Sandusky plans wetlands project

SANDUSKY — The city received millions of dollars in new funding for restoring wetlands along Sandusky Bay, and officials hope to begin construction in the late winter or spring. Known as a wetlands restoration project, it's part of Gov. Mike DeWine's H2Ohio initiative for restoring clean water in Lake Erie and other locations. State agencies have issued new reports, tracking their progress with H2Ohio during 2020. DeWine said, during a recent press conference, that although this year's budget is expected to be tight, he wants to press ahead on H2Ohio and will request enough money from the Ohio General Assembly to continue making progress. Wetlands serve as a natural filter for phosphorus, and DeWine has made wetlands restoration a major component of the H2Ohio effort. The state's H2Ohio website shows 33 projects listed as current projects. They include three projects along west Sandusky Bay, in Sandusky County, being carried out by the Nature Conservancy. No Sandusky projects are listed on the website, but they are coming soon, said Aaron Klein, the city's public works director Klein said the city's first wetlands project will be along the Cedar Point causeway. "We looked at four locations along the city's waterfront but zeroed in on one location on the west side of the causeway. We split that into four subphases that would beneficially reuse four to six years of dredged material from the only shipping channel in the bay to the coal docks," Klein said. The city recently received $4 million for the project from the federal government's Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. That's in addition to a previous commitment of more than $1 million from the state's Healthy Lake Erie Fund, Klein said. The city hopes to get all of its permits for the work done by mid-January and is waiting on the U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers. Before seeking bids for construction, the city also needs to wrap up memorandums of understanding with state and federal officials for long term maintenance, Klein said, and will have to figure out how to pay for the maintenance. DeWine announced the H2Ohio program in November 2019, so 2020 was the first full year of the program. The main state agencies involved in the program are the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (in charge of the wetlands restoration program), the Ohio Department of Agriculture (tasked with working with farmers to reduce phosphorus runoff from fertilizer and manure) and the Ohio EPA. The Ohio EPA is in charge of moving water infrastructure projects forward, including drinking water and sewer projects; supervising programs to fix septic tank systems for homes; replacing lead pipes in schools and daycares, and improving water quality monitoring in Ohio. Scientists believe the Maumee River watershed is the biggest source of phosphorus in western Lake Erie. The Ohio Department of Agriculture said its efforts have been focused on farmers in 14 counties in the watershed. In the first year of the program, 1,815 farmers enrolled almost 1.1 million acres into the phosphorus reduction program, or 44 percent of the cropland in the targeted project area, the Ohio Department of Agriculture stated in a Dec. 22 news release. The farmers have agreed to participate in six conservation practices: Filing voluntary nutrient management plans, variable rate fertilizer application, putting nutrients in the ground below the surface, incorporating mature into the soil, rotating crops for conservation purposes and planting winter cover crops. The state plans to pay the farmers $42 million a year over three years. In addition, farmers in the target area have signed up to install 681 drainage water management structures, the agriculture department said. The Ohio EPA said it awarded $1.75 million to seven health departments in northwest Ohio, in Erie, Ottawa, Sandusky, Paulding, Putnam, Williams and Wood counties, for the program to replace failing home septic tank systems. Erie County's health department has had a septic tanks program in place for years.