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Dam warning buoys will improve boater safety
YOUNGSTOWN
Canoeists and kayakers will have safer trips on the Mahoning River now that the state will be issuing six warning buoys to the city to mark three hazardous industrial dams in the river.
The buoys, collectively worth about $900, are coming in response to a grant application from Jennifer Jones, program coordinator of Green Youngstown, which is responsible for the city’s litter control, recycling and other beautification and environmental matters.
“As more and more people are recreating on the river, we want to make it as safe as possible,” said Patricia Dunbar of Howland, president of the Friends of the Mahoning River.
That organization advocates for the cleanliness and recreational use of the river, restoration of the river to its natural state and environmental education concerning that waterway.
“We want people from Cleveland and other areas to come and paddle our river,” Dunbar said.
The warning buoys, which will bear signs saying “Danger Dam,” are especially helpful for out-of-town boaters, who may not be familiar with the river and the obstacles within it, she added.
The dams and the turbulent waters around them “can pose a safety threat to small watercraft,” Jones wrote in her successful request for the navigational aids grant from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
The most dangerous of the three dams is the intact dam at Crescent Street, whose hydraulics pose a drowning hazard, Jones wrote.
That dam, which presents a mandatory portage, will get two upstream buoys to warn people headed downriver, and two downstream buoys to warn people paddling upstream away from the dangerous swirling waters beneath the dam, Jones said.
The hydraulics at the base of that dam “will pull you down, even with a life jacket on, and not release you,” explained Edward Hahn of Canfield, a Friends member who frequently paddles the Mahoning River.
“The best swimmers in the world will drown,” he warned.
The take-out area for portages at that dam is owned by the Brier Hill Slag Co., whose owner, William Gaffney, has given boaters permission to carry their canoes and kayaks over his company’s land for their portages, Jones informed ODNR in her application for the buoys.
The other two buoys will be placed upstream from the broken dams at Mahoning Avenue and Center Street to warn boaters headed downstream.
Boaters can either portage around these two dams or paddle their boats through chutes at notches in the dams.
For boaters headed downstream, the chute is at the far right at the Mahoning Avenue dam and in the middle of the Center Street dam, and boaters should paddle to the left after traversing the chute in both locations to avoid rocks and woody debris, Hahn advised.
The floating buoys, to be placed using a fire department rescue boat this summer, will be attached by 20-foot chains to 5-gallon buckets of hardened cement that will anchor them to the river bottom year-round, Jones said.
The buoy installation is “really necessary for the safety of those people using the Mahoning River,” Jones added.
“It’s a great scenic route, so why not promote it as best we can, while keeping it safe for all of the people who use it?” Jones said.
Dunbar said she eventually would like to see bridges over the Mahoning River marked for boaters with signs naming the streets they carry over the river to help boaters better identify their location.