New Spillway - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

New Spillway

Several years ago, this blogpost described the plans for a new structure to replace the 110 year old spillway on Lake Loramie. During a trip back home this summer, I finally had a chance to see the new spillway, now called a "labyrinth weir”. To quote an article in the June 15, 2018 Sidney Daily News about the grand opening, "In total, the spillway project cost $5.8 million to complete. The design, called a “labyrinth,” results in a seemingly zigzag-shaped spillway and is a structure designed to convey large flows of water at low heads by increasing the effective length of the weir, or dam, crest with respect to the channel width”. Here are several aerial photos of the new weir under construction adjacent to the old spillway and the finished product after the spillway was demo’ed.

There was one unfortunate incident during the construction when an excavator accidentally slid into the lake as pictured here. Thankfully, the operator was able to swim to safety and the construction company recovered and restored the machine to working order.

The first labyrinth weir dam was built on Indonesia's Ciwadas River in 1988 as pictured here.

Read all about the civil engineering details of a labyrinth weir at this link. Bottom line, this design concept is much more efficient that a conventional spillway dam and takes up less space while allowing more flow during peak periods of rainfall to maintain more nominal lake levels. However, a labyrinth weir is more expensive to build. One of the key features is its self cleaning means to remove sediment build-up in front of the weir that a conventional spillway does not provide, so maintenance costs are lower. Here are some photos taken during my visit:

That all being said, I had so many memories of the old spillway, it’s sad to see it go. Furthermore, as a regular visitor to Jack Hoying’s photography website, I’ve noticed countless photos posted by Jack of the old spillway, but have yet to see one of the new structure. Seems we are of the same mindset! Here are some of my favorites:

 Note the difference in just one day at the old spillway

Thanks for the memories, Jack.

For more information on the new Lake Loramie weir, click on this ODNR link.

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