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The federal efforts to prevent Mill Creek flooding are at a crucial juncture these days. In the next several weeks, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is expected to decide how much more money will be granted to a two-year-old study of what can be done to lessen creek flooding in northern Hamilton County, which has becoming a more frequent event in recent years. And although local Mill Creek supporters have fought for the corps to use the most natural solutions possible — such as creating wetlands to absorb heavy rains — some learned for the first time during a recent creek-related meeting all their wishes might not be granted.
Two years ago, the Army Corps began a re-study of the creek to figure out the most natural way to alleviate Mill Creek flooding. The study was expected to last two years and cost about $3 million. It was a follow-up to the corps’ Mill Creek channelization project, which began in 1980 and ended half-finished in 1992.
That project reduced flooding along the lower Mill Creek by way of building a few sections of gutterlike concrete channels to move water quickly. The barren channels extend south from Cross County Highway into Cincinnati, but cost overruns — the corps spent about three times the original $37 million budget — environmental problems and a lack of local support for the project led the corps to abort it before it was reached northern Hamilton County.
Interest in the creek resurfaced a few years ago because of increasing flooding, which led to the Army Corps beginning the re-study. But the study was complicated by booming development in Butler County, which made predicting the creek’s potential flood levels difficult, and that made it impossible to know what the corps should build to lessen flooding, especially because any corps construction won’t begin for five to 10 years.
“It’s a moving target,” said Dennis Murphey, chair of the Mill Creek Watershed Council, the cooperative effort among the 37 political jurisdictions in the 166-square-mile Mill Creek watershed.
That unpredictability led the Army Corps to take a harder look at the predicted water flows and to wait for Butler County to finish a related hydrology study. The corps’ task is further complicated because it doesn’t regulate development in flood plains — that’s the job of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and local county governments, according to Linda Murphy, the corps’ Mill Creek project manager based in Louisville.
So today, at about the time the re-study was to be finished, the Army Corps is just getting ready to examine specific flood-control proposals, such as widening the creek or building channels, according to Murphy.
She estimates the re-study will take about 18 more months and $6 million more to finish — most of which isn’t in the project’s budget, at least not yet. This year, for example, there’s only $500,000 in the project’s 2001 budget — about $1.5 to $2 million less than needed, Murphy said. If the budget isn’t met, she’ll simply have to prioritize what work needs to be finished first and put the rest on hold, slowing an already slow process.
Murphy was scheduled to give an update on the re-study at a regular quarterly Mill Creek Watershed Council meeting June 21 in Evendale, but she was called away to meet a last-minute application deadline for the project’s money.
Phone calls to Murphy during the meeting revealed to the few dozen in attendance that the corps was considering widening or channelizing the upper creek between Crescentville Road and I-275 as one of the flood-reduction mechanisms.
Although Nancy Ellwood, executive director of the Watershed Council, said she’d heard about the possibility of channelization months ago and wasn’t too concerned about it, that bit of information touched a nerve with many at the meeting, including Robin Corathers, executive director of the non-profit Mill Creek Restoration Project.
Corathers acknowledged she didn’t have all the facts yet, nor was she sure of what she did hear about channelization.
“But based on what I’ve heard today, I’m deeply troubled and concerned,” she said.
Corathers said the corps promised to consider every available option before going ahead with channelizing the creek.
“I don’t think they have fully done that,” she said.
Murphy wasn’t surprised by local concern about channels. She said the new channels, however, wouldn’t resemble the concrete gutters of the lower Mill Creek. If needed, they’d likely look more like an alternating network of rectangular concrete and green patches containing plants and trees.
And there are places where channel widening isn’t likely, such as near polluted banks or where buildings are close to the creek edge, Murphy said.
But the recent mini-revelation highlighted a longstanding rift between local creek supporters and the Army Corps: using all natural techniques versus using less natural technology to change the creek to suit man’s needs.
While Corathers calls for more natural techniques, Murphy put the potential changes in perspective of the decades of manmade changes the creek has endured.
“It’s not like it was never disturbed before,” Murphy said.
Besides the corps’ work, other projects are underway to lessen flooding and/or return the creek to a more natural state, including:
· Butler County Environmental Services recently finished a month-long installation of boulders in the creek’s East Fork in Springdale and Sharonville. The boulders create riffles, which mix more oxygen into the water and provide a habitat for bugs and fish. The $230,000 project was paid for in part by a $100,000 Ohio Environmental Protection Agency grant.
· The Restoration Project worked with the Village of Woodlawn in funding and building a 0.5-mile, $35,000 trail along the Mill Creek; it’s one of a few greenways and trails expected to be built along the creek.
· The Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments is working on building three 1-acre wetlands near Union Centre Boulevard in West Chester Township, in Liberty Township and at the Lockland Commerce Park.
· And the Metropolitan Sewer District is in the very early stages of considering an 18-mile-long, 20- to 25-foot diameter sewage tunnel to be located under the Mill Creek. It could be a solution to the more than 100 antiquated sewer overflows along the creek where heavy storms force sewage to overflow into the creek.
If there’s one thing Murphy has learned in the last couple of years, it’s the art of compromise. Business owners, environmentalists, regulators and residents each have their own priorities concerning the Mill Creek, she said. The Army Corps’ job is to walk the fine line between them.
“No matter what, you’re not going to please everybody,” she said. ©
This article appears in Jul 26 – Aug 1, 2000.
