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The Plum Creek
Riparian Corridor Restoration Project:
The project was
initiated by the Oberlin Public Works Dept. in
June, 2005 as one component of the revised Phase
II Storm Water Management Program (SWMP). The
intended outcome of the Riparian Project is to
start to address concerns set forth in the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “Phase II”
water quality standards from the EPA National
Pollutant Discharge Elimination System program.
Within this changing regulatory climate, the
Ohio EPA requires that each municipality’s Storm
Water Management Program address six minimum
control measures:
1.)
Public
education and outreach programs on storm water
impacts on surface water and possible steps to
reduce storm water pollution.
2.)
Public
involvement and participation in developing and
implementing the storm water management program.
3.)
Illicit discharge detection and elimination.
4.)
Construction site storm water runoff controls.
5.)
Post-construction storm water management in new
development and redevelopment.
6.)
Pollution prevention and good housekeeping for
municipal operations that reduce pollutant
runoff.
With these
planned outcomes in mind, the Plum Creek
Riparian Corridor Restoration Project has served
to survey, research and work toward fulfilling
certain aspects of the storm water management
program.
The first order
of the Project was the conduct a comprehensive
survey of the whole Plum Creek corridor,
beginning first within Oberlin city limits.
This survey includes the main watercourse of
Plum Creek as well as Evans and Hill “ditches”,
which are both major tributaries to Plum Creek
that will henceforth be referred to as creeks.
Though parceling a watershed by municipal
boundaries is precisely counter-intuitive of the
watershed approach, it is also important to
understand that this is precisely how
municipalities must work together within a
watershed—since watersheds most often encompass
many towns, and can even include sections of
multiple counties and states.
The scope of the
initial survey was to collect information on the
general health of the Plum Creek riparian
corridor in these categories:
·
Width
and vegetative cover of buffer zone along creek
and tributaries.
·
Identifying invasive plant species issues along
corridor.
·
Identifying and prioritizing log and debris
jams.
·
Identifying areas of erosion and siltation.
·
Identifying flooding and storm water management
issues.
·
Identifying areas of heavy trash.
·
Count
and categorize all piped and open ditch outlets
coming into creek and tributaries.
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