By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Just like the walleye returning to the Maumee River each spring, the neighbors of a park along the river return to seek improvements to the property.
Three years ago, a massive wall of ice pulverized Buttonwood Park on the banks of the Maumee River. Photographs show the ice walls towering over Wood County Park District staff as they surveyed the damage.
Since then, the walleye fishermen return in the spring – but the rest of the park remains unrepaired since the park district has no desire to invest more money in a park that has been demolished by giant ice jams two times in four years.
The soccer fields were wiped out and the gravel parking area was washed out by ice floes. Many large trees were swept away by the ice.
Last spring, a neighbor of Buttonwood Park, Molly Strader, asked the park district board to consider a partial revival of the park that previously allowed primitive camping. Strader said people travel from across the U.S. – from Washington, Florida, Maine and New York – to use the park on the Maumee River.
This year, it was Jane Strader, Molly’s mom, who made a pitch to the park board to improve the park property.
“I walk down there all year long, weather permitting,” Strader said on Tuesday.
The upkeep of the park property is important to local residents, she told the board.
“They like to see what’s going on in the river,” Strader said, adding that she wasn’t asking that the park be “pristine.”
“I don’t think we can ever achieve that with Buttonwood,” she said.
Strader thanked the park district for removing the log off the road leading to the river, so access is no longer blocked.
But she made a few specific requests for the park. With the ice floe season over, Strader is looking forward to picnic tables being returned. She frequently picks up trash in the park – and asked that a trash can be returned to the property.
“There are fishermen already standing in the river,” she said. “I would like to see a trash can that is raccoon-proof.”
Strader asked that some toxic weeds close to the road be removed, and that a mound of gravel next to the road be put to use.
“It would be nice to take that gravel and resurface the parking area,” she said.
And she asked that primitive camping be returned to Buttonwood Park.
“Ultimately I would like to see camping brought back,” she said. “I talk to the fishermen and they all regret it’s not there anymore.”
And then there’s the aesthetics. “There are ways we could make it look better,” Strader said.
“It’s used a lot in the summertime,” she said. “It’s one of the few accesses to the river families can use.”
The park district has invested money in the park before – only to have it destroyed by ice floes that act like a bulldozer over the acreage along the river.
Last July, just as the park district was warming up to the idea of park improvements, the board was made aware of potential risks caused by an earthen wall built by a neighbor of the park.
A landscape architect showed the board images of a dike built by the owner of a horse farm on West River Road, next to Buttonwood Park.
While Buttonwood Park already faces risks from the river, it will bear a greater brunt of floods and ice floes since the dike will divert even more high water to the parkland, he told the board.
Since the last flood, the owner of the horse farm, which was also damaged by flooding, reportedly had dirt and gravel hauled in to build a 12-foot tall mound perpendicular to the river’s flow, the architect said.
The park district had already decided that the former soccer fields would be turned into a prairie area. A plan was considered to move the parking lot and camping spaces further from the river – not knowing that would put them closer to the new dike.
The Wood County Planning Commission ordered that the dike be lowered so it was no higher than a mound originally on the property.
Park board member Denny Parish told Strader that the board would wait until the dike issues next to the park are resolved – hopefully by late June – before any decisions are made on investing in Buttonwood Park.
