Push & Pull Day 4: Geographic features define economy, pull rivals together

CELINA — Most people who live in Celina or St. Marys will tell you there’s always been a bit of a rivalry between the two cities seated on opposite northern corners of the state’s largest inland lake.

But good or bad, Grand Lake St. Marys binds the two together more than gridiron clashes under Friday night lights pull them apart. By its very nature, the shared geographic feature has a huge bearing on what defines the region.

Years ago, the St. Marys Chamber of Commerce and the Celina Chamber of Commerce both had tourism committees. Some forward-thinking folks realized the redundancy and formed the Auglaize and Mercer Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.

That’s not to say it came easy.

“There are a lot of turf issues,” current director Donna Grube said. “It’s difficult to give up some of your power so to speak, but they figured out they were promoting the same things. Why don’t we join forces, pool our money and do more.”

Tourism, after all, is one of the most important drivers of the economy around Grand Lake. Never has that been more evident than the last two years, when blue-green algae blooms turned the lake into a stinking, toxic lagoon. Heeding warnings from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, people stopped coming.

“The water quality this year has impacted everyone. It’s not just impacted the marinas and the campground. From the restaurants to gas stations, anybody and everybody in this community has been impacted by this,” said Brian Miller, assistant manager at Grand Lake St. Marys State Park.

Meeting a need

As regions find they have a need, groups tend to join together to meet it.

In the early 1990s, the Auglaize County and Mercer County sheriff’s offices went together with police departments from around the region to form the Grand Lake Task Force. Auglaize County Sheriff’s Deputy Mike Vorhees said there’s never been animosity among the officers.

“We tease each other a lot, the St. Marys guys and the Celina guys, but professionally, no, you don’t see any of that,” he said.

Vorhees is Auglaize County’s field commander for the task force, which has a primary focus on drug enforcement. The task force doesn’t necessarily trim any department’s budget, but having those officers working together and building relationships can help solve crimes more quickly.

“Say I’ve got a guy from Minster who knows the southwest region,” Vorhees said. “If I’ve got an [incident] from that region, I’m going to call him no matter whether it’s drugs, burglary related, pharmaceuticals — whatever it is.”

At the table

Miller, who spent almost every day of his 42 years at or on the lake, is now chairman of the Grand Lake St. Marys Restoration Commission, another group made up with folks from across Auglaize and Mercer counties.

“We’ve actually got everybody at the table. We’ve got the whole community, and quite frankly what’s doing it is the impact. Sometimes unfortunately we have to hit rock bottom or get to a crisis mode before we can get everybody engaged, and I think that’s where we’re at right now,” Miller said.

The lake’s health has long been in decline. People around the shallow, 13,000-acre lake say there was always a belief that because the lake was state property, the state would fix it. After the recent algae problems — and the realization there was no magic bullet that would singularly purify the water — the commission formed to work locally and be a bridge to state officials.

“If there’s a silver lining, it is that neighbors are starting to help neighbors, and there has been a greater cooperation between state and other agencies than I’ve ever seen,” said Sean Logan, director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

Water unites

It’s similar to what happened between Findlay and Ottawa, two towns in two counties rallying around a water feature that ties them together but has the power to tear their economies apart.

There, with the Blanchard River, the problem is water quantity, not water quality. Still, Tony Iriti, president of the Northwest Ohio Flood Mitigation Partnership, said the two projects relate in that they’ve both successfully involved the private sector.

Though Iriti said he believes people fundamentally want limited government, when issues like flooding arise, “the first place they go is the federal government, then the state government, then local government. What we were able to do was bring the private sector in to kind of put that fourth leg on the stool,” Iriti said.

Jeff Loehrke, Ottawa’s community development director, said that collaboration has caught Washington’s attention.

“It has shown every time we go to D.C. or talk to our legislators,” Loehrke said. “The fact that we are working as one, the public sector and private sector, is mentioned each time we meet with them. This is totally unusual and very much well-received by our legislators.”

The work has been so successful, Loehrke said, that the Army Corps of Engineers is using it as a model project of how to work together.

Taking action

Around Grand Lake, the commission is raising money and taking action. They have contracted with Battelle for data analysis, purchased their own equipment and are now working closely with Ohio officials.

Though the fundraising — $550,000 worth — is important, Miller said, “from a person that’s grown up here and worked around the lake my whole life, I’m more touched that the communities have all come together to work on one common goal — to improve the water quality of Grand Lake St. Marys.”

Now, after years of working together, Grube said the convention and visitor’s bureau board doesn’t bicker over county lines.

“Our divisions are between recreation and heritage tourism. The museum folks would like us to promote them more, and the lake folks would like us to promote them more,” she said.

There’s a compromise for that: They try to do it all, and hope to soon have a cleaner lake to advertise.