COLUMBUS, Ohio – Gov. John Kasich says the process of replacing a faulty earthen dam at Buckeye Lake will begin immediately and the water level will be kept low in the meantime, a move likely to upset locals who worry it will hurt tourism as summer approaches.
READ MORE: In the Columbus Dispatch
Kasich said Thursday the work could cost an estimated $125 million to $150 million and take five years.
During construction the lake would remain at shallow water levels, beaching many boaters and choking off the dollars on which lakefront business owners depend.
While business owners pleaded to increase the water depth from the current 3 feet to 5 feet to permit full-scale boating, the governor said that won’t happen with lives at risk. The normal level is 6 feet.
Kasich said the nearly 200-year-old, 4.1-mile-long earthen dam long was careening toward failure, but that its risks were ignored by past governors.
“I think we’ve dodged a bullet all these years … we just cannot afford to look the other way,” Kasich said after meeting yesterday with local and state officials at the Ohio Emergency Management Agency.
Buckeye Lake, about 25 miles east of Columbus and straddling parts of Fairfield, Licking and Perry counties, is a popular warm-weather destination often packed with boats across its 3,100 acres.
An Army Corps of Engineers study released last week says the dam, dotted with hundreds of homes, is in danger of failing and causing a catastrophic flood that could endanger thousands of lives.
The governor said he is aware the five-year timetable will cause pain for business owners who depend on boating-related tourism for their livelihood. “People are going to suffer damage,” he said.
Kasich said maintaining the 3-foot winter water level lessens pressure on the dam and that raising the depth would risk lives.
The dam has been weakened by several hundred homes built into it, along with docks, trees and utility lines. The Corps of Engineers report warned that 3,000 people could be in danger if there’s a catastrophic failure of the 4.1-mile dam.