Gregg Sablak, a scientist from EPA Ohio’s central office in Columbus, will be the speaker for this Thursday’s (September 18, 2014) League of Women Voters (LWV) Marion meeting. Sablak will explain the nature of the poor water quality of the Little Scioto River in this area of Ohio that was recently reported on in an OEPA draft report. He will also discuss the general condition of the Scioto watershed region. There will be time for questions after the presentation.
The public is strongly encouraged to attend this meeting which starts at 6:00 p.m. at Temple Israel’s social hall, 850 Mt. Vernon Avenue.
Sablak has been coordinating the TMDL development for this watershed. A Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) is a regulatory term in the U.S. Clean Water Act that describes a value of the maximum amount of a pollutant that a body of water can receive while still meeting water quality standards.
He will address/explain the draft report from the Ohio EPA that indicated that the water quality in the Little Scioto River watershed is more impaired than that of any other waterway in the entire upper Scioto watershed. The Little Scioto begins on the south end of Bucyrus and then parallels Ohio 4 southwest across Crawford County to the Marion County line.
The OEPA draft report states that the watershed upstream from Marion water-quality problems are, like much of the upper Scioto River watershed, centered on drainage from cropland, channelization and livestock manure.
The OEPA draft report also points out that the rate of impaired water uses in the entire upper Scioto River watershed, which is primarily contained in Marion, Hardin and Union Counties, is well above that of the entire state. Only 42 percent of the sites studied in the watershed fully achieved goals for aquatic life, while less than 7 percent met goals for recreation use. Along with the degradation from primarily nutrient runoff, it appears also that many septic systems are not working properly.
The League of Women Voters say this OEPA draft report is heating up the debate about how best to improve our water quality, which has been a concern for a few decades. League expects this meeting to provide explanatory information about and raise the community’s awareness of and concern for action on poor water quality problems in our region, as well as provide a forum to address how best to resolve the water quality problem.
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