News

May 28, 2023

Commissioners dump $3.6 million river cleanup and seek cheaper option

Commissioners from Richland and Crawford counties have stepped away from a $3.6

Commissioners from Richland and Crawford counties have stepped away from a $3.6 million recommendation on cleaning the Black Fork River and are exploring a solution that costs about 90% less.

The committee of six commissioners — three from each of the neighbor counties — met Thursday evening to discuss the future of a ditch petition filed in February of 2021 by Shelby Mayor Steven Schag. He requested that money be raised to continue the cleaning and maintenance of the 18-mile stretch of river by assessing properties in the watershed.

During the two years that have passed since that petition was filed, Richland County Engineer Adam Gove has gone through an extensive process of gathering logjam and other data from the river, eliciting opinions on the project from various government agencies, and compiling an idea of what a thorough and compliant river-cleaning project might cost.

Gove told the commissioners and an audience of about 40 guests that he walked the entire 18 miles of the river during the winter of 2021-22. He found hundreds of logjams and thousands of standing and fallen trees that he thinks need removal.

"We're now up to almost 7,000 dead or leaning trees," Gove said.

The engineer budgeted $2.1 million to remove all of the problem trees and logjams, $750,000 to restore habitat along the river once the project is completed, $300,000 to conduct environmental impact studies, and another $180,000 for inspections.

Those costs, Gove said, would not be paid by the government, but instead would be passed on to the owners of 9,757 Richland County properties and 192 Crawford County properties that are in the river's watershed. Land assessments would vary based on their proximity to the floodplain.

He pulled a few property owners from his database to show what the project would cost local landowners. The first was a farmer in Crawford County.

"They own 18 parcels," Gove said. "It's just under 900 acres."

Their projected bill was $46,320.

Another farm, 645 acres, would pay $39,988.

The numbers drew audible gasps from the audience and caused John Schroeder, a farmer from the Shelby area, to stand and interrupt the engineer's presentation.

"With all due respect, we need to stop this right now," Schroeder said. "These numbers are bogus."

Six years ago, Schroeder organized the "Black Fork Clean-Up Project," a private effort that raised a little more than $300,000 from residents and businesses from the Shelby area who were tired of waiting for the government's help to keep the Black Fork River from flooding their buildings and fields.

They gave that money to Chris Roof of Tawa Tree Service, who in turn used heavy machinery to clear logjams from 15 miles of the Black Fork River between Mickey Road in Shelby and the bridge near the intersection of Ohio 96 and Ohio 13.

Schroeder said the river hasn't flooded in the five years since the river was cleaned, but that it's time to go back in and perform maintenance so that the floods don't return.

The farmer said he invited Tawa to provide an estimate on that work.

"They'll do the full 18 miles for $169,000," Schroeder said. "You came up with $3.6 million. We've got a serious problem if we're going to let bureaucrats charge the community that kind of money."

The engineer explained that his report addressed the concerns that the group of six commissioners had asked him to consider. He said he was not authorized to make decisions by himself and that he must stick to the task he is commissioned to complete.

Gove said his job requires him to gain approval from all applicable government agencies and departments to provide the most extensive cleanup plan possible, to follow all state and federal laws, and to add a financial buffer to his estimate to account for any extra expenditures the project may incur.

He then told Schroeder that his estimate for cleaning the logjams alone was just over $300,000, and that the labor portion of their financial projections were not as different as it may have appeared.

Tony Vero, a Richland County commissioner, stepped in to admit there was a lot in Gove's recommendations that wasn't crucial to keeping the river from flooding. He said they needed to determine "what's required and what's recommended."

Jon Burton, the commissioners' legal council for the ditch petition, said a concern is that making too many changes to project proposals could void the original ditch petition and force commissioners to start the entire process over.

That was not a risk anyone involved wanted to take.

"The longer we wait, the more logs get in the river," Vero said. "I think we owe it to the community."

Vero made a motion to ask Burton to compile a legal opinion on what portions of recommendations from other government agencies and departments must be followed, and which can be legally ignored. That motion passed.

Vero then said he would make a motion 9 a.m. Tuesday during the next Richland County Commissioners meeting to request that Gove rework his proposal to focus only on the "reasonable work" of removing the largest and most concerning logjams from the river.

"I don't want to push this down the road," Vero said. "I want to keep the feet to the fire."

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