BY LEW MOORES
The Cincinnati Enquirer
MIAMI TOWNSHIP - The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA) has issued permits to allow work to begin on restoring two wetland areas in Shawnee Lookout park that have been catch basins for silt the past three decades.
Hamilton County Park District officials say that, when completed, the project will benefit wildlife in the Oxbow wetlands nearby. The area at the Indiana border has long been a center of attention for wetland preservation.
The work will involve excavating about 6,000 cubic yards of silt and sediment from Goose Pond, and 2,000 cubic yards from Wet Meadow Terrace in the park.
Both areas are near the boat launching ramps and Uhlmansiek Wildlife Sanctuary in the park, but are not easily accessible by the public because of frequent flooding in the area. There are, for instance, no trails that lead to those areas.
"Any time you get surface rain, you get sediment that washes into a low spot, like a pond or a meadow," said Lynne Barst, a spokeswoman for the OEPA in Columbus. "It's been collecting down there for about 30 years. So what they're going to do is clean it out, return it to its more original quality."
The cost of the excavation alone is about $7,000, said John Klein, land manager for the park district.
"It'll involve excavating the silt and then hauling it to another site," said Mr. Klein. "It may take a good year from now, if not longer, for the project to complete."
The project will also include planting the seeds of native wetland plants that are propagated at the park district's nursery near Miami Whitewater Forest in Crosby Township.
"We want to make them a little deeper and make them available as habitat for waterfowl and shore birds again," said Mr. Klein. "The birds no longer use them for very long. They aren't deep enough, and they dry up pretty quickly in the spring."
Pushing the project were the local chapter of Waterfowl USA, which works to preserve wetlands for waterfowl, and Oxbow Inc., a local organization that has worked to protect the wetlands in this area from development.
Frank Cracchiolo, chairman of the Greater Cincinnati chapter of Waterfowl, said his group will help raise money for the project, and also will go into the area and place wood duck nesting boxes there.
"What we're after is preserving habitat for nesting waterfowl," said Mr. Cracchiolo. "This is one of the last natural flood plains of southern Ohio."
While the area of the project is not really accessible to foot traffic, said Mr. Klein, it can be seen from the park road and the parking lot at the boat ramp.
More than a year ago, the park district completed a 10-month dredging project of Winton Lake at Winton Woods in Springfield Township, where 930,000 cubic yards of silt were removed. The project was intended to make for a cleaner habitat, more hospitable to wildlife.
