City plans to demolish 5th Avenue dam
Removal this summer to open green space at OSU
By Mark Ferenchik
Columbus plans to demolish the 5th Avenue dam along the Olentangy River this
summer, a project that will significantly narrow the river near Ohio Stadium and
remove a hazard where a man drowned almost four years ago.
Ohio State University officials say they plan to create a riverfront park and use the Olentangy to attract people to the water’s edge.
Trees, shrubs and other plants will be placed in the vacated river channel, and crews will create wetlands.
If the Oval was the university’s iconic space for the past century, “maybe the river becomes the space for the next 100 years,” said Terry Foegler, Ohio State’s associate vice president of physical planning and real estate.
On Friday, the university’s board of trustees will vote on an environmental covenant with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency promising that the river corridor will be protected.
Ohio State and the city are working out language with the agency. The university owns 40 acres of riverbed and riverbank land along the river. The covenant guarantees that it will restore any part of the area if it buries utilities or does other work along the river, Foegler said.
The city said the demolition and improvements along the stream between the dam’s location and Lane Avenue will cost $5.5 million. About $3.6 million in state money will help pay for the project. Columbus advertised for bids last week.
The city wants to begin work in August. If it can’t, it might wait until next year.
The dam is on a 2-mile stretch of the Olentangy between Dodridge Avenue and where it joins with the Scioto River.
The 8-foot-high, 470-foot-wide dam is one of six low-head dams along the Olentangy in Franklin County. It was built in 1935 to provide water to cool Ohio State’s old power plant.
But low-head dams are dangerous. The roiling waters at their base have been described as a “ drowning machine,’’ because people become trapped in the hydraulic pull.
In June 2008, Christian Hallam died when his inner tube raft went over the dam.
That year, OSU scientists, engineers and researchers wrote that the dam’s removal would create a meandering, shallower and narrower stream that would improve water quality and lead to a more-diverse population of fish and invertebrates.
OSU officials are comfortable that removing the dam and changing the water level and flood plain won’t pose a significant risk to the structural integrity of Ohio Stadium, the Drake Union or the university’s Wexner Medical Center, said planning director Laura Shinn.
The university plans to remove the berm along the river between John H. Herrick Drive and King Avenue as part of its Cannon Drive relocation project, she said.
Ohio State would landscape the area along the river and create a park after officials see where the water goes, she said.
“It’s not going to be beautiful for the first couple of seasons,” Shinn said.
The maximum width of the river behind the dam will be reduced from 520 feet to 210 feet, said George Zonders, the city’s public utilities spokesman.
The Friends of the Lower Olentangy Watershed supports the dam removal.
“What they did back in the 1930s by building an impoundment dam is make a lake where a stream should be,” said Laura Fay, the group’s chairwoman.
mferenchik@dispatch.com
Ohio State University officials say they plan to create a riverfront park and use the Olentangy to attract people to the water’s edge.
Trees, shrubs and other plants will be placed in the vacated river channel, and crews will create wetlands.
If the Oval was the university’s iconic space for the past century, “maybe the river becomes the space for the next 100 years,” said Terry Foegler, Ohio State’s associate vice president of physical planning and real estate.
On Friday, the university’s board of trustees will vote on an environmental covenant with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency promising that the river corridor will be protected.
Ohio State and the city are working out language with the agency. The university owns 40 acres of riverbed and riverbank land along the river. The covenant guarantees that it will restore any part of the area if it buries utilities or does other work along the river, Foegler said.
The city said the demolition and improvements along the stream between the dam’s location and Lane Avenue will cost $5.5 million. About $3.6 million in state money will help pay for the project. Columbus advertised for bids last week.
The city wants to begin work in August. If it can’t, it might wait until next year.
The dam is on a 2-mile stretch of the Olentangy between Dodridge Avenue and where it joins with the Scioto River.
The 8-foot-high, 470-foot-wide dam is one of six low-head dams along the Olentangy in Franklin County. It was built in 1935 to provide water to cool Ohio State’s old power plant.
But low-head dams are dangerous. The roiling waters at their base have been described as a “ drowning machine,’’ because people become trapped in the hydraulic pull.
In June 2008, Christian Hallam died when his inner tube raft went over the dam.
That year, OSU scientists, engineers and researchers wrote that the dam’s removal would create a meandering, shallower and narrower stream that would improve water quality and lead to a more-diverse population of fish and invertebrates.
OSU officials are comfortable that removing the dam and changing the water level and flood plain won’t pose a significant risk to the structural integrity of Ohio Stadium, the Drake Union or the university’s Wexner Medical Center, said planning director Laura Shinn.
The university plans to remove the berm along the river between John H. Herrick Drive and King Avenue as part of its Cannon Drive relocation project, she said.
Ohio State would landscape the area along the river and create a park after officials see where the water goes, she said.
“It’s not going to be beautiful for the first couple of seasons,” Shinn said.
The maximum width of the river behind the dam will be reduced from 520 feet to 210 feet, said George Zonders, the city’s public utilities spokesman.
The Friends of the Lower Olentangy Watershed supports the dam removal.
“What they did back in the 1930s by building an impoundment dam is make a lake where a stream should be,” said Laura Fay, the group’s chairwoman.
mferenchik@dispatch.com
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