COLUMBUS, Ohio – Buckeye Lake might be low on water, but it’s not dead.
READ MORE: In the Columbus Dispatch
So businesses along the lakeshore are cheering the inclusion of $1 million to boost tourism there in a proposed $71.5 billion state budget.
They say that for lack of decent signage, surprisingly few people among the thousands who pass by each day on I-70 know that the lake and all of its restaurants and shops are a short drive from the freeway.
Buckeye Lake is the popular 3,000-acre lake where the water level was considered relatively shallow even when it was full, but now will stay at such a low level for the next five years that boating will difficult — and nearly impossible for big motor boats.
But smaller boats can still navigate between the mud flats that have developed in canals, creeks and along the shoreline of the lake 25 miles east of Downtown Columbus that spills into Licking, Fairfield and Perry counties.
“I’m looking at half a dozen boats out there right now,” Buckeye Lake Winery owner Tracy Higginbotham said yesterday afternoon from his restaurant on the south shore. “John boats, pontoon and bass boats.”
Assuming the $1 million remains in the two-year budget when it is signed by Gov. John Kasich by the end of June, some should be used to appeal to those with kayaks, canoes and paddle boats, too, said Tom Johnson, the mayor of Somerset and director of the Perry County Community Improvement Corporation.
“It’s a great opportunity to promote the great natural environment at the lake and the public access to it,” he said, adding that bird-watching and boating with canoes and kayaks are increasingly popular outdoor activities in Ohio.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources shocked the region in March by releasing a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers assessment of the 177-year-old earthen dam that said it was in danger of “catastrophic failure.” To reduce the risk, ODNR said it would keep the water at its low, winter level of about 3 feet until the dam is replaced. Gov. John Kasich has promised that it will be replaced, but that could take five years.