Hearing set for reduced Auglaize River project

A hearing will be held at 4 p.m. Tuesday at the Allen County Fairgrounds on the amended project, covering 58 miles of river and 7.5 miles of creek. The project cost is estimate at just more than $1 million, to be assessed over roughly 158,000 acres of watershed. Estimated assessments range from $1.87 near the Putnam County line to $9.34 per acre upstream near Westminster.

The billing schedule is one of several areas that critics are attacking. The process may seem counter-intuitive as those upstream and facing fewer problems often pay more.

“They want to make me responsible for the water that sheds from my land,” said Herb Beil, who owns 39 acres along the river near Spencerville. He thinks the people facing flooding should have to pay. “I can't figure out how I can be held responsible for the fact that they live in a floodplain.”

“We always get that at hearings,” Allen County Drainage Engineer Doug Degen said. “The people who are high and dry don't understand why they have to pay.”

Beil said the project is just another tax on property owners. He wonders why the general fund from each county can't be used to pay for the work.

Allen County Soil and Water Soil and Water Conservation District drainage technician Dan Ellerbrock said Ohio law for drainage projects evolved in the late 1800s as the Black Swamp was drained. Since streams and watersheds don't follow county lines, the process was designed to assess the cost to those who benefit.

“The Ohio drainage law is specific that anyone in the watershed benefits from drainage improvement,” he said. “It is difficult for people to understand,” he said. “It's difficult for people to understand but if they are in the country, all that water eventually makes it to the river.”

Ohio code provides two ways to get drainage work done. Both rely on a petition from landowners. The petition can be made to the soil and water district or the engineer's office in the county or counties involved. The soil and water district can choose which petitions it will accept. The county engineer must accept all petitions. The petition process includes public hearings and ends up before the commissioners of the counties involved.

Commissioners tend to focus on the potential benefit of the project. Beil and Tom Beckett, who owns 43 acres along the river, say the $1 million project is nearly worthless.

“It's a thing to do that doesn't need to be done,” Beil said. “This river's been here for a long time. And I know the Indians didn't do any logjam removal.”

Drainage experts have said that part of the problem is improvements have been made to ditches and streams that dump into the river, while the river has not been improved.

“All the improvements that have been made, we've never made any improvements to the river,” Ellerbrock said.

Beckett said the project won't do much good.

“I think there's work that needs to be done on it. But this doesn't even solve those problems,” he said.

Beckett and Beil say they've been told the project won't do anything about flooding on the river.

Ellerbrock said the project won't stop all flooding, but the work will reduce it. The 1- to 2-inch rains that cause flooding now won't do so after the project, he said. Heavier rain still will cause flooding, but improved flow in the stream will reduce the length of those floods, he said.

Auglaize and Allen County officials have sought state and federal funds for the project, to no avail. Beckett and Beil say that shows the project isn't worth doing.

Beckett questions why Lima isn't paying for some of the project when the city draws two-thirds of its water supply from it.

Ellerbrock said the project is to improve drainage, and Lima is moving water out of the river, not into it.

Beckett also questions the need for a permanent assessment. Ellerbrock said state law requires continued funding to maintain the river after the work is done.

“That's been law since 1957,” he said.

The plan is to remove logjams and leaning trees from Hay Road in Allen County and following the channel to the Putnam/Allen County line. Similar work will be done on Two Mile Creek in Auglaize County beginning near the intersection of state Route 501 and Wapakoneta-Buckland Road downstream to the Auglaize River.

At the conclusion of Tuesday's meeting, the Joint Board of Supervisors will decide whether to certify the project to a joint board of county commissioners of Allen, Auglaize and Shelby counties.