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Track: Water Resources
Richard Hammond
Woolpert
409 E Monument Avenue
Dayton, OH 45402-1261
Telephone: 937-461-5660
Fax: 937-461-0743
E-mail: rick.hammond@woolpert.com
Thomas Quinn
Applying Watershed Strategies and Geographic Information Systems to Address Complex Problems in the Mill Creek (Cincinnati)
The Mill Creek, located in southwestern Ohio, flows 28.1 miles from its headwaters in Butler County through central Hamilton County and the City of Cincinnati to its confluence with the Ohio River. The Mill Creek watershed encompasses 166.2 square miles with a population of about 450,000 and has been impacted in almost every imaginable way. Pollution sources include municipal and industrial discharges, wet weather point sources (Combined Sewer Outfalls [CSOs], Sanitary Sewer Outfalls [SSOs,] and storm water), landfills, underground storage tanks, and nonpoint sources (urban runoff and agriculture). In some cases pollutant sources have been reasonably well characterized and control programs are in place such as CSOs. In other cases the contribution of certain pollutant sources is neither understood nor controlled. However, despite the involvement and good intentions of four federal agencies, six state/interstate agencies, 10 local government agencies, 34 local governments, and numerous other constituency
groups, the Mill Creek remains a seriously impaired water resource. The completion of over 20 studies and reports on the Mill Creek by as many as 11 different agencies and organizations in the last 40 years has failed to help stakeholders in the Mill Creek achieve a common view regarding resources and problems. Woolpert, under contract to the Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati and with the help of several local agencies, developed a GIS database using the Esri suite of GIS software products to organize and manage historical data, display information in a way that the public and decision makers can understand, and view the watershed in the context of the big picture. In this way GIS provides a key tool for handling the wealth of information about the Mill Creek in a way that promotes stakeholder access, comprehension, and problem solving.
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