A revolutionary plan for involving businesses, schools, civic groups, governments and others in revitalizing the Mill Creek has received a $100,000 boost from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Coincidentally, Congress appropriated more than $1 million to start a flood damage re-evaluation that might bridge years of acrimony between the Army Corps of Engineers and conservationists. At the same time:
- The Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD) is facing demands that it accelerate controls on billions of gallons of storm water and untreated sewage pouring into the creek.
- Planning is beginning for a spidery network of greenways - vegetation and trails - along the creek and major tributaries.
The federal grant to non-profit Mill Creek Restoration Project will create a unique link with the Institute for Advanced Manufacturing Sciences (IAMS) to help companies improve productivity and profits by reducing waste and pollution.
The alliance will embrace firms with fewer than 200 employees in creek-side communities, Robin Corathers, executive director of the restoration project, said last week.
Participating companies will share costs and get up to $5,000 matching funds from the grant. The EPA grant also will provide additional materials for schools and pollution prevention training to communities.
The new corps study is to take 25 months and is expected to begin after Christmas. Total cost will be $2.5 million, and the corps will produce an encyclopedic report on the potential for ''flood damage reduction.'' No one talks about ''flood control'' any longer because no one can control floods.
More than a fifth of the study cost will come from Cincinnati-area governments and organizations as cash or in-kind services.
The big question is whether the data will justify continued corps participation in the valley with environmentally friendlier approaches to minimizing flood damage.
Ms. Corathers also hopes the study will move the corps to undo damage it did when it channelized - straightened and paved - miles of the creek. That traditional approach to flood control died in the early 1990s when construction costs and environmentalists' opposition made it politic for the corps to re-evaluate the potential benefits from further expenditures.
The restoration project and Mill Creek Watershed Council will gather Nov. 25 at Old St. George Center, 42 W. Calhoun St., Clifton Heights, with greenways consultants and planners.
The 2:30 p.m. meeting is designed for local officials but is open to everyone. Another public session will begin at 6:30 p.m. Jerald Robertson, president of the watershed council, agreed the re-evaluation study would have value beyond flood damage reduction. For instance, the watershed council is committed to providing in-kind services worth $84,000 to prepare a recreation plan consistent with the corps' broader mission.
However, ''they've got problems when you start talking about restoration,'' Mr. Robertson said, so Mill Creek goals must be pursued within corps criteria.
The Hamilton County Environmental Action Commission, Citizen Action, the watershed council and restoration project are urging MSD to clean up discharges from combined sewer overflows in 10 years rather than the 20 that MSD planned.
