By Reid Forgrave
The Cincinnati Enquirer

WHITEWATER TWP. - A year ago, this patch of old farmland along Kilby Road looked like any other sand and gravel mining operation.

Hulking 50-foot-high piles of sand and gravel formed a mini-mountain range along the Whitewater River. There were digging machines, conveyors belts and washers to clean the gravel and sand.

Now there's little evidence that Watson Gravel spent more than a decade, starting in 1980, digging millions of tons of sand and gravel out of this area.

There's a 10-acre lake with frogs, fish and geese. A flock of 50 ducks plays nearby. Two dozen trees stand atop one hill near the river. There's enough green space for two soccer fields near the lake.

"You don't just dig a hole then walk away from it," said Dick Martin, operations manager for the Ross, Ohio-based Watson Gravel. "This is all put back to productive land."

It may even become a park for residents in the rural area of Hamilton County.

Landowner Lloyd Smith bequeathed it to the Hamilton County Park District when he died several years ago. Watson Gravel had leased the land from Smith to mine it.

Ohio has strict regulations for gravel miners' reclamation projects. Watson Gravel's $80,000 project is one of the best examples in the region, officials say.

In 1999, state officials chose the company as the only Ohio nominee for the national Interstate Mining Compact Commission award in the category of sand and gravel. Watson Gravel finished as a national runner-up.

The six-month reclamation project included placing about two feet of topsoil above the gravel, planting grass seed and other improvements.

"Right now they could turn this into a park," Martin said.

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E-mail rforgrave@enquirer.com