ODNR to examine Muskingum River locks and dams

ZANESVILLE, Ohio- The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) will examine state parks and dam improvements in Muskingum County.

ODNR Director, Jim Zehringer, spoke at the Zanesville-Muskingum County Chamber of Commerce Wednesday morning.

He discussed improvement plans for state parks as well as the locks and low-head dams along the Muskingum River.

“We have set aside $2.5 million to really study those low-head dams that you see right before the locks and the locks themselves; they’re engineering marvels but they’re 140 to 150 years old,” said Zehringer.

The study will focus on the material below the dams and examine the stability.

Another issue Zehringer addressed was the maintenance of the state parks and a proposed new fund that would be dedicated to their upkeep.

“ODNR really did not have a maintenance fund where we could maintain these projects. We’d get capital dollars to build new, but we really needed a dedicated fund for that so in this years budget bill there’s going to be a proposal that we set aside 5% of that parks income, strictly for maintenance,” said Zehringer.

This fund would be applied to all 74 parks across the state.

He added that Ohio is one of only 7 states in the nation where admittance is free to all state parks.