The project is a man-made lake and pond, and is on the 110-acre estate owned by John P. McConnell, CEO and chairman of Worthington Industries and majority owner of the Columbus Blue Jackets hockey team.

DELAWARE — The 20-foot earthen mounds along Hogback Road have been growing since late summer as a parade of backhoes, bulldozers and dump trucks drove speculation about what’s going on.

The mystery deepened as the air filled with dust and nearby homeowners watched the trucks pass. Those who ventured along wooded trails or climbed the mounds saw the pits, one described as 50 feet deep.

Get the news delivered to your inbox: Sign up for our morning, afternoon and evening newsletters

Some people who checked with Brown Township officials found that no records or permits were required for the work. Same with Delaware County.

And even though the excavation is just north of Alum Creek Reservoir in the Alum Creek watershed, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had no records either.

The reason: The project, a man-made lake and pond, is on private property, part of the 110-acre estate owned by John P. McConnell, CEO and chairman of Worthington Industries and majority owner of the Columbus Blue Jackets hockey team.

The 23.6-acre lake will have a scuba area about 30-feet deep and a 1.5-acre island in the center, according to diagrams prepared by Gahanna-based Watcon Consulting Engineers and filed with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

A 2.3-acre pond is being built closer to Hogback and is intended to catch water runoff. The total work site is about 65 acres and should be completed this year.

The soft-spoken McConnell has been reluctant to discuss the project, noting that all legal steps had been taken to begin the project.

Close neighbors have known about the project to convert the former corn and soybean field into a private recreational site and have no issues with it.

Others in the community have raised concerns, likening the ongoing construction to strip mining and saying that the tall mounds diminish the view from neighboring properties.

McConnell said the finished project, with seeding, grading and landscaping, will be worth it.

"I think they should be happy it’s not a massive subdivision," he said.

McConnell said the lake will be for family and friends, not open to the public.

Gary Stegner, a farmer and Brown Township trustee for 15 years, said that he has fielded no objections from residents.

"I hate to see any farmland taken out of the community to be used as something else. But he (McConnell) has every right to do what he wants to on his property," Stegner said.

ODNR’s dam safety program had potential oversight of the project. However, in an Aug. 22 letter to McConnell’s Hogback Road Land Investment LLC, ODNR’s water resources division said that, since there are no dams greater than 6 feet tall, the project did not require a permit.

Though work should be complete by this summer, filling a nearly 24-acre lake could take longer, said Brian Maka, spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers in West Virginia.

"It might take a couple years if you’re using runoff," he said.

Todd Voss, who is managing the project that will be called McConnell Lake, said that with average rainfall it will take three years to fill.

"Twenty-four acres is a good-size lake," said Dana Oleskiewicz, administrative director of the Ohio Lake Management Society, a nonprofit educational group. "Building lakes of that size is not something that is typical."

Voss, who also operates the McConnell-owned Double Eagle Golf Club about 5 miles from the site in Sunbury, said his boss prefers solitude over the spotlight.

"He’s a man with the means who has always wanted his own lake," Voss said. "He’s told me he’ll probably get in his boat, drop a line, smoke a cigar and sit there."

dnarciso@dispatch.com

@DeanNarciso