Dear Friends of Pipe Creek Watershed,
What an amazing year it is shaping up to be! Spring is here and so dates for events are shaping up, too.
FPCW hope that you saw the Sandusky Register article which ran on Sunday March 3 regarding Pipe Creek’s Report Card. We look forward to understanding where the creek now stands in order to understand what more might be done to improve our watershed for all living things, human kind included. We are so blessed with Bre Hohman, Firelands Coastal Tributaries Watershed Coordinator, along with friends over the years at Erie Soil and Water Conservation District.
This article gives us an opportunity to look back on another Sandusky Register article which ran on Sunday July 2, 2006 and it issued a challenge regarding Pipe Creek. YOU met that challenge!
The article was titled “Who takes care of the Creek?” This was soon after the heavy storm on June 21, 2006 which dumped 7-9 inches of rain in a very short timeframe for areas from Bellevue to Sandusky. Many homes flooded as the Pipe Creek Watershed serves as a water conveyance on the way to Sandusky Bay. The article correctly sites that “in this area, it’s the ditches, creeks, streams” that feed Sandusky Bay and Lake Erie.
Another quote in this article may have been truer then, but it is no longer the case. “ Smaller tributaries like Pipe and Mills creeks, which are just as critical to the area (as larger rivers which are monitored by the US Army Corp of Engineers) are ignored by just about everyone….. With no one monitoring their capacity and capability, however, there is no way to ascertain if they are continuing to do the job we count on these creeks to do… Other communities have found a measure of success in forming watershed authorities, who serve as water and environmental resource stewards for the watershed…. The value of such a group to the areas can’t be understated.”
You collectively have responded over the last 6 plus years as the caretakers of Pipe Creek! A small committee has measured all the ditches and culverts from Route 4, through Harris, Mason, Patten Tract, Bogart, Strub, Campbell, Columbus, Parkland and Perkins Ave. They have input the information into a computer program and now can reconstruct the flood flows in 1969 and 2006. This HEC-RAS group also hosted a meeting with a member of Congress, right in the township. Together, we have hosted speakers at our monthly meetings to educate ourselves, while providing a public educational forum on Algal Bloom which lead to more public agency awareness. We have manned many tables, and handed out literature, especially to area children, and trees to an array of people. We have cleaned up litter and improved pathways in the City of Sandusky for area residents to enjoy a nature walk, or even to float a canoe. We have hosted a float in the Memorial Day Parade thanking our veterans for their service along the way. We collectively have advocated for habitat corridors with a member rehabbing an eagles’ nest, turtle beds, and installing duck houses in Sandusky Bay to revive the diversity within our watershed. We have advocated for improved drainage by enhancing pervious pavement projects in our watershed with the hope that these will be coming soon to zoning ordinances, too. We have made friends with business partners who manage by best practices, and have collaborated on projects along the way. We have formed monitoring teams, and won awards for the number of volunteer hours. We assisted at a large stormwater conference, and reaped huge benefits too.
What you have created is a model of how many jurisdictions can work together, including city, county and townships, right alongside area residents, providing input in decision making. The watershed model works! Thank you for being a good steward! The ripple you started is far reaching!
Please renew your membership today to continue to do great things together.
Thank you!
John Jackson, Pres.
FPCW President John Jackson |
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