BETHEL, Ohio — Local and state officials broke ground Tuesday on a project to tear out an aging low-head dam on Cloverlick Creek and restore nearly a half-mile of free-flowing stream, Clermont County said in a social media post.
The Cloverlick Creek Dam Removal and Stream Restoration Project will remove the low-head dam and an adjacent pumphouse, restoring about 1,400 feet of stream and reconnecting an estimated 86 miles of aquatic habitat along the creek, according to the county. Officials said the work is expected to improve water quality, restore natural stream conditions and allow fish and other wildlife to move more freely throughout the watershed.
Beyond the environmental benefits, the county framed the project as a public safety measure. Low-head dams produce what dam-safety researchers call a “drowning machine” effect: water pouring over the structure forms a submerged hydraulic jump that creates strong recirculating currents at the base of the dam, trapping swimmers, boaters and even rescuers underwater, according to the Association of State Dam Safety Officials. The drops are typically only one to 12 feet, making the hazard easy to miss from upstream, and the association says hundreds of people have died at low-head dams nationwide over the past four decades. Few states regulate the structures for public safety, since dam-safety rules generally focus on whether a dam might fail rather than the danger it poses to people in the water.
Clermont County’s Soil & Water Conservation District had previously briefed the Board of Commissioners on the planned Cloverlick Creek removal as part of a broader slate of stream and conservation work, district Director John McManus told commissioners this summer.
The county credited a long list of partners for advancing the project, including Clermont County Soil & Water, the Village of Bethel, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the H2Ohio water quality initiative, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Clean Ohio Fund, Bray Construction Services and Verdantas.
The information contained in this story was obtained from Clermont County.