Parks district starts repairs at Rock Mill
LANCASTER − Stebelton Park at Rock Mill has been closed since April because of geostructural issues under the mill. But repair work started recently and the Fairfield County Parks District plans to reopen the part as soon as possible and the mill in May.
Some of the sandstone the mill sits on is softening, which is causing the problem. Parks director Marcey Shaffer recently told the county commissioners the sand is so soft that someone can crush it in their hand and almost immediately turn it into sand.
The mill sits on three levels of sandstone with the middle level being the weak level.
“It’s like an ice cream sandwich,” Shaffer said. “You can scrape some of that ice cream out and eventually the wafers are going to give away.”
The repair work should take about 60 to 90 days and the Righter Company from Columbus is the contractor for the $176,500 job.
“It’s not a terribly complex fix,” Shaffer said. “It’s a matter of putting layers of concrete-like substance in there and providing drainage leading out of the leading edge of sandstone. So it’s not difficult or high tech. But it’s going to be a lot of work. There’s no easy way to pull sandstone out of here or get concrete in.”
Park district media coordinator Kimber Caito said the mill itself is fine and that the problem is contained in the problematic sandstone layer. She said big chunks of rock have been falling from that middle layer.
“When you’re in it every day you don’t notice the change until all of a sudden you go, ‘Something’s wrong here,’ Caito said. “At first it was the occasional rock that fell. Then as time went on it was like, ‘This is becoming a problem.’”
The district decided something had to be done late last year or early this year, she said. Caito said workers will remove any rock that is already fractured or could soon become and issue.
“That’s the point that is the big if,” she said. “They don’t really know how much stone they’re going to have to remove. When people ask when it’s going to be done we can’t say when because it all depends on that.”
Twitter: @Jeffdbarron