MWCD celebrating partnership with USACE for dam safety observances
NEW PHILADELPHIA (WJER) (June 3, 2024) – The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District is highlighting how its relationship with the US Army Corps of Engineers has prevented billions of dollars in flood damage to the region over nearly a century’s time.
MWCD Director Craig Butler says this was being promoted for Dam Safety Week, and this past weekend for Dam Safety Day.
The MWCD formed 20 years after the Great Flood of 1913, which killed nearly 500 residents, destroyed 69 bridges, and effectively wiped out Ohio’s canal system.
Butler says the partnership goes back to the late 1930s, when ownership of dams in the district was transferred to the USACE while the MWCD managed the properties surrounding them.
Butler says since then the two agencies have been coordinating the operation of a network of 15 dams.
They were also hosting tours at some of those dams Saturday in observance of National Dam Safety Day.