Local Park Ranger educates Chamber Luncheon attendees on Taylorsville Lake

Conor Lyons, Park Ranger at Taylorsville Lake — U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Louisville District, was the guest speaker at the Spencer County-Taylorsville Chamber of Commerce Nibbles & Knowledge Luncheon on Aug. 17.

Director Dawn DeRossett introduced Lyons by giving some background information on him.

Lyons was raised in Henry County, by his parents Brent and Robin Lyons. He grew up on a farm raising tobacco, and in addition to farming, his father also worked for the Corps of Engineers, and his mother owned and operated a grocery store in Bethlehem.

Lyons attended the University of Louisville, graduated in 2020, and started with the Corps in 2017 as a seasonal Park Ranger at Taylorsville Lake. After graduating, Lyons took a full-time job in the contracting division for the Corps in the local district office.

After realizing he did not like office work, Lyons went to work for a private construction company managing contractors in the field, coming back to Taylorsville as the Office Administrator in 2021, and became the full-time Park Ranger this year.

Lyons has a fiancée named Taylor, a speech pathologist at Cox’s Creek Elementary, and the couple is now expecting a baby, and they have a dog named Tucker.

“I would like to start out with some unknown knowledge, a little bit of history, and the intended purpose of the lake,” said Lyons in his opening.

Taylorsville Lake was authorized for construction under the Flood Control Act of 1966, and is part of the Salt River Watershed, which begins in Parksville, right outside of Danville, and extends roughly 150 miles, draining into the Ohio River and West Point, which is just south of Dixie Highway.

The reason the lake was built was because of flooding that took place along the Salt River, particularly down the river in the Mount Washington and Shepherdsville communities. These areas were plagued with flooding for a long time, becoming more problematic as the years went by. There was a large economic impact on farmers’ livestock and crops, and in commerce as well. Flooded roads and businesses were costing taxpayers a lot of money.

The lake took a little longer to complete than other lakes of similar size because construction was halted twice, once in 1978, and once in 1980, due to some federal court injunctions that were filed by residents of Spencer County who did not want the lake, mostly in the Ashes Creek area.

Also, the lake was actually supposed to be quite a bit bigger than what it is nowadays, but the Corp essentially got tired of fighting the legal battles for land, and settled on the size that it is now. The total cost of the lake was approximately $103 million. You probably couldn’t even hold a candle to that nowadays. And you just need a little picture I’d like to show this actually shows our control tower right here with no dam so the you know, the dam runs right along here. And this shows the original channel of the Salt River and how it used to run. And this is just a view from the opposite end of the dam after the completion of the dam. Here they are completing the service bridge and of course the water level sits right about your

The dam construction began in 1974, and was officially open for business in 1983. Water is held back when there are wet conditions until downstream conditions normalize, and then the water is let out. The control tower is the only one of its kind, and the newest in the whole district.

The dam has 10 multi-level gates that are all hydraulic cylinders. There are six in the front, and two on each side. Those gates lead into a wet well, or mixing chamber, where different temperatures of the water can be taken and mixed before being sent downstream.

According to Lyons, that system works in theory. “The engineers like to think that it works pretty well, but by the time you get about 100 yards down the river, Mother Nature takes back over, but it’s pretty neat,” said Lyons.

There are emergency gates that sit on the very bottom of the lake, and then there are service gates, that actually control the flow of water, with bypass valves on each side of the opening of the wet well that is divided in two chambers.

So, who exactly runs the lake?

The Corps owns the land and water around the lake, but only operate the control tower, with the main mission of flood risk reduction. They also set the policy on how the lake is to be operated by its partners, and lease areas around the lake to their state partners. The Corp officially manage approximately 570 acres that are around the dam, mostly the boat ramps, and the State Park, and sublease the areas to the marina and Edgewater resort.

The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife manage all the Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs), which is the majority of the lake, and they enforce the hunting and fishing regulations.

One thing that makes Taylorsville Lake different than most other lakes in Kentucky is the fact that there are not any docks, houses, or anything else deemed “recreational” on the lake. This is called Shoreline Management (SM), and Taylorsville Lake does not have SM because of Public Law 8972 that was passed in 1965.

It was passed to provide uniform policies with respect to recreation and fish and wildlife benefits, and costs of federal multipurpose water resource projects. The federal government was trying to transition federal agencies away from providing recreation with tax dollars. The Corps, in response, implemented an engineer regulation which was to get the Corps out of the recreation business.

There were problems with destruction of habitat, encroachments on government boundary, cutting and trimming of trees and vegetation, and pollution. The projects built after this regulation must only provide recreation to meet a minimum public and safety health standard. Some other lakes, like Cumberland, were grandfathered in, so those lakes still receive a recreation budget that they can use to upkeep the grounds, swim beaches, and other areas.

However, Taylorsville Lake is authorized to participate in a “cost share agreement” with the State Park, which allows the Corps to split costs 50/50 with partnering agencies or volunteer groups, such as the Friends of Taylorsville Lake.

Another little-known fact was that in the original plan, there was supposed to be hydroelectric plant that went along with the lake. It was determined that the cost benefit didn’t meet the cost to build it, and to have software or someone come out and keep it running.

The US Army Corps of Engineers Welcome Center is located at 2825 Overlook Road in Taylorsville. The office can be reached at 477-8882.