In the Maumee AOC, we benefit from many local partners who work with us toward AOC goals; even using funding external to the AOC program. We are fortunate that when these “external” projects are closely aligned with a specific AOC impairment, many project leads provide the MAAC with information needed to consider the benefits of that project as part of the solution to the impairment.
One such example is the Lucas County Engineer’s recently completed Tenmile Creek Flood Mitigation and Stream and Riparian Corridor Restoration project. This project is being considered in the overall remedy for impairments to fish habitat and fish and benthic macroinvertebrate communities in the Tenmile Creek HUC-12.
Major work within approximately 2-miles of Tenmile Creek in Sylvania Township, Ohio has been completed by the Lucas County Engineer’s Office with funding through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and the Lucas County Stormwater Utility. The Lucas County Engineer’s Office has completed construction of approximately 9,000 feet of two-stage channel with native plants planted in the bench area and banks of the stream.
The two-stage channel will improve water quality by slowing the water during peak flows and allowing time for particles to settle out into the bench area, reducing phosphorus loading and sedimentation downstream. The native plantings in the bench will also serve to capture particles and other sedimentation as well as use the phosphorus in the water column as fertilizer. In addition, the two-stage channel will improve flood storage capacity within the banks of the creek and help alleviate flooding on adjacent properties. Construction of two-stage channels have been proven to reduce sediment and nutrient transport into the Great Lakes.
This project is anticipated to reduce nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment loadings in the stream which have been linked to the development of harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie. The project was awarded a $200,000 grant towards the $1.9 million construction cost from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative through the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.