[TRANSCRIPT]
0:00:00 - (Doug Jenkins): Coming up next on Chamber Amplified, they.
0:00:02 - (Steve Wilson): Came up with the benching projects in downtown and the idea of the storage basin along Eagle Creek. So much better aspect, much better projects.
0:00:18 - (Doug Jenkins): Welcome to the show. I'm Doug Jenkins from the Finley Hancock County Chamber of Commerce. On each episode of Chamber Amplified, we're limiting issues impacting the local business community, whether it's employee recruitment and retention, marketing, it issues current events, really anything that can be impacting your business. Our goal is to give members tips each week on at least one way they can improve operations and thrive in the current business environment, or at the very least, know what's happening in the community so that they can plan accordingly. And that's really where we're focusing today.
0:00:47 - (Doug Jenkins): We'll be talking about flood mitigation. Now, certainly a stable operating environment is crucial for any business to succeed. And I'm joined by project manager Steve Wilson to talk about the progress made so far on flood mitigation and what's on the horizon. We also get into why flood mitigation is important for all area businesses and residents, and how getting all the involved parties in the county to the table was a key turning point to getting some actual work done. Now, one note, we did record this interview last week before news about flood mitigation funding came out. We do talk a little bit about the funding process, but if you want a deep dive on that, we'll follow up with another interview on that in the future.
0:01:22 - (Doug Jenkins): Thanks again for tuning in. Remember, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, you can rate and review the show. It really does help spread the word. Now let's get into it.
0:01:31 - (C): So we've been talking about this topic for several years, and of course, the news has been better as of late because we've actually seen work done on the Blanchard river to help with flood mitigation. I guess maybe that's where we'll jump off at. Let's start from the benching project that's been finished and then kind of go to what we're looking at here in the future as far as it comes to flood mitigation in Finland, Hancock county.
0:01:54 - (Steve Wilson): Okay. Yeah. The first benching project was actually completed in 2019. Most of the work was done in 2018. So we've had experience with how the river reacts from that project for a few years. And just anecdotally, people seem to think it's done some good, which is a very positive. And we have seen lower river levels during some storms, but that's the tip of the iceberg, as they say. That's just the first phase of projects as we move forward.
0:02:33 - (C): Yeah. Anecdotally, it does seem right. And just from my days in doing news, it seems like as wet as the end of January was and maybe the early parts of February, I feel like I would have been doing some flood reports during those days where we didn't really see that in this last round of wet weather, which has been great to see.
0:02:53 - (Steve Wilson): Yeah. The other thing that's happened over the years, since to the 2007 flood, we've either purchased or removed almost 190 buildings, both commercial buildings and residential properties, that had been subject to periodic flooding damages. Especially speaking with the first responders, they've noticed a significant benefit, just the number of calls that they would normally have to go out that have been reduced significantly. So I think that's also a very positive impact.
0:03:33 - (C): Let's focus on that for a second, because I think sometimes when people start talking about flood mitigation, there does tend to be, there can be, I guess I should say, an attitude that it's only really benefiting downtown Finley. And certainly while downtown Finley is one of the lower points along the Blanchard river to your. Those, being able to take things out of the floodplain, being able to reduce those flood levels, that's good. All along the Blanchard.
0:03:59 - (Steve Wilson): Oh, yeah, and it's not just along the Blanchard. We've removed buildings along Eagle Creek from the Blanchard down to the 6th street area. So there's been different areas that have very positive impacts the community. A few other things that we've done involve transportation improvements. We raised the intersections on both sides of Martin Luther King Parkway. Now, if we have a flood event, that bridge will remain open to traffic. You'll be able to get across town from north to south.
0:04:34 - (Steve Wilson): In the 2007 flood, the only north south artery open in the community was I 75, which created a significant bottleneck not only for people wanting to get back and forth, but also for the first responders.
0:04:48 - (C): No, that's a good point. Obviously, seven was the big one that we all think about. But even as far back as 2016, when we had that flooding, it was very hard to get north south. And that wasn't even the quote unquote record flood. But finding a bridge over the Blanchard other than I 75 was difficult to do at that time.
0:05:08 - (Steve Wilson): So that's also been a very positive project. Another project that we did kind of a smaller scale, but just west of Finland, Route 224, there was a dip in the roadway near the Dodge dealership. We worked with ODOT to raise that dip up to a higher level. So if we did get a flood, 224 was closed for a period of time because of that depression in the pavement. So that's been cleared up. So that should also be a very positive during flood events in the future.
0:05:42 - (C): So those are all the things that have been done so far, but certainly that's not the end of it. Like you said, it's kind of the tip of the iceberg. We have the retention basin that's in the final stages getting ready to be built. We have some other things along with the railroad bridge and even another benching project. So I'll let you kind of outline what happens next.
0:06:01 - (Steve Wilson): Right way it looks right now, probably the next thing that will happen will be the Norfolk southern bridge. We've been working with railroad for six years, which doesn't seem possible that working with railroads can be difficult. But we did get a $7 million grant from the Federal Rail Administration to assist with the replacement of that bridge. The problem with that bridge is this has a narrow opening on the Blanchard. It's only from bank to bank.
0:06:33 - (Steve Wilson): So with the railroad embankment on both sides of the river, it really restricts the flow at that point. So we're planning to replace the existing 150 foot wide bridge with a 300 foot span, which will greatly increase the flood carrying capacity through that bridge. The COVID years really had an impact on our planning. Norfolk Southern had a lot of people that changed jobs. They have an outside engineering consultant that also reviews their plans. Besides their internal reviews, they change consultants.
0:07:11 - (Steve Wilson): Federal Rail administration had a lot of personnel turnover, so it's. Unfortunately, it's taken a lot of time to get through those agreements. But we're two signatures away from having the federal rail agreement, and once we have that in hand, we'll be able to wrap up the Norfolk Southern work agreement, and hopefully we can get started on some construction later this year on that project.
0:07:34 - (C): It sounds like a marathon's worth of work to get all of that done. That was not a sprint, by any means.
0:07:40 - (Steve Wilson): No. It's just very frustrating being on phone calls on a weekly basis and just. Well, so and so is on vacation this week or so and so can't answer that. It was a litany of things. It's just very frustrating to trying to get through the process.
0:07:56 - (C): Glad that that's finally taken care of, or at least very close to being taken care of. There's a second benching process that can take place as well. What all does that entail?
0:08:08 - (Steve Wilson): Right. That would be benching starting at the Norfolk Southern bridge, where we left off with the first benching, and that would continue east along the north side of the Blanchard from the bridge Norfolk Southern Railroad to east to the CSX railroad tracks. Primarily involves removing or excavating along the bank of the river about 100ft wide. From the river bank, we'll be removing ten to 15ft of material to increase the floodplain capacity.
0:08:47 - (Steve Wilson): That project. We have one more property that needs to be acquired. We're in the final stages of acquisition on that. And the city of Finley did a phase two environmental survey that identified some spots that have some lead contamination. So we're working with the city's consultant to work up a plan for how we remediate those lead spots as part of the benching project. So we still got a few things to get done until we get to the final bidding documents and get that project ready. So it might be later this year. It's really just going to depend on the amount of funds we have available.
0:09:31 - (C): Yeah, that and certainly having to remediate or remediate the soil is not the easiest of process. Slows things down, but certainly needs to be done. So good to see that's being taken care of.
0:09:43 - (Steve Wilson): Right now. We don't think there are any major hotspots that would have to go to a hazardous waste landfill. But even if there is contaminated soil that has some lead in it, there are some special processes that have to follow. We had the same issues on the first benching project, not as many spots as this one, but we were able to successfully take care of those in the first benching project. So I don't anticipate we'll have any issues with this next phase.
0:10:16 - (C): It's interesting to me, just from a historical perspective, that we're kind of paying the price now just for how cities used to be built. Way back when you would put your major industry right along the river because you could get the power from the river.
0:10:28 - (Steve Wilson): Right. And that was your transportation corridor. Back when this was the black swamp. There weren't any roads, so you use the river to get back and forth.
0:10:37 - (C): It all comes around eventually, I guess. Let's talk about the retention basin south of town. Certainly that's the biggest of all the projects, at least in terms of square footage at the very least. But most people know where it's going to be. But let's kind of give the area for it and how this works and how it helps with the mitigation process.
0:10:56 - (Steve Wilson): Sure be southwest of the interchange at US 68 and State Route 15. People are familiar with that. Going to cover about 900 acres. Be primarily centered on Township Road 49, which is the first road south of the 60 815 interchange that goes west off of Route 68 and goes all the way over to Township Road 76. So it's about. Almost a mile in width. We're up to about a $75 million cost estimate on that one.
0:11:36 - (Steve Wilson): When we started working on the process five years ago, we were about a $60 million estimate. We've received a $60 million grant from the state of Ohio General assembly. So we are using those funds for property acquisition and to complete the design plans. The design plans are in the final stages of review by the high Department of Natural Resources dam safety section. This will be an embankment that's classified as a dam. Be a similar embankment to what you see at the Finley reservoirs to hold the water and release it slowly downstream during a flood.
0:12:18 - (Steve Wilson): The. At this point, we're trying to seek some additional funding, so the city of Finley has submitted an application to the Federal Emergency Management Agency requesting flood mitigation assistance dollars to try and close that gap in the funding that we have on the basin project.
0:12:42 - (C): It's really an interesting. Just from an engineering standpoint, I think it's an interesting project, and how the water gets diverted, then how it's let out, and then how taking that water, taking the flow from the Eagle Creek out of everything, helps lower the 100 year flood is just from an engineering standpoint, I have to imagine it's quite interesting for you.
0:13:03 - (Steve Wilson): Yeah, it's been an interesting project, and we're working with our consultants, Stantech. They've done these projects all over the United States, if not the world, and it's been good to work with them the way the basin will work. There'll be an outlet structure constructed across Eagle Creek that will allow the normal flow of Eagle Creek during nonstorm events to just operate as normal. But that control structure, once the flood event starts, it'll only allow a limited amount of flow to continue downstream.
0:13:39 - (Steve Wilson): And as the flow in Eagle Creek increases, that water will start backing up into the basin and control the amount of flow into downtown Finley. If we would get another 100 year flood event, that basin would have water in it for about three days. And as long as we didn't get any other intermittent storms during that process, it should empty itself in about three days. It's been very interesting to go through the process and see how things might work, but the impacts downstream are tremendous.
0:14:15 - (Steve Wilson): We're taking about 1500 parcels out of the floodplain. Those are properties that would normally, if they had a mortgage, would normally be required. To have flood insurance, they will no longer have to have that requirement once that project is completed.
0:14:30 - (C): That's huge. When we talk about needing housing in Finland, Hancock county, and affordable housing in that you bring the cost of living down just by eliminating that flood insurance.
0:14:41 - (Steve Wilson): Sure do.
0:14:42 - (C): One last thing for you. Maybe. I'll probably think of a second question after it, but just I want to talk a little bit about the tone of how the flood mitigation conversation has gone from 2007 up until about five years ago, and then five years ago up until now, it feels like it was a night and day type of situation where it was very contentious and a lot of butting of heads at first, and then when everybody finally got to the table and different industries, different viewpoints and everything sat down, we really started to see some headway on this.
0:15:12 - (Steve Wilson): Yeah, I think the biggest point of contention in the early days was when we had the Corps of Engineers working on their study, and they made the recommendation for a diversion channel starting on Eagle Creek at the same location where the flood basin is going to go that would go west and around Finley. That, unfortunately, under the course guidelines, was the only project that they could recommend, and it's just unfortunate that their guidelines really don't.
0:15:50 - (Steve Wilson): They looked at things more on a national perspective and not a local impact perspective. And the impact of that diversion channel was very controversial. That would have required 20 new bridges to be built across the channel. So you're spending a lot of money on bridges that provide no flood mitigation benefit. Would have been a railroad bridge. It would have been two bridges on I 75. Just a lot of expense that really didn't provide any flood mitigation capabilities.
0:16:26 - (Steve Wilson): Once we decided to move away from the core process and asked Dantech to come in and review the core's data information, they came up with the benching projects in downtown and the idea of the storage basin along Eagle Creek. So much better aspect, much better projects, more readily received. There's still some folks in the area of the basin project that have some misgivings about being that close to the basin itself.
0:17:04 - (Steve Wilson): We've tried to answer their questions and take care of their concerns, but it's certainly not as contentious as it was ten or 15 years ago.
0:17:13 - (C): That's certainly good to see. Well, Steve, we appreciate your time today. I probably kept you longer than I intended, but there's a long backstory and a lot of projects in the hoppers, so a lot of ground to cover there.
0:17:23 - (Steve Wilson): Very good. Always glad to be with you, Doug. Thank you.
0:17:29 - (Doug Jenkins): Thank, thanks again to Steve for joining us, and we'll have to have him back, as this has been a topic our members have told us they want to learn more about, so we'll keep you up to date on that. Chamber Amplified is a free podcast for the community thanks to the investment of members from the Finley Hancock County Chamber of Commerce, and because of our robust membership, we're able to focus on providing timely information to the Finley and Hancock county business community, run leadership programs for adults and teenagers, and be an advocate for the area while also providing tools to help local businesses succeed. If that sounds like something you'd like to be a part of, just let me know and we can talk about how an investment in the chamber helps strengthen the entire community.
0:18:03 - (Doug Jenkins): That'll do it for this week's episode. If you have any ideas for topics you want to see covered on future episodes, send me an email djenkins@Findlayhankockchamber.com remember, if you're listening on our website, you can make it easier on yourself. Have every episode of Chamber amplified delivered straight to your phone. Just search for us in your favorite podcast player.
0:18:22 - (C): Thanks again for listening.
0:18:23 - (Doug Jenkins): We'll see you next time on chamber amplified from the Finley Hancock County Chamber of Commerce.