There are some questions the internet doesn't answer easily. That's where our feature OKI Wanna Know comes in. You can ask those strange questions with answers that aren't always obvious. This week, we investigate a weird tributary of the Ohio River, with WVXU's Bill Rinehart
Casey Moore was looking at high-altitude photos of the Ohio River, and noticed something strange. In Boone County, where Woolper Creek meets the Ohio River, there is a peculiar land feature. It looks man-made, and Casey's wondering what it is.
Yes, there is an artificial alteration near the mouth of the creek.
Woolper joins the Ohio between Petersburg Road and Burlington Pike, just off Bellevue Road. It winds and twists and makes what kind of looks like a giant "S." But, there's a cut-through, as if someone added a single line to make a giant dollar sign.
The executive director of the Boone County Planning Commission says it's because of a business plan that didn't quite materialize.
Kevin Costello says someone had an idea for a development that included a marina.
"Back in 1987, it was something that really piqued our interest from a planning commission standpoint because we really don't have great access to the Ohio River," he says. "We have a lot of riverfront, but we don't have access to the public, because a lot of it is privately-owned land."
Costello says the housing portion of the development was an afterthought, because at the time, there wasn't much in the way of demand, or utilities, there.
The idea of a marina persisted even though there were some challenges. The creek wasn't very wide.
"So you have to create sort of a channel, a safe channel. It wasn't as deep. And so the idea was to connect some of the pieces and make the mouth a little bit wider so you could get through it."
Workers dug a shortcut for the naturally meandering Woolper Creek, creating two little islands. They also buried the nearby Stone Creek, and dredged wetlands to create a basin for boat storage closer to the road.
Costello says the developer had to not only get the planning commission's approval, but also the Army Corps of Engineers, because the work affected the navigable waters of the Ohio.
"That was the caveat that you had to get all the right permits. We required that the marina be put in the first phase," he says. "We thought that was the feature. If you don't have that feature then it made no sense to have residential out there without any recreational opportunities."
Costello says that was a major commitment and cost for the project.
"I think it probably was a project that really thought it could be had very quickly and inexpensively, and then the project, it never was completed," he says. "The developer ran out of cash and ran into some legal issues and so forth."
Those legal issues, according to the January 26, 2006 Cincinnati Post, were charges of tax evasion and bank fraud.
Costello says once the project was completely abandoned, talk turned to how to fix what had been done.
"That's kind of what the story's all about. They ended up having to go back and restore it to as close as possible to original condition."
By August 2007, working with Northern Kentucky University's Center for Environmental Restoration, there was a plan. The other stream, Stone Creek, was uncovered. There was work on the basin so it could return to wetlands. The channels that had been cut were dammed up to restore the natural flow of Woolper Creek.
It is heading back to a more natural state, but Boone County still doesn't have a lot of public access to the Ohio River. Costello says there's work underway on that.
"Since 1987 we've formed a conservancy called Boone Conservancy, and they've secured some Ohio River land just recently, just west of the bridge that crosses over to Indiana," he says. "The idea is to work with some of the property owners, either obtain easements to get access or else acquire land outright to provide access."
He says Boone County has developed a parks plan, and also joined the Ohio River Way consortium to look for opportunities.
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