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Study of Tuscarawas says stream can't meet government standards for fishing, swimming
By Bob Downing
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Tuesday, Nov 18, 2008
Eight sewage plants in the Akron area need to reduce their discharge of phosphorus to help improve the Tuscarawas River.
That's one of the the key findings of a 228-page draft report from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency released on Monday. It looks at the quality of the river that drains 13 Northeast Ohio counties, including Summit, Stark, Medina, Wayne and Portage.
When new federal-state permits are issued for sewage plants in Barberton, Wadsworth, Doylestown, Orrville, Rittman, Marshallville, Dalton and Massillon, the EPA could lower the amount of phosphorus that can be discharged.
Barberton's utilities superintendent, Jim Stender, said that action is expected and engineering is nearly complete for a $4 million plant upgrade in 2009-10 that will reduce phosphorus levels.
The EPA is holding a public meeting in Stark County Nov. 25 on the report and the recommendations.
The 132-mile Tuscarawas begins near Uniontown and flows into Akron and Barberton before heading south, where it meets the Walhonding River in Coshocton County to form the Muskingum River.
The EPA analyzed the Tuscarawas from 2003 to 2005 under federal orders to study streams that don't meet the goal of being fishable and swimmable under the federal Clean Water Act.
The Tuscarawas is among Ohio's 276 watersheds that have at least one polluted segment. Ohio has 376 watersheds and 880 polluted stream segments.
The agency collected samples from 141 sites within the watershed — the area drained by the Tuscarawas and such local tributaries as Chippewa, Wolf and Pigeon creeks.
Overall, the EPA said, water quality in the Tuscarawas River was fair to good, based on fish and aquatic insects found there.
About 50 percent of the test sites met fish-insect guidelines, 22 percent of the sites partially met those standards and 28 percent didn't meet any of the guidelines, the EPA said.
A majority of the sites showed high bacteria levels from untreated sewage leaking from septic systems and from farm manure runoff.
The agency said dealing with that problem will require working with local health departments to reduce septic failures and leaks and with farmers to improve manure management and to add stream buffers.
The EPA found that water was generally better in the southern part of the watershed, while the Akron-Canton area had lower quality because of more intense use of the land.
Much of the Tuscarawas watershed suffers from organic and nutrient enrichment, flow alteration from ditching and loss of habitat, the agency said.
In addition to reducing phosphorus from sewage treatment plants, the report recommended improving erosion-sediment controls by working with communities to deal with storm-water runoff and working with farmers to limit stream runoff.
There are ''no real surprises'' in the report, said Eric Akin, a planner with the Akron-based Four County Regional Planning and Development Organization, who was involved with a similar report on Nimishillen Creek, a Stark County stream that flows into the Tuscarawas River via Sandy Creek.
The report on Nimishillen Creek is awaiting federal approval.
The EPA report released Monday excludes another Tuscarawas tributary: Sugar Creek in Wayne, Stark, Holmes and Tuscarawas counties, where such an assessment was done earlier.
Several creeks that flow into the Tuscarawas in the southern part of the watershed will get their own studies in 2012.
Bob Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com.
Eight sewage plants in the Akron area need to reduce their discharge of phosphorus to help improve the Tuscarawas River.
Get the full article here.
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