COLUMBUS – There was good news and bad news for Buckeye Lake-area residents coming out of Thursday’s news conference featuring the governor and the director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
READ MORE: In the Columbus Dispatch
The good news was that ODNR not only revealed its plans for building a new dam at Buckeye Lake, but that the new design could be built faster and cheaper. Kasich announced that construction could begin before year’s end, far ahead of the previously stated five-year schedule.
Additionally, Kasich said that with construction beginning early, the lake’s water level could potentially be allowed to rise — if only slightly — as early as next year.
The bad news is that the new design, in its most basic form, looks a lot like a version of the old designs rolled out by the state over the past decade. At the time, those plans were strongly opposed by many of the nearly 400 residents living on the dam because they extended the state’s property by about 20 feet into the lake, moving those lakeside properties on the dam that much farther from the water.
The former plans, like the current plan, puts a service road down the middle of the new construction.
Only time will tell whether that opposition will be as vocal this time around, or whether area residents and business owners will just be happy with the prospect of getting water back into Buckeye Lake sooner rather than later after enduring a summer without boats — and the revenue that boating generates.