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Wednesday, September 01, 2004

Environment - Indiana wetlands

"Wetland to strain city’s stormwater" is the poorly-worded headline to this story today in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. Apparently they mean "strain' as in "filter" rather than "strain" as in "put an additional burden on."

The story begins:

Stormwater runoff is an old problem for cities, so Fort Wayne decided even older tools – trees, shrubs and wildflowers – would be the best way to manage it. A wetland is being constructed by the city to hold and clean stormwater as part of the Camp Scott Storm Relief Project near McMillen Park.

Tom Hause, of DLZ, the construction management firm for the project, said as long as weather cooperates, the wetland is expected to be completed by the end of September. He said the system on Oxford Street is designed to handle the stormwater of a 350-acre urban area. “That’s a lot of runoff,” he said.

Greg Meszaros, director of public works and city utilities, said the project was conceived about five years ago after some marshland was discovered at what used to be the Camp Scott Army base. “We took the natural marshland there and enhanced it,” he said. “We hope to kind of harness Mother Nature.”

Also of interest today is the publication by IDEM of a new wetlands proposal in the September Indiana Register. Access the draft rule language here. Public comments are due by September 30, 2004. This is for the 2nd Public Comment period. The First Public Comment period has been skipped pursuant to a determination by the IDEM Commissioner under IC 13-14-9-7 that "In cases where the commissioner determines that the rulemaking policy alternatives available to IDEM are so limited that the notice of first public comment period would provide no substantial benefit, IDEM may forgo this comment period and proceed directly to the notice of second public comment period."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 1, 2004 10:36 AM
Posted to Environmental Issues