Heads up for my friends that boat on Buckeye Lake in Ohio

News report today said Buckeye Lake would remain drawn down indefinitely . Sad news for us boaters, but think about the hundreds if not thousands of homes new and old, island properties, and businesses that may have just lost everything. Dozens of restaurants, marinas, bait shops, new home construction, bars, carryouts, repair shops, out of business instantly. For those of you on this forum not from this area, Buckeye Lake is a lake known for lake front and island properties. Hundreds of new homes have been built recently on newly constructed canals that now become nearly worthless. The Army Corp of Engineers report came out today and according to news reports the 4 mile long earthen dam cannot be repaired without replacement and that the lake would remain drained permanently. Even if they were to replace the dam, it would be decades for a project like this to be completed and the lake brought back to normal. Good Luck Everyone
 
I am so upset about this recent news about buckeye lake. I hope that they can find a way to fix it. The closing of that lake would kill millersport and surrounding towns. That was always a great place to boat, poppa booze, and forth of July. I am going to have to find me a new lake for the Fourth of July fireworks.
 
Problem looks like development caused its own downfall. Somebody needs to pay. http://news.yahoo.com/government-recommends-draining-ohio-lake-144610149.html;_ylt=AwrBT6PVVQZVfpcAaT7BGOd_

Lakeliving- all of ohios lakes are man made. 3 feet off that lake means airboats or nothing. Feel bad for all the business's that depend on this.

Indian lake got money to dredge to help protect its economy but I didn't see the dredges being used anywhere useful ,of course eating away at tax payers dollars. Who is overseeing this?

Couple years ago with summer drought, I had a hard time getting out of my channel. Low water sensor on the merc kept fail saving. Our channel, Turkeyfoot, has most of traffic aside from McDonalds and not a single dredge was spotted once.
 
Wow, scratching my head why anyone would even be allowed to excavate and build ON an earthen dam. Sad news there for sure.

Lake Cumberland seemed to endure the dam repairs there over the past few years and has since been restored back to normal. Waterfront development is much less and very spread out, but the tourism economy of that lake is still very significant and dependent.
 
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Very sad.  Sickening, actually.
 
Willb: They were dredging out the moundwood channel (where we come out from the marina) last year and were making some big improvements.  That channel was anywhere from a shade over 2 1/2 foot deep (few spots were even shallower than that) to the hole under the bridge that was just over 7 (according to our depth finder).  Now since they have gone through the channel and cleaned it out the average depth is just about 6 foot......maybe travel through there at night won't become another year of minefield sweeping for debris.

Sounds like they are going to replace the spillway at indian lake this year...this is from the welcome to indian lake page.  .Hopefully that goes well and there isn't any ill effects to the lake level over the summer.

Spillway to be replaced

At the Annual Indian Lake Area Chamber of Commerce Legislative Luncheon held February 13, 2015, Deputy Chief of Ohio State Parks, Scott Fletcher, said there will be several capital improvement projects around Indian Lake over the next year.

  • The spillway will be replaced this year.
  • At Indian Lake State Park, 30 campsites will be “full service” with water and sewer hookups.
  • Shower house facilities will be replaced at the state park campground. 
    Fletcher said dredging will continue around Moundwood this year.

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Millions spent and another year on Moundwood. That's the smallest channel on the lake. They had the other dredge on the old Avondale channel leading up to the abandoned gas pumps along 235.

I would like to see the spillway raised by a foot. That would go a long ways to help overall depth.
 
I agree that they spent way to much time on the moundwood channel last year and by the sounds of it more time once again this spring.  It seemed as if they spent almost 3 1/2 months working on it and only finished about half of it so far.  I thought they were going to work on a channel by bishops cove as several people we talked to last year said they couldn't even get into their channel as it was to shallow......even for a toon.  Yeah I do remember seeing the dredge orange marker balls in that channel by the moose and down by the old fuel pumps.

 If they raise the spillway height the bridges are going to get even tighter for some boats...not that I care one way ore the other as our bimini is normally down anyway but on those sunny days when we are out all day we do put it up for a little shade.  Just have to remember to take the long way round for micky d's and make sure to have it down when going back into our marina for moundwood bridge.

I'm just hoping that the lake level doesn't drop to drastic when they take out the spillway for replacement cause it could be a slow dead year for tourism/boating if it does......welcome to lake st marys syndrome only for other reasons.
 
I may not even pull my boat from storage then.

Last 2 times that they did spillway work it was oct and the lake was drawn by 3 ft.

That's grounding for me and achesons
 
Does the dredge discharge to shore, barges, or back into the Lake?
 
When the dredge was working by moundwood channel it discharged into a very large man made pool behind the boat ramps that worked as a filtering strip to trap sediment before the water re-entered the lake.  The 10 or 12" discharge pipe gets drug around on the bottom behind the dredge and then circles around the edge of the channel to finally make it up on land and into the catch pool.

DSCN05621_zpsztpxhkgo.jpg


You can see the large pipe as it goes up the bank and out to the catch pond.

DSCN05661_zpstsf3b8nu.jpg


I had pics someplace of the rock waterfall where the water came back into the lake but I can't seem to find them right off hand....oh the joys of having 3 camera and lake pics on all of them
 
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