FREMONT — The long awaited demolition of the Ballville Dam is under way.

Fremont Safety Service Director Kenneth Frost said work to tear down the dam began this week, as crews finished access roads so heavy equipment could maneuver around the area. Excavators with industrial-sized jackhammers are chipping away at the structure. 

Work could be done by September, although it could stretch until December.

“They are hoping to have the major portion of the demo done within two weeks,” Mr. Frost said.

Demolition has been years in the making, both with the approval process and the final demolition process. Environmental groups — who supported the dam’s removal but questioned the process — raised concerns about sediment that had built up behind the dam in the century since it was built.

The demolition work won’t have a major impact on river usage downstream, though Mr. Frost said recreational users such as canoers and kayakers have been warned to avoid the demolition area. 

The dam’s removal had been the subject of controversy during its planning stage, based on fear that accumulated sediment upstream would wash into Sandusky Bay and Lake Erie.

But the Sierra Club’s Ohio chapter dropped a lawsuit seeking to require that sediment's prior removal once the Army Corps of Engineers imposed on the project conditions intended to mitigate the potential flow.

Crews conducted the first phase of demolition in September, notching the dam’s east end. That allowed much of the impounded water behind the dam to flow out gradually, Fremont officials said at the time. The river bottom was then seeded and stabilized; an ice-control barrier was constructed downstream to prevent ice jams in downtown Fremont.

First Published July 6, 2018, 6:11 p.m.