Way OT: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recommends draining Buckeye Lake to prevent catastrophic failure
As a Civil Engineer, I'm fascinated by stories like this... how population growth eventually exceeds intended function of infrastructure. For those interested, the full USACE report is here.
http://www.dispatch.com/content/downloads/2015/03/BL_Dam-CORP_Rpt_03-11-2015.pdf
For those less interested, Cliff's Notes of the situation and the report are as follows:
- The lake/reservoir is approximately 3,000 acres with 37 miles of shoreline.
- The dam structure for this lake consists of an earthen embankment just over 4 miles long that was constructed between 1825 and 1832.
- The intended function of the dam was to maintain adequate depth for navigating the Ohio and Erie canal system.
- The dam has a spillway control structure. Water level in the resevoir is lowered to about 3-feet in the winter and raised to 6-feet in the spring to support fishing and recreational boating. Lake is central to local tourism.
- 370 homes have been constructed on the earthen dam. This has contributed to destabilization of a structure that was not engineered for it's current use.
- Reports of high water issues and seepage through the dam are documented as early as 1968.
- Engineering reports from as early as 1978 mention concern for potential serious problems.
- Latest USACE report says failure is imminent and could occur at any time without warning. 3000 people live in the flood zone.
- USACE basically concludes that the lake should be drained until permanent risk reduction measures can be implemented.
- State officials plan to take "several weeks" to review the report and seek input before making a decision. Currently, they are keeping the water level at winter levels.
This is worth keeping an eye on in the coming month with spring thaw and precipitation. The winter water level reduces the chance of the dam breaching but spring flooding could be a game changer.
Earthen dam failures are nothing new. There are a couple recent events that have been video documented.
April 2014, Crecent Lake in Pensacola, Florida (75 Acres)-1
April 2014, Crecent Lake in Pensacola, Florida (75 Acres)-2
June 2008, Lake Delton in Lake Delton, Wisconsin ( 267 Acres)
These two lakes are significantly smaller than Buckeye Lake. If the dam at Buckeye Lake was to breach, damage would be extensive....... and what would remain would essentially be a 3,000 acre mud puddle, creating the second biggest stink hole in the Columbus vicinity*....... <insert rim shot sound effect>
On a related note, HBO's John Oliver had a pretty good recent take on the state of the Country's infrastructure. Worth watching when you have 20 minutes to throw away.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Infrastructure
*Technically, it would be the largest stink hole. OSU's campus covers roughly 1900 acres.
I'm sure that you will find other errors. Have at it.
Infrastructure maintenance is terrible politically, though. You spend gobs of money and all you get is what you already had (minus the invisible threat of failure).
The invisible threat of failure has been the driving force for me getting a job, buying a house, and making a family. Without it, I would still be playing CoD and getting baked at 3pm on a Tuesday.
... so yeah, I'm with you. That shit gotta go.
Is there something wrong with getting baked at 3PM on a Tuesday???
Just put the water in Buckeye stadium, this would solve everyone's problems.
All I saw was "Buckeye" and "failure". Made sense to me.
If they drain Buckeye lake they will find...
- Maurice Claretts loaded rifle and three loaded handguns and 10K of "stuff".
- Troy Smiths $500 paycheck stub
- AJ Hawk and Nick Mangold Items that include $1400 worth of movies, a $500 Gucci watch, and $3000
- Santonio Holmes Former NFL agent Josh Luch's ledger of payments.
- Jim Tressels tatgate hard-drive.
- Multiple car registrations from Auto-Direct.
- Gold Pants Charms.
- A semi of FERPA protected documents.
- Reciepts for 1.3 million in legal fees.
- 375 NCAA Violation reports.
- Charity Autograph reciepts.
- Adida's trip itenerary.
- The 1991 Youngstown State National Championship Trophy.
John Cooper's sanity.
Something Art Schlichter hid there too.
And the body of Jimmy Hoffa....wait, what's the game again?
This finding by the corps is probably partially motivated by ODNR's need for an access road along the embankment for maintenance. I worked as summer help at Buckeye Lake State Park in 1994 and have personally walked that embankment from Leib's Island to the emergency spillway during a flood event looking for any leaks. That is not a good feeling when you are standing on said embankment. This will be interesting to watch unfold.
Edit: BTW, if you've never been to the lake, it's already a 3,000 acre mud puddle. I think the average depth is around 6 feet and there are many places where you have to navigate old tree stumps and the tow path from the canal.
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Although, I would hazard a guess the latter word is used 99% more than the former.
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seems like a lose-lose for the state officials. drain it and the locals want off with your head. don't drain it and locals want off with your head after it collapses. instituting preventative measures that only hold long-term advantages are hard for officials who want to keep their job in the present day.
Lake Delton, WI is outside of the Dells, and likewise, a location with vacation homes, etc. There was a lot of whining and moaning when the dam collapsed in 2008. But it forced needed improvements, and things are actually much better. In other words, it was a pain for them in the summer of 2008, but things quickly rebounded.
In Ohio, if the lake was drained, I suppose they could dredge a reasonable amount of it? (although, that's an awful lot of area to dredge.) At the very least, tree trunks and debris can be removed.
Imhe, it is better to be proactive than to wait for disaster to strike.
Proactive as in, "Don't build houses on earthen dams"?
Good ol' 'Murican spirit right there. Build effing homes on something that can collapse at anytime.
On a side note, this thing is only 6ft deep? I mean WTF? That is not a lake, this should be called a pond or a rather deep puddle.
But it covers over 3000 acres, so half a michigan pothole.
the pond would be good for most Buckeye fans
USACE fucked us here back in 2008 or so in southeastern Iowa when they let the water out of the reservoirs up by Des Moines into the Des Moines River - no worries, we're just small country folk who happen to feed the nation.
As a person who saved up to live on the water, finally bought my first home on a lake, only to have the lake drained 3 months later unexpectedly due to dam concerns, I can say that really, really, really sucks for home/landowners there. Like super sucks.
I lived most of my life near Buckeye lake and as far as man made lakes go, it was pretty decent (better than Grand Lake St. Mary at least).
It is worth noting that the dam in question was not placed there to just to produce the lake, but rather to maintain the lake water level. It was hand dug in the 1800s to supply water to the canals and to serve as a winter storage for barges, but it was never connected to any canals. It's extremely shallow with a lot of sand bars and useful bars. Since this part of Ohio saw Glacial activity, there was a lot of prehistoric vegitation that was deposited and subsequently uncovered while digging. This bit of trapped permafrost material released form the bottom and formed a bog (Floating Island) that allowed some prehistoric vegitation to grow (notably, the carnivorous Sundew). From ODNR:
No longer did the floating bog mat surround the glacial lake as is typically the case with such bogs. Now the lake surrounded the bog mat, the only known such occurrence of its kind in the world.
My parents told me that you used to be able to boat right up to it and wander around but all the visitors were causing chunks to tear off and float away, endangering boats in other parts of the lake (imagine hitting a tree trunk that floating just below the surface). I think they have an annual walk that the state park system puts on, but I've never gone on it.
It'd be a shame to see it go.
that when that bridge collapse killed a bunch of people a few years ago that the county might finally get serious about making infrastructure improvements. Silly me.
Travel to pretty much any other first world country and you'll see just how backwards we really are here.
Travel to pretty much any other first world country and you'll see just how backwards we really are here.
I've traveled to other first world countries (Italy, France, and Canada...though I don't think Canada really counts) as well as extremely depressed areas in other countries (Mexico (not the tourist parts) and Honduras) and don't know what you're getting at. We've got it pretty really good here.
Are in much better shape in western Europe than they are here. The autobahn is smooth as glass in most places.
We need to setup a GoFundMe for a Block M replacement dam.
March 13th, 2015 at 11:30 AM ^
It says a lot about the lack of leadership in this country that politicians are not making a serious of this. I saw an estimate that we need $2 TRILLION in infrastructure repairs.
It says something about the gross inefficiency of our government that they need to find funds for this. Infrastructure maintenence ought to have been a significant part of the budget because without it we have no economy. Just mindbogglingly bad political leadership in this country.
It's just (at least theoretically) to get people to accept more taxes to get stuff fixed. Not only transportation but the power grid could use a big overhaul too and good luck getting the utilities to pay for all that.
IMO aside from defense and public safety services (think we got that mostly covered) infrastructure should probably be the government's highest priority, without getting too much into politics. Maybe we can bring back the CCC and build some new dams and bridges for cheap. Or maybe divert funds from elsewhere to infrastructure without tacking on new taxes. It's just not popular whatsoever at a federal or even state level.
We deal with this at work every day, albeit on a regional level and only in electric distribution. The last national report card gave the national energy infrastructure a D+, which in a lot of places even around here, you don't have to walk very far from your house to see evidence of that grade. The regional investiment gap for the Great Lakes actually is estimated to reach hearly $12 billion by 2020, but we've started multi-year programs to work on the most troubled circuits - when you can still find overhead distribution poles with pole tags that date them to the 1920s and 1930s in some places, it is definitely time.
I've heard similar things about the gas lines. Alot of good paying blue collar jobs have opened up recently.
It's too late; everything in Ohio is already a catastrophic failure
Wow, thanks, I'm really into this stuff as a student studying engineers
There's a portion of people in this country that believes that you can have nice roads and safe bridges and reliable power grids without paying for them. Or, more accurately, they want other people to pay for them. Unfortunately, scores of people are going to have to die for the message to get through.
to observe the filling of a harbor after the harbor was dug and pilings were pounded in place. When they tried to slowly remove the temporary berm in an attempt to gradually fill the harbor the water exploded through opening so fast it sent a 3 foot surge through the harbor. It was quite spectacular and thoroughly entertaining. No one was injured of course as this was a comparatively small event relative to the Ohio lake situation. If something like this were to happen on a much larger scale such as you are describing with people in harm's way, it would not be a pretty sight actually.
Kasich wouldn't even give us funding to clean up the maumee watershed before the Toledo water crisis, kept blaming it on Detroit -- when the data is absolutely clear. The problem is farm runoff. (Not the fault of farmers, the fault of our whole idea on how to produce "food")
I hated seeing this news on Buckeye Lake.. Regardless of location and bias against the word "buckeye," there's a music venue right there that's been pretty special to me. The Dead played there a couple times in the early-mid 90's, and it's been a staple for most of my summer weekend getaways during music festival seasons for countless years.
It's a bummer, but nobody wants to maintain a fucking thing, and asking the lowest bidder to "build it to last" has some hilarity to it.
You know what, a lesser dam would have to be drained.
How do you drain a lake anyway? Where does it go?
All reservoirs have an outlet. They would slowly release the water through the discharge point at the dam. It looks like Buckeye Lake would drain to the north towards the Licking River, then the Muskingum River, then the Ohio River, then the Mississippi.
bank take a mortgage on 370 homes built on an unstable earthen dam?