October 2, 2007

Craig Morton Grand Lake St Marys Park Manager

Craig Morton, who has been the park manager of Grand Lake St Marys State Park since January of 2003 gave a presentation to club members regarding the lake and park.  Prior to coming to St Marys he worked at Kelley's Island and has been with the ODNR since November 1979.  He graduated from Hocking College with a degree in Forestry.

Craig shared that the mission for Ohio State Parks is to meet or exceed expectations in providing an important service to society.  They aim to provide relaxing environment and activities for residents and visitors and support the work to preserve all park land at a local, state and federal level.

As for Grand Lake, he reported that they had a good year with increased numbers of campers and visitors over past years.  Bass fishing tournaments brought anglers to the area to enjoy the lake as well.  He was pleased to report that there were limited safety related incidents with one close call drowning as the worst incident reported for the year.  A short lived e-coli scare was found to be a temporary spike and was experienced at other lakes in the surrounding area.

Craig went on to report on various projects to improve the lake with continued dredging operations and stump removal.  Also, efforts are underway to reinforce the shoreline area on the West end to control erosion.  Water quality is an ongoing issue for which the park service has little control.  He indicated that their jurisdiction ends at the water's edge where property is privately owned and they encourage landowners to be conscientious about their part in improving water quality.  The lake currently receives 200K tons of sediment per year due to run off which contributes significantly to the less than ideal water quality.

Hosting Rotarian: Larry Dicke