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River life thriving after removal of low Englewood Dam

Workers prepare for the notching of the lowhead dam on the Stillwater River just north of the Englewood Dam. The blue bags are filled with water to act as coffer dams.

Doug Page Workers prepare for the notching of the lowhead dam on the Stillwater River just north of the Englewood Dam. The blue bags are filled with water to act as coffer dams.

ENLARGE PHOTO

How the fish population has changed since the removal of the Englewood low dam

ENLARGE PHOTO

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By Marc Katz, Staff Writer Updated 10:22 AM Monday, May 17, 2010

BUTLER TWP., Montgomery County — Sticking closely to its name, the Stillwater River flows freely now, into and out of the man-made lake at Englewood Dam, the largest of five dams built in the Dayton area in the 1920s following the 1913 flood.

Only a trained eye might notice where a low dam once spanned a portion of the river, just before it reached the pipes punched through the 110-foot high, mile-long abutment well under U.S. 40 on the southeast side of the reserve.

At one point, low dams — Englewood’s low dam was built in 1935 — were built nationwide with the thought they would create recreational space for waders and boaters.

Instead, not only did the low dams present safety hazards with turbulent swift currents, they destroyed some of the ecological culture as well, lining the river bottoms to mushy silt and inhibiting fish.

“Safety was an element to factor in,” said Joe Zimmerman, a project manager for the Five Rivers MetroParks. “But we also wanted to restore the river to the condition of one of the highest quality warm water streams in Ohio. At one point, we had a one-mile section in the middle that was mostly dead.”

Three people also lost their lives at the low dam in the past 10 years, including Zimmerman’s predecessor, Craig Wenner and his wife, Patricia, who tried to save their pet dog on Christmas Day 2006. All drowned in the process.

By that time, the project to remove the low dam already had been planned, adding to the tragedy.

What’s left to do is placing boulders at various spots along the river that will help water flow. Already, the fish culture has been enhanced.

“We had seven species of fish prior to this,” Zimmerman said. “More than two-thirds of them were common carp. Now, we have 20 species, and only a third of them are carp. We’re finding small-mouth bass and perch. It was more than we expected.”

Along with removing the low dam — which took only two years instead of the projected three — the river was lowered eight feet, which meant river access into and out of the lake also had to be adjusted. Prior to the inlet and outlet streams, Englewood Lake — man-made to obtain dirt for the dam — had no way to get fresh water.

Removing the low dam has had some negative effect on boaters, who used to easily be able to paddle up and down stream, but now usually can paddle only downstream.

More than one million people visit the park annually.

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