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If the Fifth Avenue Dam on the Olentangy River comes down, Ohio State crew club members said they fear losing a valuable practice site and their club sport could be in jeopardy. But the new river would grant opportunity for other recreational activities, such as canoeing and kayaking.
The city of Columbus has been working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and an OSU research team to demolish the dam to improve the water quality, aquatic habitat and riverbank vegetation of the river, project coordinators said on their Web site.
Without the dam water, levels will be too low for crew members to practice, according to Bethia Woolf, novice coach for NCAA women’s rowing.
“We’ve talked with the city about what’s happening to us,” said Rachel Jones, vice president of public relations for OSU crew club. “We don’t want there to be bad water, but what’s going to happen to us? Overall, we’re a really good organization that provides so much benefit to the university.”
The crew club members, working with coach Hugh Dodd, have submitted a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the city detailing how the removal of the dam would reduce their student recruitment and retention rates, eliminate a valuable practice and equipment storage site and increase their transportation costs.
Brad Hemmerly, women’s novice coach for the OSU crew club, said the river is mostly for novices but both the varsity and novice members of the crew club row on the Olentangy during fall quarter. The NCAA women’s varsity rowing team has also used the river, he said.
“Because the Olentangy is small, it unfreezes faster than the other rivers,” Hemmerly said. “When everything else is frozen, the NCAA varsity comes here to practice.”
Woolf said about 100 students use the Olentangy to practice about six days a week during the fall and spring quarters.
The varsity men and women crew club members practice at the O’Shaughnessy Reservoir, and the NCAA women’s varsity rowing team practices at the Griggs Reservoir on the Scioto River.
Hemmerly said access to the Olentangy is valuable because it allows many walk-ons or inexperienced students to join easily. He predicts recruitment of new members and retention of old ones will decrease if the dam is removed because of the added time and travel costs to the O’Shaughnessy Reservoir, a 20-minute drive.
But Heather Dean, coordinator for the Friends of the Lower Olentangy Watershed, said the removal of the dam will allow more opportunity for canoeing and kayaking. Birding and fishing are also expected to increase, she said, because people will not have to deal with the dam posing an obstacle.
“Canoeing and kayaking activities will increase after the dam is removed because you won’t have to portage around the dam,” Dean said. “The city has been working on creating more public launching sites and the removal of the dam will provide a greater stretch of the river you could go down.”
Dean said the canoeing or kayaking trail would begin by the Tuttle Park area and extend all the way to the Spring Street Boat Ramp in downtown Columbus close to the confluence of the Olentangy and Scioto Rivers.
Canoeing and kayaking trips are currently offered through the Outdoor Adventure Center at remote locations. Steve Hawkins, director of the OAC, said they have used the Olentangy River for canoeing and kayaking only four times since 2004 for OSU groups. Hawkins said the use of the Olentangy for these activities would increase if the dam were removed.
“I’m not advocating (the removal of the dam). I’m neutral on it,” Hawkins said. “But we will take advantage of the river if it does happen.”
Bill Mitsch, director of the Wilma H. Schiermeier Olentangy River Wetland Research Park, said his group’s vision is to construct a boat dock on the Olentangy River where people can travel by boats while others can jog along the bike path as they pass a coffee shop.
Ingrid Rivera can be reached at [email protected].
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