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Farming, Counties Continue to Protect
Big Darby
(Note: It's definitely an Election Year, as witnessed by the
following. To hear the congresswoman go on about this area in which I
live, one would think that 'threats' to it are as plentiful as apples
in an orchard. The reality is that the real threats come from just
such cavalier press releases, as much so as the language deception
cousins emanating from the self-proclaimed 'environmental' or
'conservation' groups. American Rivers' employees have never shown
their faces in this farm country -- at least, not publicly. They may
have canoed down the Big or Little Darbys, but the extent of their
interest here is purely mercenary, on that you can safely bet -- just
as virtually all the interest in this area that would separate the
farmers from their property rights, as the CRP, CREP and other
programs do. No matter how tasty the bait, there's still a heckuva
Hook in it.)
April 29, 2004
By Congresswoman Deborah Pryce (OH-15)
For nearly a decade, American Rivers, a well-respected, national river
conservation organization, has identified annually ten significant
American waterways deemed to be at-risk for becoming irreparably
damaged. This year, in its report for 2004, the group named Big
Darby Creek in central Ohio as one of America’s Most Endangered
Rivers. American Rivers states that its goals are to identify
waterways worth preserving, and to improve public policy decisions
that affect the listed rivers.
In response to the Report and to the deteriorating condition of the
stream, there has been some blame directed at officials and residents
of Union and Madison Counties for employing farming practices
deleterious to Big Darby’s health, and for opposing the Little Darby
National Wildlife Refuge.
In its Report, it should be noted that America Rivers states that the
farms in the Darby watershed have for decades buffered this area from
encroaching development, and are a primary reason for Big Darby’s
unique pristine quality, despite the creek’s close proximity to a
major urban area. For years, farmers in the area have worked to
protect this treasured resource; if recent changes in farming
practices along Big Darby have resulted in diminishing water quality,
it is likely that these farmers will amend these practices to improve
the health of Big Darby.
During the debate over the Little Darby National Wildlife Refuge, many
of the legitimate concerns of area residents were marginalized and
dismissed as knee-jerk, “Not in My Backyard” (NIMBY) objections,
and some proponents paternalistically suggested that the two counties
should understand that the Refuge was ultimately in their best
interests. Unfortunately, some of these misguided criticisms
have resurfaced pursuant to the American Rivers report.
While the Refuge and its permanent prohibitions against future
development could have lessened the threat of developing areas near Little
Darby, it would have provided no protections from the City of
Columbus continuing its growth westward toward Big Darby or its
tributaries in western Franklin County. Moreover, it would have
taken decades before enough land could be amassed to begin to have a
significant effect on water quality.
Also pervasive through the Refuge debate was the sentiment that
officials in Madison and Union Counties lacked the planning tools
necessary to protect both the Big Darby and farmland from development.
It should be known, however, that Madison County continues to move
forward on its Section 208 Water Plan, which would give the county the
sole right to provide water and sewer service to the area; controlling
the critical infrastructure of sewer and water is among the best means
of managing development in a region. Once the County’s 208
Plan is integrated with its farmland preservation plan, its countywide
zoning, and its comprehensive land-use plan, Madison County is quite
equipped to ward off irrational development while maintaining its
sovereignty. Similarly, the Union County Commissioners remain
actively involved in the Darby Watershed Action planning group and are
committed to identifying an effective, feasible community-based plan
to maintain and enhance the socio-economic and ecological health of
the Darby Creek Watershed.
While the American Rivers report is certainly alarming, it represents
an opportunity to come to the aid of Big Darby. We are on the
cusp of implementing a federal, state and local cooperative plan for
the entire Scioto watershed known as the Conservation Reserve
Enhancement Program (CREP).
CREP, which is administered jointly by the United States Department of
Agriculture (USDA) and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR),
may soon be available to farmers in the Scioto River watershed, an
area that includes 29 counties in Ohio and both the Big and Little
Darby Creeks, among other tributaries. Under the CREP program,
farmers remove land along the riparian corridor out of agricultural
production, and employ various erosion and pollution mitigation
devices in exchange for a yearly cash payment from USDA. In
doing so, degradation is mitigated, aquatic species and their habitats
are protected, and farmers are justly compensated for their reduction
in agricultural output. I am tremendously excited about CREP’s
potential impact on Ohio's water quality, and believe that this
win-win program will significantly improve the long-term health of the
Big Darby ecosystem.
Development is unquestionably the greatest threat to Big Darby, and
with the projected influx of 600,000 additional people in central Ohio
over the next 25 years, there will be immense and unforeseen pressures
placed upon Big Darby. Officials at all levels of government, in
cooperation with the many Big Darby stakeholders, need to work
together to find sensible, enforceable solutions to best
protect this resource. While no one has a precise answer to the
question of how to best protect a watershed, the climate may be ideal
for the various groups to harness their collective concern for Big
Darby, and work toward meaningful protections for this resource.
But to suggest that agriculture or NIMBY, reactionary attitudes in
Madison and Union Counties are a threat to Big Darby is erroneous and
myopic. For decades, farming has been the Darby’s generous
benefactor, and Madison and Union Counties’ responsible, smart
growth public policies will work to protect it in the future.
More 'tilting at windmills' thinking:
Ohio
drinking water protected by USDA partnership: Veneman Highlights Bush
Administration Environmental Record as part of Earth Day Activities
April 19, 2002 USDA News Release No. 0156.02 Alisa Harrison 202-720-4623 or Dann Stuart 202-690-0474 USDA Office of Communications 1400 Independence Avenue, SW Washington, DC 20250-1300 202-720-4623
“This project reaffirms the Bush Administration’s commitment to strong conservation programs and will help improve water quality in Ohio,” said Veneman. “This is a win-win project that will enable farmers to restore lands near streams as well as provide savings of $1 million annually in water treatment costs.” The Ohio CREP is a federal-state partnership that will pay farmers to remove land from agricultural production in the state’s Upper Big Walnut Creek Watershed that drains into the Hoover Reservoir. The program will reimburse producers for planting 3,500 acres of filter strips, riparian buffers, hardwood trees, wetlands and wildlife habitats along tributary streams. This will prevent pollution from entering the watershed. The total cost of the program is expected to reach $13.2 million. Of that amount, $8.4 million will come from USDA and $4.8 million from the state. Ohio and the city of Columbus will offer additional incentives and USDA will provide technical assistance to ensure long-term protection of the area. CREP uses state and federal resources to help solve conservation problems. The program combines an existing USDA program, the Conservation Reserve Program, with state programs to meet specific state and national environmental objectives. CREP provides for voluntary agreements with farmers to convert cropland and/or pastureland to native grasses, trees and other vegetation in return for rental payments and other incentives. More than 300,000 acres are currently enrolled in CREP in about 20 states. As part of Earth Day activities, Secretary Veneman is traveling to West Virginia and Ohio on April 19 and Wisconsin on April 22 to highlight Bush Administration efforts to improve the environment through innovative agricultural programs. For questions and answers on the Ohio CREP, go to:
Darby Creek Advocate, Volume 9, Issue 3: News from the
Watershed
November 2001
By John Tetzloff
Darby Watershed Project Underway; DCA Elected to Steering
Committee
The Darby Creek Watershed Project -- described in the March Advocate -- is now well underway.
The project is an effort to coordinate a broad-based watershed
protection plan, and is being sponsored by the six
county Soil and Water Conservation Districts in the Darby watershed
(Franklin, Pickaway, Madison, Union, Champaign, and Logan counties).
The project will tap the energies of local citizens and organizations to develop strategies to preserve and enhance water quality in the Darby watershed. At a recent organizational meeting DCA was nominated by the Franklin SWCD to sit on the project’s Steering Committee.
The Steering Committee consists of 20-30 members who will devise and
promote the watershed plan using the support of numerous stakeholders,
which have also met and separated into workgroups.
DCA is also sitting on an information subcommittee.
The Darby Watershed Project has several motivations.
First, the counties involved recognize “that the quality of
watershed resources is high, but at-risk.”
Second, the project seeks to offer local control in protection
efforts.
Third, there was a recognition that meeting new EPA water quality
goals will require greater coordination and should involve local
stakeholder input.
The project’s mission statement is as follows:
“The purpose of the Darby Creek Watershed Planning Group is to
develop an implementable community-based plan to maintain and enhance
the socio-economic and ecological health of the Darby Creek
Watershed.”
In addition to the information group, other committees include Fundraising, Logistics, Outreach, Publicity, Volunteer Resources, and Clean Water Act (dealing with EPA policies).
All interested citizens are encouraged to join a committee and
participate.
Workgroups are currently preparing for a series of public meetings to be held early next year.
Input from these meetings, along with information gathered by the
workgroups, will supply the foundation for the watershed plan, to be
developed by the Steering Committee later in the year.
The plan will then be circulated for public comment, reviewed and
revised, and finally adopted, perhaps by early 2003.
The Watershed Project will then help to encourage or coordinate the implementation of the plan by local jurisdictions throughout the watershed.
Though the plan will have no force of law, local participation in its
development should encourage its adoption by Darby communities.
DCA Meets with Ohio EPA
In response to a DCA inquiry, officials with the Ohio EPA recently organized a meeting to explore ways to enhance the agency’s current study of Darby Creek. As detailed in the last issue of the Advocate, the EPA is currently in the midst of a watershed-wide assessment of the biological health of the Big Darby system in preparation for a “TMDL” plan for Darby. A TMDL, which stands for Total Maximum Daily Load, is a process that seeks to identify existing pollution sources and set limits for pollutants based on a stream’s ability to meet water quality standards.
The EPA’s Darby assessment will identify problems in the watershed
and lay the foundation for plans to maintain or improve water quality.
DCA expressed a concern that existing EPA assessment tools do not specifically measure the status of special species (either endangered, threatened, or special interest); nor does it monitor freshwater mussels. Because Darby has so many rare and endangered mussels, DCA feels this element of the Darby ecosystem should be considered in any assessment of the watershed’s health.
It is generally accepted that many mussel species in the watershed
have declined over the last few decades.
At the meeting, which included more than a dozen EPA, ODNR, and OSU specialists, a plan was discussed to include mussel and other data in the TMDL process.
OSU museum curator Dr. G. Thomas Watters noted that Darby may
be the best studied stream in the world in terms of freshwater
mussels.
EPA project director Marc Smith stated that this winter a mussel
task force would meet to decide how best to incorporate this
wealth of data into the overall Darby assessment.
The EPA also agreed to include data from Dr. Ted Cavender, a fish
specialist from the OSU museum who has been studying Darby for
decades.
At the October Darby Partners meeting, Cavender outlined results of a
recently completed study of Ohio’s “prairie fishes,”
which included surveys of about 50 sites in former prairie
regions of the Darby watershed.
Cavender has found a distinct decline in these fishes in many parts of
the watershed, apparently due to habitat reduction and increases in
waterborne sediments.
Results from the EPA’s surveys should be available early next year.
Franklin County to Build Sewage Plant in Darbydale
Under pressure from the Ohio EPA, Franklin County has approved a plan to construct a new sewage treatment plant for the unincorporated village of Darbydale. For years the EPA has documented pollution from malfunctioning septic systems in this small town along the banks of Big Darby. Leakage from leach beds currently intermingles with storm water runoff, creating a health hazard and degrading Big Darby Creek in the vicinity of the town. Some residents have complained that they will be forced to pay a connection fee, estimated at up to $2,500 per household.
The county will seek grants to lower this figure.
The plant will result in a new discharge into Darby, which is generally not allowed in Ohio’s highest quality streams.
But in this case the EPA believes a regulated discharge will be better
than the unregulated pollution from existing septics.
Another concern DCA had was that the new plant might be designed with excess capacity that would spur development in this sensitive area.
However, officials have assured us that the plant will only serve
existing structures, plus expected tie-ins with several trailer parks
in the area.
Orient Sewage Plant Improving In November 1998, a Columbus Dispatch headline screamed the bad news: “Prison Sewage Fouls Darby.” Partially treated “solids” from a sewage plant serving the Orient Prison complex in northern Pickaway County had covered a stretch of Big Darby in sludge. Research by reporter Randall Edwards revealed that the prison had been a chronic offender, mostly because the prison population had long ago exceeded the capacity of the small plant. Just three years later the plant is now consistently meeting federal and state water quality standards, according to a press release from the EPA. The plant has even received two U.S. EPA awards: one in the federal agency’s “most improved” category, and the other a Regional Operation and Maintenance Award. Further upgrades are planned. Conservation Program Pushed as Refuge Alternative Madison County officials are promoting a conservation program run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as an alternative to the controversial Little Darby Wildlife Refuge proposed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, according to the Madison Press.
The program, called the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, or
CREP, is designed to target the impacts of agricultural practices on
resources of “state and national significance.”
Chris Kauffman of ODNR outlined the program at the October Darby
Partners meeting.
CREP is set up like the more commonly used Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), except that:
it targets a watershed or other sensitive area,
it offers a greater variety of conservation measures, and
it is developed and administered with local input in
cooperation with state and federal agencies.
Funding has been approved for 100,000 CREP acres in Ohio.
So far, the state Ohio has two CREP projects totaling 70,000 acres:
one in the western Lake Erie drainage (67,000 acres), and a
soon-to-be-approved project in the upper Big Walnut Creek watershed
(3,000 acres).
Thus 30,000 acres remain to be distributed.
A Darby CREP program is supported by U.S. Rep. Deborah Pryce and U.S. Senator Mike DeWine. One potential roadblock is that the program requires a portion of funds to come from local sources (at least 20 percent). The Lake Erie CREP has state funding from ODNR, while the Big Walnut effort has funding from the city of Columbus (which hopes to protect its drinking water). In the face of a shrinking state budget, ODNR funding will not be available for a Darby program, and other sources have not been identified. The CREP program has the potential to pump much needed federal funds into the Darby preservation effort.
However, it should be noted that CREP, like CRP, generally
offers only temporary protections through 10-30 year contracts. For
this reason the programs are considered expensive ways to protect a
watershed.
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