Talks could spur removal of First Street dam at Lowellville

YOUNGSTOWN

If negotiations between the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the company that owns half of the First Street dam in the Mahoning River at Lowellville can be concluded next week, that dam will be gone this year, a regional planning official said.

That comment was made this morning by Joann Esenwein, administration and capital planning director at the Eastgate Regional Council of Governments, as she attended a meeting of Mahoning River corridor mayors at the Western Reserve Port Authority office here.

The Ohio EPA has provided a $2,380,000 grant for removal of that dam to restore the river to its natural flow and remove a barrier to canoeists and kayakers.

Half of the dam is owned by the Village of Lowellville, and the other half by Sharon Slag, the company with which OEPA is negotiating to acquire the company’s half of the dam.

With no local matching funds required, the grant would pay for removal of the dam and contaminated sediment behind it.

Dam removal will clean the river and keep it clean, Esenwein said.

“You get the free-flowing water, so then it just naturally cleans itself,” she said of the river without the dam.