State grant to fund Mill Creek projects, tours

State grant to fund Mill Creek projects, tours
THE ENQUIRER

Folks along the Mill Creek floodplain will be able to learn about the history of
the waterway and help restore it through a state grant.

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency awarded $50,000 to the Mill Creek
Restoration Project for a yearlong project that will include educational
workshops, tree plantings and tours. Volunteers also will install signs at
landmarks of the Underground Railroad.

The grant was one of eight statewide, for a total of more than $340,000. The
money comes from penalties collected from polluters.

Information: www.millcreekrestoration.org.


http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.d...388/1056/COL02

Gee-zeus, Garrison, you forgot to cross-post this to rec.bicycles!

I know this was an oversight, so I thought I'd better point it out.
HTH.

Yer friend,
-Richard



Garrison Hilliard wrote:
State grant to fund Mill Creek projects, tours
THE ENQUIRER

Folks along the Mill Creek floodplain will be able to learn about the history of
the waterway and help restore it through a state grant.

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency awarded $50,000 to the Mill Creek
Restoration Project for a yearlong project that will include educational
workshops, tree plantings and tours. Volunteers also will install signs at
landmarks of the Underground Railroad.

The grant was one of eight statewide, for a total of more than $340,000. The
money comes from penalties collected from polluters.

Information: www.millcreekrestoration.org.


http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.d...388/1056/COL02

A Creek Runs Through It

A Creek Runs Through It

Mill Creek meanders from natural to nasty

By Margo Pierce




The Commodore of the Mill Creek Yacht Club believes the waterway is in
better shape than it used to be.
Although there are still abuses occurring today, it's "slightly
better," according to Bruce Koehler.

"The biggest thing to back that up is they put a treatment plant for
the sanitary sewer overflow (site number) 700, which was puking 64
million gallons a year of untreated sewage," he says. "It was by far
the worst violator of the Mill Creek. The fact that that's been
addressed tells me that the Mill Creek is better."

Koehler, who is senior environmental planner for the OKI Regional
Council of Governments, is a longtime volunteer with the Mill Creek
Watershed Council of Communities. He started the Yacht Club in the
early 1980s, when the group started talking about what to do to improve
the contaminated creek.

"I thought, 'What the hell are we doing sitting here at this board room
table talking about something that's just three miles away and we never
go down there?' " Koehler says. "Just sort of talking up in the
stratosphere of abstraction, so I found a buddy and we canoed the Mill
Creek and started seeing what it was really like."

Beavers and barrels
Now the commodore takes local politicians, dignitaries,
environmentalists and others on canoe trips along the creek. In some
sections, passengers will see heron, beaver and other animals amid lush
greenery. Other areas aren't so great.

That is what the council is trying to address with its community
outreach and education programs.

"What do we want to do with the Mill Creek?" asks Tara Maddock, program
director for the Watershed Council. "What do we want it to look like?
Is it something we want to cover up and treat as a conveyance sewer? Or
is it something we want to have more pride in?

"Those are kind of lofty goals or long-term visions for it, but it
really matters in a day-to-day sense for people who are losing their
back yards to flooding, for those cities that are facing flooding or
the stream out of its banks. Those are very practical, hard-core
dollars-and-cents issues that need to be addressed."

Striking a balance between environmental and economic issues for
governmental agencies and businesses is what Maddock is trying to do.
With new EPA regulations holding smaller municipalities accountable for
the water quality in their area, towns such as Reading and Evendale as
well as counties and townships are being forced to look for ways to be
more environmentally responsible about the bodies of water within their
borders.

Topics like stormwater run off and the water quality in the Mill Creek
aren't exactly sexy and are not typically priorities for most business
owners, unless their parking lot is flooding or the sewer in their
basement is backing up because the creek is flooding and the water has
no place to go. Making people understand the importance of this water
quality and quantity is what Maddock does in terms people can
understand.

The city of Reading is working with the council to develop the programs
necessary to comply with EPA regulation. One activity in the works is
executing a community outreach campaign to share suggestions and
information about how to do something simple like building a rain
garden (www.millcreekwatershed.org) or sweep up debris and dispose of
it properly. Another is developing a green certification for businesses
that implement simple but effective environmental practices.

"Part of our education and outreach focus is to get the average
homeowner or business owner to recognize that what they do on their lot
or property is connected to the larger watershed," Maddock says. "When
you get a rainstorm, that first flush of that runoff carries a lot of
pollutant with it off the rooftops, the driveways, the roadways, and it
has automobile byproducts -- rubber, grease, gas, oil, antifreeze,
fertilizers, pesticides from your lawn."

Still too abstract?

"Use old fashioned-technology -- rain barrels to hold water and using
it for watering your garden," she says. "Wash your car on your lawn,
not in the street, because that water goes straight into the storm
drain, straight into the Mill Creek, straight into the Ohio (River) so
you get this direct flush of pollutants off the surface."

Bizarre creek
Making the tough decisions about what efforts ought to be selected and
paying for them is the hard part.

"Cost versus treating the problem -- what can be done given a limited
or constrained budget?" Maddock says.

She suggests building baseball fields in flood plains so the water has
someplace to go other than backyards. But there is no simple or
comprehensive solution.

"Within the constraints of a highly developed urban stream, we're not
going to make it look like the Little Miami," she cautions.


Photo By Mill Creek Watershed Council
Do they know what they're getting into? Kids hang out near the Mill
Creek.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This urban stream is a fixture in many communities, and what it looks
like in those communities varies. Describing the section of the creek
that leads past the Hamilton County Fairgrounds as "almost natural"
with "old time meanders," Koehler chuckles before he continues.

"The Mill Creek's so full of ironies," he says. "Just before you get to
Caldwell Park, left bank, there's this industrial dump coming right
down to the water, with plastic hanging like a haunted house and
50-gallon industrial drums rusting away. You can see the best and worst
of the Mill Creek in a 10-yard stretch. It's so bizarre."

Canoeing the bizarre creek with other Yacht Club members is something
that makes Koehler believes it's possible to improve the stream.

"It's given us hope, but it's also given us a hellishly long to-do
list," he says. "It does tell me it can never go back to what it was
and it would be a mistake to treat it like a scenic river wannabe. So
let's just accept it as the bizarre place that it is."


http://www.citybeat.com/current/news2.shtml