Mill Creek: What's the plan?

Mill Creek: What's the plan?

By Jessica Brown • • April 19, 2010



This article first appeared in the April 18, 2010 Sunday Enquirer

The Mill Creek helped build Cincinnati. And the city nearly killed it.

After fostering Cincinnati's industry, the meandering waterway became the city's
dumping ground and remains unfit for people to swim in or for most fish to live
in.

But advocates see a much greener, brighter future for this often forgotten
creek.


• History of the Mill Creek
• Photos: Mill Creek through the years
• Take our quiz on the Mill Creek

"Will it ever be fixed? Of course it will one day be fixed," said Warren High,
an environmental scientist and project manager for a company which has built
several restoration projects along the creek. "It will be a gem in the center of
our city and backyards along it will be front yards. It will revitalize the
heart of the city."

Sections of a new bike trail are now open. Wetlands are being restored. But
progress has been slow, despite the efforts of nearly half a dozen
organizations, years and years of reports, and millions of dollars spent.

Some groups are focused on flood control, some on environmental cleanup - and
sometimes the two conflict. Flood control has often meant channelizing - lining
the creek with ugly concrete walls. Others picture a more natural creek, lined
with bike trails.

One key problem, The Enquirer found: There is no one person or group in charge
of the Mill Creek. There's no master plan to repair the troubled watershed south
of the Butler County line.
'Animals are living here'

The Mill Creek watershed covers 166 square miles and 37 communities. It is home
to nearly half a million people.

The creek itself and its two main forks has been many things to many people - a
hunting path for Native Americans, a power supply for pioneers' mills, a canal
route for industries and an escape route for fleeing slaves.

But people also used it as a dumping ground for industrial waste, sewage and
even blood from slaughterhouses. Stripped of trees, prone to floods and full of
pollution, the creek soon became a liability.

"So goes the Mill Creek, so goes the future of Cincinnati," said Michael Miller,
an emeritus University of Cincinnati biologist who has spent decades restoring
the creek. "We aren't going to develop much faster than our worst site."

Dozens of projects are planned.

In Sharonville, for example, several governments and organizations created a
flood control plan at the confluence of the main stem and the East Branch of the
Mill Creek, just north of Interstate 275. When finished, it will keep water from
rising up into the basements of Mosteller Road businesses.

The project will put curves in the creek, turning straight waterways into
meandering streams to control floods and create habitat for wildlife. The city
also hopes to build walking trails along the creek.

As far as pollution goes, the Metropolitan Sewer District is the creek's biggest
offender. Because of the way its sewers were built, the district annually spills
millions of gallons of untreated sewage into the Lower Mill Creek and its
tributaries when it rains. Therefore the district - and its ratepayers - will
also be the biggest contributor to cleaning the creek.

The district is under court order to upgrade its system and plans $3.5 billion
in improvements to sewers, much of that in the Lower Mill Creek Watershed, which
stretches from the Ronald Reagan Highway to the Ohio River. It plans to include
environmentally friendly ideas such as green roofs, parks and porous pavement -
things that will make the creek an asset and draw for redevelopment.

Cincinnati's Revive I-75 plan, which would revamp the Interstate 75 corridor,
calls for a greenway with trees, biking and walking paths along the interstate's
corridor. The plan calls for Mill Creek to be restored to its former natural,
clean state.

One project is already finished: a nearly $5 million, 2-mile stretch of restored
creek and bike paths in Carthage's Caldwell Park.

"This is the best chunk of restored river," said UC's Miller. He's been involved
in Mill Creek projects for decades and gains hope from projects like this. This
is the cleanest section of the Mill Creek. The water tumbles serenely along its
pebble-lined path. On nearby roads, signs with pictures of smiling blue fish
inform motorists they are in the Mill Creek Watershed, so they should "keep it
clean." Education, advocates say, is as important as construction for the
waterway. The Mill Creek Watershed Council installed 130 such creek crossings in
19 communities in Hamilton County. The nonprofit Mill Creek Restoration Project
brings thousands of school groups to the creek every year for environmental
lessons.

A huge field in West Chester has been transformed into a flood-reducing wetland
complete with deer, beaver, birds and even coyotes.

"Listen," Miller said. Birds sang. "That's how you can tell this is working," he
said. "Animals are living here."
'A renaissance of the river'

Farther south, Cincinnati's government is helping with the restoration efforts.
City Council adopted the Restoration Project's Mill Creek Greenway plan, which
seeks to build 13.5 miles of bike paths along the creek. The group's goal is to
create a greenway - a strip of trees and walking trails - along the creek and
its tributaries to help restore those corridors.

A University of Cincinnati study found that the greenways plan could generate
millions in economic impact for some of the struggling neighborhoods along the
creek.

Advocates envision one day people being able to swim and fish in Mill Creek and
commute alongside it. They see it as a way to improve property values and bring
back some of the animals, plants and pristine splendor that drew settlers to the
Mill Creek Valley hundreds of years ago.

"Our vision is for a renaissance of the river," said Robin Corathers, head of
the Mill Creek Restoration Project. "It's doing better. It still has a long way
to go."

Right now Mill Creek, in many places, is anything but splendid. During its
28-mile course from its headwaters - a storm-sewer drain between two houses in a
quiet Liberty Township subdivision - to the Ohio River, the creek flows through
a patchwork of concrete channels along the Interstate 75 corridor. It passes
blighted buildings, ugly factories, old slaughterhouses and some of the region's
poorest neighborhoods.

Unless they live along it or have suffered its floods, many people don't even
know the creek is there.

In 1997, the creek was designated as the "most endangered urban river in North
America" by the conservation group American Rivers because of the pollution and
physical damage from years of development and harsh flood control projects.

The EPA advises against swimming or fishing in the creek because of the
potential for illness. Instead of being an asset for Greater Cincinnati, the
Mill Creek is a liability.

Slowly the tide is turning. An environmental oasis sprouted in the southern
section, which is home to the largest rookery of black crowned night herons in
Ohio.

The Mill Creek Watershed Council created a master plan for the Upper Mill Creek
watershed - the portion in Butler County - that addresses both flooding and
water quality problems.

Governments there, especially in West Chester Township, are working on dozens of
projects to stabilize stream banks, create wetlands and reserve the creek
corridor for conservation.

But the Watershed Council hasn't crafted a plan for the Lower Mill Creek, which
troubles some.

But "once (the creek) gets into Hamilton County there is no plan," High said.
"One of the biggest impediments (to fixing the creek) is that there's no plan."

A plan costs money that the Watershed Council doesn't have.

It also requires political cooperation. A total of 37 political jurisdictions
lie within the Mill Creek watershed, all of which have their own governments and
all of whom have specific expectations and limited funds for projects in their
community.

"How can you tell 37 jurisdictions how they can zone or how they can determine
their flood plains?" said High.

Other communities, such as Indianapolis and Louisville, have gotten massive
river restoration projects done quickly and efficiently. That's because unlike
Hamilton County, they have metropolitan governments that can better handle such
massive and sweeping plans.

Some advocates here are frustrated at the lack of progress. A watershed plan
could help groups win millions in state and federal grants, they say.

Others, like the Metropolitan Sewer District, agree cooperation is key to
cleaning up the creek and protecting its neighborhoods. "We don't just need a
watershed plan," said Biju George, deputy director for the Metropolitan Sewer
District. "We need a common platform. It doesn't exist

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs...EWS01/4180396/