulder on West Cohasset Drive that necessitated drainage of the lake. The project, which so far has cost the park about $20,000, is slated to be complete this week.

West Cohasset between High Drive and Old Furnace Road has been closed since the end of September for the project, which has added rock-filled baskets that act as a retaining wall.

One of those baskets is below water level, which is why the water had to be lowered. The lake’s basin was empty and muddy, with some pools of water in it, as a crew worked at the site Tuesday.

Steve Avery, planning and natural resources director for the park system, explained the process of draining the lake as akin to opening the drain in a bathtub.

“The theory is the same with our lake, where there is a gate down at the bottom of the lake that is connected to a long steel shaft that comes all the way up to the top,” he said.

Turning that shaft opens the gate, allowing water to drain out from the Lake Cohasset dam. Each of the park’s three lakes – Cohasset, Newport and Glacier – have that mechanism.

Today, the gate will drop back down to allow the lake to refill. When it will reach a normal level is hard to predict, Avery said.

“Is that a day, or two days, or four days? I have no answer because it’s all dependent on” factors such as rainfall and the flow of Mill Creek, he said.

The project originally was set to begin in February, but icy conditions caused a delay. The lake was drained, and the park undertook shoreline cleanup around parts of it at that time.