McConnelsville Dam Nearing Completion

McCONNELSVILLE, Ohio – The new Muskingum River Dam at McConnelsville is nearly finished, almost an entire year ahead of schedule.

Ohio Department of Natural Resources Department of Engineering’s James Hilovsky explained how far the project has come and what’s left to accomplish.

“Over the next few months here, we’ll be working on the removal of the old dam like you see now,” Hilovsky said. “But we’ll also have after boating season is completed here; we’ll put the causeway back in so that our construction equipment can cross the canal. Start working on removing the temporary bridge and the abutments and some of the final sitework on both sides of the dam, you’ll see that.”

The majority of the dam’s construction access has been on the McConnelsville side of the river due to the rugged terrain and limited access that has disrupted county road traffic along the Malta side.  

“So we are expecting that to be restored within the next month or so,” Hilovsky said. “They’ll be working on some additional drainage features, restoring the roadway. We’re working closely with the county to make sure that we meet all those needs and we brief everybody that will be affected by any traffic changes but I’d say within the next month or so we will start to see that open back up.”

Hilovsky expects the final landscaping tasks to be finished in the spring of 2026. The $26 Million dollar project which was engineered by Michael Baker International and constructed by the Ruhlin Company has been designed to deliver a 100 year life expectancy.