LIMA — The annual Ottawa River cleanup event held this Saturday is a valuable contribution not only to the beauty of Lima-area communities, but to the health of freshwater marine life in our region and beyond.
The Ottawa River carries contaminants into the Auglaize River, the Maumee River, Lake Erie, and ultimately into the Atlantic Ocean.
“That’s why each and every volunteer is so crucial,” said Autumn Swanson, the event’s committee chair.
The Ottawa River cleanup event, which has been around for the last 15 years, is the result of a cooperative effort between the City of Lima, the Ottawa River Coalition, Lima Allen County Regional Planning Commission, and Lima Allen County Neighborhoods in Partnership (LACNIP), explained Swanson.
“The Ottawa River watershed has been regularly surveyed and assessed by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency since the mid-1980s. Prior to that, studies were conducted by public, private, and academic investigators. So even in the 1950s and the 1960s, they were finding that the Ottawa River was profoundly degraded and nearly devoid of aquatic life,” said Haley Belisle, watershed and stormwater manager at the Allen Soil and Water Conservation District.
Following the formation of the EPA and the first Earth Day in 1970, and then the passage of the Clean Water Act of 1972, there were efforts to improve the water quality in the Ottawa River.
“The Ohio EPA uses data from fish and insect populations in the river to determine its overall health,” Belisle said.
They categorize rivers into one of three groups in terms of its ability to meet the State of Ohio’s water quality standards: full-attainment, partial-attainment, and non-attainment. The non-attainment status for 37.7 miles of the Ottawa River watershed dropped from 82% in 1987 when many fish showed DELTs (deformities, eroded fins, lesions, and tumors), to 9% in 2010, while full-attainment rose from just 9.6% to 68% in that same period, Belisle explained.
Volunteers concentrated their efforts this year in three main locations: The American Red Cross within the city, Lost Creek in Bath and the Rotary Riverwalk in Shawnee. Their efforts helped remove “point-source pollution,” meaning debris originating from people living in the greater Lima area. Removing plastics from the river is particularly important, Belisle said. These items break down into tiny pieces of plastic, called microplastics, that fish eat.
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