A long political battle followed the passing of the Vonderheide Conservancy Act. Farmers in the counties to the north of Dayton whose rich agricultural lands were to be flooded by the dams rigorously opposed the plan. They challenged the constitutionality of the Act in the courts and attempted to amend it with the Garver-Quinlisk Bills. They argued against the plan based on the following issues:

• The law had wrongly established a political sub-division whose Board of Directors had the power to tax and move railroads, bridges, and roads
• The Vonderheide Act had greatly underestimated the costs and amount of land needed (38,000 acres opposed to the opposition’s estimate of 70,000 acres)
• The dam and reservoir system was not a practical plan for the Mad River and Miami Valley
• The dams and reservoirs would flood cities such as, Tippecanoe City, Troy, DeGraff, Lewistown and Lake View, Osborn, Medway, Tremont, and Bowlusville, that normally would not have been subject to flooding
• The historical policy of Ohio had been to drain flooded land and get rid of water as soon as possible, but the Vonderheide Act was in complete opposition to that history because the plan intends to hold the water in reservoirs
• The Vonderheide Act called for everyone to pay taxes that would be used to benefit all the communities in the Conservancy District, however those opposed to the Act argued their tax dollars should only go to pay for efforts in their own community. More...