|
Great Lakes
Restoration
Presidential Candidate Letter/Petition
Campaign
Healthy Lakes, Healthy Lives is proud to host a
letter campaign to encourage the Presidential
candidates to support the Great Lakes Restoration
Strategy. Learn more about the "Healing Our
Waters" (HOW) Great Lakes Coalition and how you can
easily send a letter/petition to the candidates by
going to the
HealthyLakes.org
website or by clicking the picture below...
BRWP Monthly meeting
The monthly BRWP meeting for June will be held:
Wednesday September 24, 2008
7:00 p.m.
Room 054
Owens Community College
3200
Bright Road
Findlay, OH 45840
Northwest Ohio Flood Mitigation Partnership is formed
The Northwest Ohio Flood
Mitigation Partnership, Inc. was established to
expedite the design and development of a long-range
flood mitigation plan to help alleviate flooding
throughout the Blanchard River Watershed.
The City of Findlay, Village of
Ottawa, and Hancock and Putnam Counties have signed
resolutions endorsing the Partnership. Hardin County
and the Village of Bluffton officials also are
expected to sign a similar resolution.
Additional assistance and
expertise will be provided by consultants, local
government, The Blanchard River Watershed
Partnership, the Ohio Department of Natural
Resources, the Natural Resource Conservation
Service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and
state and federal legislators.
Visit
http://floodpartnership.org/to
learn more.
Mercury continues to be one of the primary
pollutants in the Blanchard River and its watershed.
Until further notice, the City of
Findlay is accepting mercury-containing devises from private citizens and small businesses
within the watershed area. These devises can
be dropped off for proper disposal at the City of Findlay Water
Pollution Control Center, 1201 South River Road.
With this free service, no one needs to send
household mercury switches &
thermostats, barometers, blood pressure cuffs, and
other small
mercury devises to the landfill!
What does mercury have to do with the
watershed?
Mercury can enter the watershed through
the improper disposal of mercury containing items. This inorganic
mercury is transformed into methyl mercury by organisms found in
lakes, rivers, and ponds. Traveling through the food chain, methyl
mercury accumulates in the tissue of fish living in the waters.
Generally the older and larger fish contain higher levels of
mercury. Humans consume the fish and then accumulates in the body
are a health concern.
Land fill disposal of mercury devices is not
the preferred method of disposal since even the best landfills allow
some methyl mercury conversion and discharge some water to the
environment. A safe chemical disposal method is preferred.
Putnam and Hancock Counties --- Mercury
Thermometer Exchange Program
County health and public service agencies
completed a mercury thermometer exchange program during
the month of April 2007. Each mercury thermometer was exchanged for a
digital thermometer while the supply lasted. In addition to
thermometers, the agencies also accepted
household mercury switch thermostats, barometers,
household switches and blood pressure cuffs for safe disposal.
Over 200 devices were collected at the Hancock
County Ag Service Center, the Hancock Health Dept, the Findlay Health Department,
the Findlay Water Pollution Control Office, Rader Environmental office,
and in Putnam County at the Office of Public Safety in Glandorf.
Watershed
Volunteer Program
The watershed partners are forming a
group of volunteers to being a mapping and stream quality
assessment of the land drained by Lye Creek. The team will be
trained to observe and record the condition of the water flow,
the characteristics of the stream bed, the appearance and
conditions of the bank, the location of drainage pipes and tiles
emptying into the creek along with the location of log jams,
silt islands, debris piles and any other visual pollution.
The second phase of the project
is to identify locations along Lye Creek for a volunteer water
quality-monitoring project to establish a current water quality
conditions as a base line for Lye Creek and the Blanchard
River. This data will collection will be an ongoing project to
enable us to recognize changes in water quality over time and
access the effects of changes in land use activities.
Phase three of the teams objective
is to write a water quality action plan that will be used to
seek funding for projects to assist communities and landowners
to improve conditions along the waterways and improve the value
of the rivers and streams for all our citizens.
The first volunteer training
session was held in April and the mapping project started
in early May 2007. Everyone in the community is invited to be
trained, find out what we are planning to do and sign on for the
parts of the project they are willing to work on. This project
will take an estimated two years to complete the entire
watershed. For more information call stream flow committee
chairman, Phil Martin at 419-422-6487 or contact us using the
link on this site
chair@blanchardriver.com.
|
