State: Sewer extension must protect creek
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has asked Columbus officials to add details on how it plans to protect the Big Darby Creek if the state allows the city to extend its sewer system boundaries to include Plain City.
In a recent letter to Columbus officials, Ashley Ward, an Ohio EPA division of surface water supervisor, also asks the city to include setbacks of 583 feet from the Big Darby Creek — the length of about one and a half football fields — and 121 feet from Sugar Run.
But environmentalists still have major worries about what expanding the city’s sewer system would mean for the environmentally sensitive Big Darby, and whether the growth it could threaten the creek’s health no matter what steps might be taken to protect it.
In its petition filed in April with the Ohio EPA to expand the service area, Columbus officials say that Plain City expects to add 11,486 residential units to its service area over the next 20 years. Nearly all of those — 11,129 — are expected to be in the Route 161 corridor between Plain City and Franklin County. Just 1,646 units were in Plain City’s service Freshwater mussels taken from the Big Darby Creek are sorted by species. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency wants the city of Columbus to explain how it plans to protect the creek if it extends sewer service to Plain City.
area earlier this year.
Anthony Sasson of the Midwest Biodiversity Institute, a nonprofit group that assesses streams, lakes, rivers and wetlands, said that potential housing density is a huge burden to put on the creek.
“This is not the best place to experiment,” he said, nor is it an issue that can be resolved soon.
While Sasson is glad that the state wants the city to include more protections in its petition, the new Plain City service area, which would cover all of Plain City and areas of Madison County, would encompass 19,296 acres. That’s almost the acreage of the city of Mansfield, which has 46,160 residents.
“I look at this as a
multidecade situation,” Sasson said. “To me, it’s a big decision.”
Robert Ashton, Columbus’ assistant director for regulatory compliance in the public utilities department, said Plain City is prepared to take steps to apply protections for the creek similar to those in Franklin County. “There’s a lot of development pressure out there,” Ashton said.
Erin Sherer, who manages the Ohio EPA’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit program, said the agency suggested it would appreciate those same protections extended into Madison County. Sherer said setbacks help protect downstream erosion.
Last year, Plain City commissioned a study of its wastewater and water systems that found it would cost $90 million to build plants to handle projected growth, and recommended that the village connect with Columbus. Plain City straddles Union and Madison counties.
The Big Darby has been designated a national and state scenic river. It is home to 44 recorded mussel species, about half of which are classified as endangered on state or federal lists.
John Tetzloff, president of the Darby Creek Association, said that, while he found the Ohio EPA’s letter encouraging, he also thought it was vague. He said the planning specifics should model those of Franklin County and what is called its carrying capacity, meaning the number of people or crops an area can support before the environment declines.