Some of the dozens of people who attended the open house at the Lockington Dam can be seen atop the dam following the ceremony. Some of the repairs to the concrete are visible as lighter colored and smoother on the lift side of the dam.
Courtesy photo
LOCKINGTON — Despite the brisk Fall weather, a good crowd attended the open house and tour of Lockington Dam Wednesday morning. Miami Conservancy District General Manager MaryLynn Lodor served as master of ceremonies for the brief program, which included remarks from Board Member Mark Rentschler and Miami Conservancy District’s Chief Engineer Don O’Connor.
The MCD was created in the aftermath of the 1913 Flood, a disaster that killed an estimated 470 people in the communities along the Great Miami River. The district was created as a public corporation in June 1915, and includes all or portions of nine counties in southwestern Ohio, including Shelby County.
The Lockington Dam was constructed by the Miami Conservancy District between February 1918 and October 1921 in the aftermath of the 1913 Flood. The dam was built across Loramie Creek, a major tributary of the Great Miami River. A number of other streams flow into Loramie Creek. The major tributaries include Turtle Creek, Painter’s Creek and Mile Creek.
“Lockington is important because, like all of our dams, it is capable of holding back tremendous amounts of floodwater that would otherwise flow unimpeded downstream and overtop levees flooding cities like Piqua, Troy, Dayton, Miamisburg and Middletown,” O’Connor explained.
“The Lockington Dam storage basin stretches from here all the way to Fort Loramie, about 18 miles away. Lockington Dam can hold back approximately 23 billion gallons of water. If it were filled to capacity, the lake formed by Lockington Dam would be the seventh largest lake in Ohio.” O’Connor continued.
“The most water Lockington’s storage basin has ever held is a little over half of the total possible depth,” O’Connor stated. “That was in July of 2003. However, that was only about 17 percent of the total volume the basin can hold.”
“This dam is important, and it is working,” O’Connor noted. “It was conceived, designed, and built more than 100 years ago. Although it was innovative and on the cutting edge for its time, there are simply things the world didn’t know then about the science of flood protection. The field of geotechnical engineering didn’t even exist at the time. In fact, some of the engineers who worked on this project went on to become the founding fathers of the field of geotechnical engineering.”
O’Connor detailed the work to stabilize the dam to prevent seepage through the bedrock on which the dam was constructed. In addition, he outlined the work done on the concrete portions of the dam to further stabilize the structure.
The earthen dam has two concrete conduits through the base of the embankment near the center of the valley. The conduits are sized to discharge floodwaters at a rate that can be handled by the flood protection levees and channels downstream. The remainder of the floodwaters are temporarily stored behind the dam and released over time. An emergency spillway is located directly above the conduits in the same structure.
“Our dams have retained water 2,190 times since they were constructed,” Lodor stated. “The Lockington Dam has stored water 432 times. Over the course of the past three decades, they are working harder than they did during their first 70 years of life. Climate trends are increasing the number of high water storage events.”
“Our original engineers did not believe a storm large enough to fill the basin would be possible,” Lodor explained. “Modern science tells us that it might indeed be possible. So national experts have encouraged us to take the steps necessary to ensure that the dam would be strong no matter the size of the storm”
The open-house event offered the public a rare opportunity to see the dam up close. Following the formal presentation, Miami Conservancy District staff members from the Miami Conservancy District were available to answer questions about the dam and the recent construction projects designed to strengthen the dam.
The Miami Conservancy District plans future such events at the other four dams within the district as similar projects are completed at each of the dams.
