Dam improvements will help area
Local property owners taxed as part of Muskingum Watershed ConservancyBy Brad Bauer, bbauer@mariettatimes.com
Several million dollars of collections from the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District tax assessment were committed recently to make improvements at Dover Dam in Tuscarawas County.
Conservancy district spokesman Darrin Lautenschleger said the dam improvements will benefit all of the 18-county watershed, including Marietta.
"Dover has one of the larger storage capacities in the system of lakes and dams, and what that means is better control of the Muskingum to reduce the effects of flooding in Marietta and the rest of the southern portion of the watershed," he said.
This past January, the district began collecting on a 20-year, $210 million property assessment to provide for dam and water improvement projects in the region.
Most properties are being taxed $12 per year, but some businesses and schools are being taxed upwards of a thousand dollars or more.
The assessment still faces legal challenges from opponents. It is the first tax in the nearly 80-year-old flood control system.
On Friday, the district committed $3.5 million as a cost-share to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for repairs at Dover Dam, one of four dams the district claims is in vital need of work.
The dam repair is set to begin in the fall of 2010, Lautenschleger said.
Other projects still being developed include a flood alert system in the lower Muskingum and Duck Creek basins.
Currently, there are no automated flood gauges along Duck Creek, which flows from Noble County south through Washington County and meets the Ohio River at Marietta.
On the Muskingum River, there are no automated gauges south of McConnelsville. From there, the river snakes south about 30 miles through several communities, eventually draining into the Ohio River at Marietta.
When the area experienced significant flooding in 2004 and 2005, the Muskingum River did not flood north of McConnelsville, and residents in the communities south, including Beverly, Lowell, Devola and Marietta, had little idea of how bad things would get.
"We are still planning those projects, but we don't have a cost or a time line yet," Lautenschleger said.
Facebook
MySpace
Digg
Stumble
Mixx
Fark
del.icio.us
LiveSpaces
|
GuardianAngel
|
|
|---|---|
|
07-30-09 9:52 PM
|
Tomorrow, will the Times allow a blog about the Beer Summit? That may help improve people over-reacting to being thin skinned. Seems they left that one off this site today.
|
|
uraterd
|
|
|
07-30-09 7:00 PM
|
First, If you are old enough to remember tthe REAL floods. The d a ms upstream really DO help. It is worth the $12.00 per year for ALL residents. Even if you live on high ground as do I, You still are at the mercy of the local economy. If the city of Marietta is devastated, so am I. My livelihood is reliant on the citizens of Marietta needing my services. If they have a catastrophic event, then it affects me economically. I suspect it has an effect on all the residents of the watershed in one form or another. This is one of the wisest taxes I have ever seen levied. The benefit goes directly to the payers. That is the way government is supposed to work.
|
|
Finallap
|
|
|
07-30-09 6:03 PM
|
WOW!!!! The washington st bridge is going to open tomorrow at 11 am
|
|
Finallap
|
|
|
07-30-09 5:51 PM
|
Hi freddy
|
|
dillion
|
|
|
07-30-09 5:13 PM
|
go to Columbus Dispatch and type in "muskingum" in the search engine....article is 2-3 down...
|
|
dillion
|
|
|
07-30-09 5:12 PM
|
At least a dozen employees received between 10 percent and 20 percent raises on salaries ranging from $35,000 to more than $100,000. Hoopingarner said the district's board had to balance the state's financial picture against the district's increased responsibility in the region.
|
|
dillion
|
|
|
07-30-09 5:12 PM
|
Dispatch article: All together, the district paid employees about $400,000 more for the first half of the year compared with the same period in 2008, according to payroll documents obtained by The Dispatch. All of the district's more than 240 employees received at least a 3 percent bump in pay, district staff members confirmed. Some top officials, however, received double-digit pay increases, including Chief Engineer Boris Slogar and Chief Financial Officer James Cugliari. Slogar, who received a 15 percent raise, made $101,769 last year. Cugliari, who made $90,990 last year, had his pay increased by 10 percent. Chief Executive Officer John Hoopingarner, who received a 3 percent pay increase from the $118,731 he made last year, said the district's five-member board of directors agreed that Cugliari and Slogar's workloads would double once the assessment collections began, necessitating an increase in compensation.
|
|
dillion
|
|
|
07-30-09 5:04 PM
|
personally, the reason I want a guage is to see when its time to start moving things up. pie in the sky or gazing a crystal ball....time will tell if it will amount to anything. Not that we have had any monsoon types of rain since last fall, but it has rained some good amounts....the river here didn't rise at all last winter or this spring....it stayed at or close to summer pool. Don't know if that has anything to do with any work being done or money being used....but I like it so far from this end. Hope its not a waste of dollars by any means. Hey, has the Government ever steered us wrong??....no need to reply to that one.... :-)
|
|
dillion
|
|
|
07-30-09 5:04 PM
|
personally, the reason I want a guage is to see when its time to start moving things up. pie in the sky or gazing a crystal ball....time will tell if it will amount to anything. Not that we have had any monsoon types of rain since last fall, but it has rained some good amounts....the river here didn't rise at all last winter or this spring....it stayed at or close to summer pool. Don't know if that has anything to do with any work being done or money being used....but I like it so far from this end. Hope its not a waste of dollars by any means. Hey, has the Government ever steered us wrong??....no need to reply to that one.... :-)
|
|
dillion
|
|
|
07-30-09 4:33 PM
|
2 things.... first of all, I agree that there are those who have no business paying the assessment....those living way out or maybe not even way out but high up....personally, I live on the muskingum and have no problem paying the 12$. Second.... Go online or to a locks or DNR office and get a map of the Muskingum watershed ....It's HUGE and the amount of area it covers surprised me. It starts clear up by Akron/Canton area and it truely is alot of lakes, streams and rivers that go by my house....yes, I choose to live here....love it and always will....even after being flooded 3 times, we just clean up and go on. A gauge is needed somewhere in the Beverly/Lowell area as many streams enter the river between McConnelsville and Marietta. I, and others have even offered to monitor a gauge if placed close to home to save $$. I will definetly look into the DIspatch article about the payraises.....as most are not going to get one this year, let alone be employed.....yep,the economy sucs
|
|
bulldog58
|
|
|
07-30-09 1:21 PM
|
why do they need gauges to tell when duck creek and the river is rising ,when it rains it is rising , need money to tell you that ,hello!!!! the only thing that is raising is my taxes and bills and i don't need some automated gauges to tell me that.
|
|
yogilu
|
|
|
07-30-09 12:11 PM
|
Funny they get raises. 15% is unheard of and to do it on the backs for taxpayers should be a crime. This whole thing ticks me off- A LOT!!
|
|
tiatia
|
|
|
07-30-09 12:07 PM
|
The link in previous message didn't come up correctly. Let's try this again. Simply copy and paste. bit.ly/18cYWR
|
|
tiatia
|
|
|
07-30-09 12:01 PM
|
Anyone see this in Sunday's Columbus Dispatch? link: *******bit.ly/18cYWR "Watershed district raises pay" While cities, counties and other local governments across the state have turned to pay freezes, unpaid days off and layoffs to balance their books, at least one agency has handed out wage increases and promotions. It was raises all around for the staff of the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District this past January, which had just begun collecting on a 20-year, $210 million property assessment to provide for****and levee improvements in an 18-county region of central and eastern Ohio.
|
|
armybrat
|
|
|
07-30-09 11:52 AM
|
This area could use alot of dam# improvements with the way the economy is dropping around here. Glad I have Fort Bragg to back me up.
|
|
yogilu
|
|
|
07-30-09 10:43 AM
|
ok that's funny. They won't let me post the word referncing what is being repaired when that is what the article is about. Haha
|
|
yogilu
|
|
|
07-30-09 10:41 AM
|
not sure what repairing a****in another county will do for me in Washington County. I don't live near the river, duck creek or any other water connected to this and yet I pay taxes for it. A load of crap!!
|