Council Considers Environmental Issues of Storm Water Runoff

Has anyone seen or heard about the logging at the Owens Corning site? I live nearby the property and for many days they have been cutting down trees large and small then trucking them away. Seems odd to me that they would do this as large of a company as they are and the timber prices are at an all time low. Curious resident.
 
  

question mr yes man
how is this water contained ?
i mean isnt there leaching into the ground which in turn
gets into the water table ?
and or the creek ?
and for all of this i would think the owners would want some kind of compensation for this ?
after all ……
couldnt they dump into the creek as well ?

The Village engineer proposed a traditional stormwater system for the proposed 5-acre development on the Shurtz property — that is, a $100,000 system of pipes that dumped stormwater into the small pond portion of Lake Hudson. (This pond is sometimes called Lake Kessler because it’s on property owned by Rodger Kessler and Ben Barton). 
 
Smart growth advocates (moi, pour example) asked the developer, Jack Lucks of Columbus, to use low impact development techniques, instead of the old-fashioned stormwater system proposed by Village government. The developer, a creative and entrepreneurial chap, readily agreed — and will save himself the cost of stormwater system while minimizing environmental harm. Lake Kessler will remain healthier.
 
This example illustrates the Village’s lack of vision on elementary environmental issues. Right now, the Village dumps tens of millions of gallons of untreated stormwater into the creek from the north side (the old Village) of the creek. 
 
On the south side of the creek (River Road/Weaver Road/Old River Road), there are NO pipes directing stormwater into the creek. This land is now in the township, and the township has no stormwater system. As the land gets annexed into the Village to obtain water and sewer for development, the Village should have an explicit policy that NO pipes will be built sending stormwater into Raccoon Creek or Lake Hudson. In other words, stormwater shall be contained on-site, as the EPA recommends. 
 
North side — slowly and steadily retrofit to reduce stormwater volume.
 
South side — environmentally sound practices will be used from the start.
 
 
 
 
 
  

Some facts worth knowing:
  * Raccoon Creek is rated as environmentally "impaired" by the EPA. That’s the worst ranking in EPA’s three-level general rating system environmental degradation — nothing, threatened, impaired. Thirteen percent of the nation’s river/creek miles have the"impaired" designation. Thus, Raccoon Creek is in the bottom 13%, according to the EPA.
   * The No. 1 pollutant of streams in suburban areas is stormwater. The primary problem is stormwater volume, which causes increased erosion, turbidity (muddliness), water temperature and other problems. Untreated stormwater also transmits metals, oils, gasoline, fertilizers, salt and other pollutants into the creek.
   * The No. 1 cause of stormwater runoff is the addition of impervious surfaces — roofs, parking lots, etc. — that prevent the natural process of water seeping into the ground. This natural process of soaking into the ground, percolating, is how water gets cleaned and returned to aquifer naturally.
   * The No. 1 polluter of Raccoon Creek is the Village’s old-fashioned stormwater system. The stormwater system dumps tens of millions of gallons of untreated stormwater into Raccoon Creek.
  * For many years, the EPA, the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources and other environmental regulators have recommended a stormwater strategy  called "low impact development." This strategy seeks to replicate nature as closely as possible — finding places on-site, near the source of the stormwater runoff, to let the water seep into the ground. This is in contrast to the old approach of directing stormwater into pipes to be shipped off a property and dumped untreated into rivers, creeks and lakes. (Google "low impact development" and "stormwater" for details.) 
   * The Village is the primary regulator of stormwater pollution — as well as the No. 1 polluter. This regulatory power is delegated to the Village by the Clean Water Act. This delegation makes sense, in theory, because the US EPA, Ohio EPA and Ohio DNR are in no position  to make stormwater decisions about a half acre here and a quarter acre threre in zip code 43023.
  * The Village has failed in its role as regulator of stormwater pollution. The Village has avoided — indeed, resisted — the use of low impact development (LID) and Best Management Practices (BMP). The Village has refused to hire an environmental consultant who might question existing practices. 
  * The Village has no stormwater regulations. (By contrast, Franklin County has a modern stormwater manual based on LID principles.) The Village delegates all stormwater decisions to the Village Manager and Village Engineer, who lack environmental expertise.
  * The Village says it follows stormwater rules published by MORPC (Central Ohio’s rregional planning agency). Sadly, that appears to be true. (Google morpc and stormwater for the rules.) The manual was published in July 1977. 
  * Village stormwater control practices reflect what was common 30 years ago — pipes, dentention ponds, catch basins, etc. This approach is expensive and environmentally unsound.   
   * The Village plans to spend $1 million this year to rebuild the road and upgrade the stormwater system on College Street from Pearl to Thresher. This is the Village’s most expensive capital project in many years.
  * The stormwater approach in the $1 million project is straight out of 1980. It centralizes stormwater flow into pipes, then moves it fast and far, eventually dumping it untreated into Raccoon Creek.
  * This 0.6 mile section of College Street generates more than 2.6 million gallons of stormwater per year, much of it flowing down the hill from Denison University.
   * When the Village spends $1 million to redo a street and stormwater system, it is irresponsible to fail to make any effort to reduce the volume of stormwater flowing into Raccoon Creek. Stormwater pipes that direct water into Raccoon Creek are unavoidable because of the nature of existing development. However, a reduction of volume is absolutely possible and, indeed, essential to the incremental progress needed to protect the long-term health of Raccoon Creek.
   * The article above indicates that the Village’s engineering firm offered "end-of-the-pipe" stormwater options that are expensive and environmentally unwise. These options should be rejected. Engineers are not usually a good source for environmental recommendations. If you ask pipe and pavement guys what to do abouit stormwater, you’ll get more pipe and pavement. That’s what they sell. That’s what they know.
   * The Village needs to hire an environmental specialist to recommend how the Village can reduce the volume of untreated stormwater that it is dumping into Raccoon Creek. Reducing volume is what it’s about. The Village is still on the antiquated path of engineering centralized, high-volume systems, then further engineering solutions to the many subsets of problems that high-volume systems create.  Good for engineers. Bad for the environment and taxpayers. (See the National Academy of Sciences stormwater report from October 2008 for details.)  
  *  The Village has a wide range of environmental challenges, most related to water quality. The Village Planning Code, originally written in 1977, is actively hostile to many modern environmental practices. (It was written when maximum asphalt was considered a good thing.) Granville has an EPA Superfund site located directly above its drinking water supply. One of the Village’s drinking water wells had to be closed because of this pollution threat. One reason our water supply is threatened is because past Village Councils failed to take environmental problems seriously.
  * This Village Council needs to break the pattern of neglect and take seriously its role as the No. 1 regulator of water quality and environmental issues. Right now, the Village is twiddling its thumbs, waiting for Granville’s self-created stormwater problem to get so bad that the EPA orders it to do something. Then, we’ll hire an engineer for an expensive remediation project. Delay is a mistake. Prevention now is the responsible thing to do fiscally, environmentally and morally.   
     * Environmental issues are complex. An environmental consultant is absolutely essential to end this pattern of ignorance. The Village Engineer doesn’t handle our legal work. The Village Attorney doesn’t handle Traffic Engineering. As an environmental regulator, the Village cannot function properly ithout an environmental specialist to give advice.
   * The Village should not spend $1 million on College Street and its stormwater system without setting — and achieving — a specific goal to reduce stormwater volume by XX% upon completion of this project.
  * To spend $1 million and increase pollution is irresponsible. Ignorance of environmental issues explains Village Council’s behavior. It does not excuse it.  
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(For those interested in this issue, youtube has many short videos explaining the issue. The EPA’s 9-minute "Slow it down, spread it out, soak it in" video is popular. But these LID practices are common nationwide, so a wide variety shorter videos are online.
For those interested in practical approaches and scientific evaluations, google Portland and green streets program. The city of Portland, Ore., is not only a leader in retrofitting existing streets with green stormwater approaches, it also is tops in rigorously evaluating what works and what doesn’t.
I admit that you don’t get interested in stormwater for the romance of it! But if you care about the environment, if you care about Raccoon Creek, if you care about the dragonflies and small mouth bass that are threatened by environmental degradation of the creek, if you care about flood prevention and clean water, then you have no choice but to care about where our rainwater goes when it can’t soak into the ground.)