Posted on March 4, 2026
LOGAN — Founded in late 2023, the Lake Logan Association (LLA) has spent much of the time since then working doggedly to convince the state of Ohio to dredge sediment out of the lake, a project the group sees as a crucial first step to restoring its health.
Based on a meeting Friday that put LLA members and other interested citizens around a table with state officials, it seems clear that some progress has been made toward the ultimate goal of dredging the lake. It appears equally obvious, however, that there is still a ways to go before such dredging might begin, and that unanswered questions remain — including, of course, the question of funding.
The biggest immediate obstacle to a Lake Logan dredging project has been the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ lack of a suitable dredge material relocation area (DMRA) nearby where it can deposit the silt it pulls out of the lake — which contains an estimated 200,000 cubic yards of the stuff.
At Friday’s meeting, organized by state Rep. Mark Johnson, the administrator of ODNR’s dredge program reported that the agency has looked at 14 different possible DMRA sites, and essentially narrowed the list down to the two most likely candidates.
One site, Tom Grabow said, is a 17-acre parcel on Lake Logan Road that the owner is willing to sell to the state for $1.15 million. The other is a Blosser Road property, part of which its owners are willing to lease to the state for six years at $18,000 annually.
Figuring in such expenses as permit fees, costs of building the DMRA and running dredge equipment, and of doing some testing to make sure the site is viable, the bottom-line cost estimates for the two choices are $2.238 million for the purchase site, and between $894,522 and $1,396,911 for the lease site (depending on how many acres are leased).
Grabow said his first choice out of the two would be the first one, designated as the Hedges property. Though on paper this site is the more expensive of the two, he said he prefers it mainly for technical reasons that make it more feasible for creation of a DMRA. These include the fact that it is very close to where the dredging would take place, and is a relatively flat piece of ground that wouldn’t require as much site prep.
“The reason… we would probably prefer that is because it’s so close. We’re only 1,900 feet up the hill to the project site,” he explained. If 10 acres of the site were used for a DMRA, he estimated it could accept close to the 200,000 cubic yards of silt expected to come out of the lake.
Grabow acknowledged that the price tag of over a million dollars for the property is “something that my budget would not be able to absorb,” but noted that if this site is chosen, it will give the ODNR a permanent DMRA that it can re-use in the future once it hauls away the first dredge material.
The Blosser Road site, he said, while its leasing cost is less than the purchase price of the Hedges site, would need to be leveled before a DMRA could be built on it, and has some unknowns that could make it entirely unsuitable. He said it’s not known if, once the topsoil is removed, ODNR will find clay, which is needed to build a dike wall. If clay is not found, he suggested, the site is not usable, as hauling in clay from elsewhere would cost “several millions” of dollars.
There are also unknowns associated with the Hedges site, he said, including the need for it to pass environmental and archaeological/historical reviews (looking for historic artifacts) before it can be used as a DMRA site. . “Environmentally it looks good with our own people. Archaeologically, we don’t know,” Grabow said, adding that a consultant would have to be hired to make that determination. But all things considered, he said, the Hedges site “is my number one option. I think this is the one we need to possibly concentrate on.”
ODNR Director Mary Mertz also pointed out that it takes the state rather longer to close a land deal — maybee four to six months — than it does for a private citizen. “It just takes a while,” she warned. “There are a lot of steps when the state purchases a piece of property.”
As the discussion progressed, however, it became clear that the state’s funding the land purchase is a big “if.”
“For ODNR, our operating budget was set eight months ago, last July,” Mertz said. “So that money is budgeted and allocated,” as is its capital budget. She suggested that the best approach might be to seek funding from state money allocated for community projects — though Johnson pointed out that this type of funding often requires a local match.
To the ODNR officials present, Johnson advised, “You guys figure out the best proposal, and let’s try not to waste a lot of time… propose (option) one or two, and let’s try to get the funding, so we can get started.”
LLA founding member Maria Diaz-Myers asked whether the state could move forward on both properties at the same time, for example getting the necessary soil boring and environmental and historical reviews done, to get those out of the way before the money to buy or lease a site is secured.
Mertz responded that it would be unwise to spend state dollars on advance testing of a site for which the purchase money had not been committed.
“We can do the checking before the property is purchased,” she said. “But I think that you can appreciate, we would be heavily criticized for spending state dollars checking on property… if we didn’t have the money lined up to buy it.”
She advised that a better approach would be to line up the funding first, designating it for acquisition of an unspecified DMRA site. Then, if the testing results come back negative, the land purchase can be canceled.
Patrick and Jennifer Blosser, who own the second site under consideration, also attended the meeting. Asked by Johnson what his feelings were on the choice of a site, Patrick Blosser said, ““I’d prefer it would go on my property,” while Jennifer Blosser warned, “The people of Hocking County are so ticked off right now about everything that’s going on, if you tell them you paid a million dollars for 17 acres to dredge that lake, look out.”
The meeting ended with seemingly nothing definite decided, other than the need to gather more information that may help clarify which site is the better choice — information such as how much it will cost to contract out the different assessments that still need to be done for each site.
“So, what is the next step?” asked Diaz-Myers of LLA. “After this meeting, what happens next?”
“I’ve got to get some other numbers put together,” Grabow said.
