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Facts unchanged, but report claims streams less polluted

In fact, old data is now evaluated differently, with different results.

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By Brandon Smith-Hebson, Staff Writer 10:37 PM Friday, January 27, 2012

SPRINGFIELD — Thirteen Clark County creeks and streams have been removed from a list of ecologically impaired waterways.

That doesn’t mean they’re less polluted, Ohio’s EPA says; they’re just being evaluated differently.

Still, the changes in the 2012 report released earlier this month could mean an easier time tracking down polluters and working with them to bring their waste products under a permit, said Linda Oros, an Ohio Environmental Protection Agency spokeswoman.

The Ohio EPA’s 2012 integrated report, released mid-January, is a summary of surface water studies conducted in 2009 and 2010.

“We’ve segmented each watershed into smaller sections so that we can look at it in more detail,” Oros said. “It gives a more accurate picture because before, it looked like all these waters in this whole area had these problems. ... In reality it was this little spot, this little area.”

The Mad River watershed drains rain water off 70 percent of Clark and Champaign counties. It also carries away the county’s raw sewage during the 60 or so large rain events each year, when sewage treatment plants typically can’t handle the extra volume.

The county’s streams flow into creeks, which are used locally for recreation. The creeks flow south into rivers, from which fish are caught and could be eaten.

The state is tasked with making sure waters have low enough bacteria for recreation, fish have low enough toxins to be eaten and conditions for aquatic life are improving.

While Ohio EPA’s 2012 report now evaluates challenged stream sections with more precision, no new data was actually included in this year’s report.

That means pollution may have stayed the same since the last data collection, reported in 2009, which showed significant water-quality problems in Buck Creek, Moore Run, Stony Creek and Mud Creek.

John Ritter, a water researcher and Wittenberg University professor, remains concerned about bacteria levels in Buck Creek, which is increasingly being used for water recreation.

Ritter and his students study surface water. His wireless monitors are set at several points along Buck Creek and file updates to a website every 15 minutes.

“As we fix the combined sewer overflows, as we eliminate those, Wittenberg’s in a position to evaluate the effectiveness of it,” Ritter said.

In 2009, Ohio EPA determined fecal coliform in Buck Creek was 93.9 percent higher than it should be for in-water recreation.

Since 2009, the agency has replaced the fecal coliform measurement with that of E. coli, a more accurate gauge of bacterial contamination, Oros said.

Recent E. coli measurements aren’t available for the creek.

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0353 or at bsmith@coxohio.com.

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