Environmentalists wants Ohio EPA to ensure more Big Darby protections with sewage loans

Mark Ferenchik, The Columbus Dispatch
·3 min read
United Church Homes is now building "The Hamlet on Darby" housing development, seen here in a Jan. 18 aerial photo, next to the Big Darby Creek in Plain City, where officials are proposing a new sewage treatment plant. The new plant and a regional wastewater treatment plant and sewage systems planned in Madison and Logan counties have environmentalists worried that they will lead to major development and will make things even worse for the health of wildlife in the Big Darby watershed.

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has issued a final plan for a loan program that includes hundreds of millions of dollars for new sewage treatment systems in Madison and Logan counties that environmentalists fear will lead to major development that will threaten the health of Big Darby Creek.

Among the projects included in the Ohio EPA's final Water Pollution Control Loan Fund Program Management Plan issued Jan. 27: $127.3 million spread among eight projects for Madison County and Plain City that include a regional wastewater treatment plant and sewage system and new Plain City wastewater plant, and $43 million for a large-scale sewage system project in Logan County.

The county and local governments applying for funding still need to finish permitting, engineering and financing requirements, Ohio EPA spokesman Anthony Chenault told The Dispatch.

In addition, the loan fund plan can be appealed to the state Environmental Review Appeals Commission, Chenault said. Appeals must be filed within 30 days.

In the meantime, a group including the Ohio Environmental Council, Darby Creek Association, The Nature Conservancy, the Sierra Club of Ohio, Forest Keepers, American Rivers, and the Ohio Scenic Rivers Association has submitted technical comments to the Ohio EPA seeking designation of the Big and Little Darby creeks as Outstanding National Resource Waters, which they said was the strongest protection under the Clean Water Act.

"We hope the Ohio EPA listens to the people and the future they want for natural places like the Darby," said Chris Tavenor, associate general counsel for the Ohio Environmental Council. "As Columbus and its surrounding communities expand over the coming decades, it must develop sustainably. Protecting key resources for future generations, like the Darby, is a major part of the solution.”

Anthony Sasson of the Darby Creek Association, which expressed concerns about the proposed treatment plants and sewage system work, said the appeals process for the final Ohio EPA loan plan could be another place to introduce revisions and conservation measures to make sure there's no degradation to the creek and its watershed. The comment period on the plan itself ended on Jan. 18.

One of the plan's appendices said multiple people expressed concerns about the Plain City and Madison and Logan counties projects and their potential impacts on the Big Darby Creek watershed "from increased stormwater runoff related to development activities, possible limitations on future stream restoration work and the need for more cautious approaches when endangered species may be directly or indirectly impacted."

The Big Darby Creek is already designated as a National Scenic River. The Big and Little Darby creeks are among the top streams in biological quality in Ohio and the Midwest, with more than 100 recorded fish and 44 mussel species, including 37 species of fish and mussels that are endangered or rare, according to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System website.

A new regional sewer plant proposed in Madison County would discharge treated wastewater into the Deer Creek watershed, not the Darby, officials there noted.

But environmentalists fear the millions in sewer improvements will pave the way for thousands of new homes and businesses — and along with that, roads and parking lots — that will create more runoff into the Little and Big Darby Creek watersheds and threaten wildlife sensitive to environmental changes.

"Those wastewater treatment plants open up the floodgates for substantial urban sprawl in the Darby watershed," said Nathan Johnson, public lands director for the Ohio Environmental Council.

Johnson acknowledged there will be an environmental review process.

"The Ohio EPA, as part of that process, has to take a hard look on the potential impact of development," he said. "The process will be a real point of reckoning, with urban sprawl coming up against a National Scenic River."

mferench@dispatch.com

@MarkFerenchik

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: More Big Darby protections needed wih sewage system loans, groups say