ODNR SCHEDULES PUBLIC MEETINGS TO SHARE PLANS FOR LAKE ERIE UNDERWATER PRESERVE SYSTEMSANDUSKY, OH -- Three public meetings will be held later this month in the Sandusky area, allowing the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) to share its newly designed plans for the Lake Erie Islands Underwater Preserve. The preserve will include a number of shipwrecks between Kelleys Island and the Bass Islands. ODNR representatives will present plans for the new underwater preserve on Wednesday, April 23, in the Emergency Operations Center, Ottawa County Courthouse, 315 Madison Street, Port Clinton; Thursday, April 24, at the Kelleys Island Old Town Hall; and Friday, April 25, at the Put-in-Bay Village Town Hall on South Bass Island. All three meetings are scheduled from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. "Input received last year from Ottawa and Erie county residents and others during a series of public meetings helped ODNR refine earlier proposals for an underwater preserve in the Lake Erie islands area," said Dave Mackey, chief of the ODNR Office of Coastal Management. The 42-square-mile preserve will run from the east side of the Kelleys Island Shoal westerly to near the east side of the Bass Islands and north to near Lake Erie's Ohio-Canadian border. The preserve will encompass numerous historic shipwrecks along with significant underwater geological features such as glacial grooves. Three additional shipwreck sites lying outside the preserve boundary in the waters surrounding Kelleys Island will be designated separately. These sites, now extensively mapped and surveyed, contain the wrecks of the F.H. Prince, the Adventure and the W.R. Hanna. ODNR supports an underwater preserve in the Erie Islands in order to foster public awareness of the lake's sunken historic treasures and Ohio's rich maritime history. The preserve will be laid out with existing navigational buoys marking all boundaries. "This layout will aid boaters in being able to easily determine where the preserve system is located and will eliminate the requirement for additional buoys to outline the preserve," Mackey said. Interest in a preserve designation has already led to the first archaeological surveys and documentation of Ohio shipwrecks, according to Franco Ruffini, a preservation officer with the Ohio Historical Society. "Designation of a preserve system is the culmination of considerable effort on the part of ODNR and numerous individuals and organizations interested in protecting Lake Erie's historically significant shipwrecks," said Ruffini, who is also a member of the state's Submerged Lands Advisory Council. "Underwater preserves have proven to be an important economic resource for their host communities, attracting divers from great distances."
Source: ODNR
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