BY BEN L. KAUFMAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Washington has given the go-ahead for a $2 million study on ways to reduce flood damage along the Mill Creek, senior project manager John Zimmerman said Friday.
"It signals the rebirth of the project," he said.
The two-year study will look at dozens of options and recommend what the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers thinks is best for the 28-mile creek that flows from Butler County to the Ohio River.
Mr. Zimmerman said an earlier study determined that damage control could save more than it cost.
Now, the corps has to find effective and environmentally acceptable ways to finish the job that will not provoke opposition from conservationists, creek-side communities or industries.
The study began in 1981 but was suspended in 1993 when rising costs and conservationists' objections overwhelmed the corps. Since then it has not been clear whether the corps would remain involved or walk away from the unfinished project.
About a third of the creek has been "channelized," that is, straightened, stripped of trees and lined with concrete or rock. That traditional corps approach to flood control provoked much of the opposition, but it was unclear how the corps will reduce flood damage without further channelization.
A cleared channel can carry up to eight times the water of a section where vegetation is untouched, according to studies by retired University of Cincinnati engineering professors Herbert Preul and Louis Laushey.
Where water cannot flush through, they said in interviews on Friday, it rises, backs up and spreads. That is what happened earlier this year in Sharonville and Evendale. There, none of the creek was channelized.
On the other hand, the Mill Creek Restoration Project and the Mill Creek Watershed Council already are articulate players in the follow-up to the corps study and will be advocating their visions of a cleaner creek and recreational facilities.
