Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News
The Newsletter of the Great Lakes
Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund
The Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News is the newsletter of the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund, published five times per year. The News is intended to provide a forum for the free exchange of ideas among citizens and organizations working to protect aquatic habitats in the Great Lakes Basin.
Volume 15, Number 6 • Spring 2007
Lake Erie
Basin Update - U.S. Side
Ditches: The Cheap and Dirty way to Solve
Stormwater Management Woes
By Trent A. Dougherty, Ohio Environmental Council
For well over a century, landowners
have used Ohio’s Ditch Laws and
channelizing of streams as the most
economical way to rid their land of
excess water. Thus, ditches have been
the major conveyance of stormwater for
much of Ohio’s rural areas, and
especially for the former Black Swamp
region of Northwest Ohio. With the
traditional method of drainage also comes a cost to the water
and resource quality of the watershed. Yet, the regulatory
mechanisms provided by the Clean Water Act to protect
watercourses from the ill-effects of stormwater have not
traditionally been applied to ditches.
While the drainage ditch laws have traditionally been applied in
rural areas to aid in agricultural production, ditching of streams
is no longer confined to the farms fields. As sprawl brings more
people and more businesses into once smaller and remote
villages and municipalities, has it also brought the need for
stormwater drainage improvement? Some municipalities are
developing at such a rate that they are out-growing the current
infrastructure. To make up for poor stormwater management
some municipalities are turning to ditches.
Perhaps this is because traditionally ditching projects have not
needed permits; and the ditch laws allow the costs of these
projects to be spread to "benefiting" landowners. Also, the Ohio
EPA has traditionally not bothered itself with the water
quality impacts of ditching, as it has with other stormwater
improvement projects.
However, the culture may be changing. The water quality
impacts from hydromodification of streams (or the physical
alteration of a stream such as deepening, straightening,
ditching, filling or otherwise) for stormwater are evident and are
being documented by researchers and governmental agencies.
Even the Ohio EPA has recognized hydromodification as a
major water quality problem. The agency has cited that such
modification is “the origin of the habitat degradation, pollutant,
nutrient, siltation and sedimentation problems in smaller
streams and a leading source of impairment to the water
quality of larger streams into which they flow.”
A recent complaint filed with the Ohio EPA, alleged that a ditch
project on Marion County’s Bee Run required a Clean Water Act
storm water permit because construction of the project would
disturb over an acre of land. Routinely, individual ditching
projects are performed on relatively short segments of a water
course, but ditch construction activities rival the impacts of
construction that are traditionally regulated. Upon investigation
by Ohio EPA officials, it was concluded that the construction of
the ditch created such a large footprint that a permit was
necessary. To quote the Ohio EPA’s investigatory report:
"Stormwater discharges from this activity will carry fill material,
dredged material and suspended solids into Bee Run, which are
waters of the state." An investigation of this degree, a conclusion
that among other permits needed, that a stormwater permit
was necessary for a drainage ditch project, and the conclusion
that a "ditch" is a water of the state, is unprecedented.
As mentioned, the culture of destroying streams as the means of
providing stormwater drainage is changing. The change is
neither monumental nor swift. Nevertheless, the need for
change to provide for water quality protection is real, and there
are opportunities to marry concerns of water quality and water
quantity. Landowners and cities want the stormwater off their
land; enviros want the water clean; yet it is up to both to come
together to find the solution.
For more information, please contact:
Trent A. Dougherty, Staff Attorney
Ohio Environmental Council
1207 Grandview Ave. Ste 201, Columbus, OH 43212
614.487.7506
trent@theOEC.org • www.theOEC.org
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