OMI MEETING … The Ohio Michigan Indiana Council of Government held a meeting to further discuss the concerns around the Michindoh Aquifer. The meeting which was on March 14, 2022 was attended in person by around a dozen members of the Williams County Alliance who had walked around the courthouse for the hour before the meeting carrying signs supporting the aquifer. The OMI members seated behind the commissioners’ desk are Branch County Administrator Bud Norman, Williams County Commissioner Terry Rummel and Hillsdale County Commissioner Mark Wiley. (PHOTOS BY REBECCA MILLER, STAFF)
By: Rebecca Miller
On January 31, 2022, OMI met in Hillsdale, Michigan for a meeting to hear from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) with “an update regarding the synoptic testing that is beginning in Williams County and that will be conducted in other areas of the aquifer in the near future.”
The next meeting was scheduled to be held on Monday, March 14, 2022 in the Williams County Commissioners hearing room in the Courthouse in Bryan.
The meeting was scheduled for 1 p.m., to discuss how to “monitor the aquifer” and to get another update from the USGS on any progress. After the adjournment of the WC Commissioners regular meeting that morning,
Commissioner Terry Rummel explained to the media that this meeting was not about AquaBounty, the new business that is hoping to move into Pioneer, Ohio. “This meeting is for the OMI commissioners to find ways that we can monitor the aquifer,” he stated.
Many residents in the OMI area are concerned about how this new business, which would pump 4.4 million gallons of water per day, will affect the wells, rivers, streams and Lake Erie, as well as the drinking water of Ft. Wayne.
A number of them were present outside the courthouse from noon to one, walking with signs that read “Protect the Michindoh/Water is Life.”
The Williams County Alliance has been battling to stop the use of the Michindoh Aquifer by large companies for the past few years.
They breathed a collective sigh of relief when in 2019 the decision was made that a local company could not sell water to the city of Toledo.
In the past year they have taken up the gauntlet to stop the progress being made for AquaBounty, a company that raises salmon, to be able to build in Pioneer and use water from the Michindoh Aquifer, until after a complete study has been made by the USGS.
During the walk around the courthouse, which they called a rally rather than a protest, Sherry Fleming, the Alliance chairman and coordinator of the rally, explained that the Alliance was there to give the commissioners a paper that would ask them to use some of the county’s ARPs money to make the USGS study go faster and that they were present in an effort to protect the Michindoh Aquifer.
Alliance member and former Water Treatment Plant Supervisor for 20 years for the City of Bryan, Andy Struble, attended the OMI meeting along with ten or twelve others.
He presented his paper from the Alliance, to WC Commissioner Terry Rummel, OMI President Mark Wiley and Branch (MI) County Administrator Bud Norman.
He did not get an opportunity to speak in the meeting, but in an interview he stated that, speaking from his twenty years of experience working with water, he is concerned with “people overusing the aquifer, and it takes too long to recharge.”
“I think they are not admitting that. It (the life of the aquifer and the amount of water in it) is mainly about recharging the aquifer,” he said, going on to explain that an aquifer gets recharged mostly by the rain, some by streams and rivers.
“You can’t put a 5 million gallon draw on an aquifer without causing problems. That constant pumping and dumping is going to do damage.” He feels the company could cool their waters with coolers instead of using the water to cool their tanks.
“In my opinion the recharge will be insufficient and the test well drilling, the boring, it doesn’t look like they have the structure to pull that much water through the aquifer.”
“They are going to need four or five wells so they can rotate them for maintenance. Their engineering firm says they can pump all they need from the one well field but I don’t think they can. It is going to draw the water out and cause a cone of depression and it will affect some residential wells.”
“It is going to take the water levels down around Pioneer and in Michigan and it only recharges two to seven inches of rainfall per year, so it won’t support that kind of pumping.”
Concerning the discharge of 5.2 million gallons of water per day into the St. Joe River, Mr. Struble said, “When there is flooding, it is going to flood the river even more than normal.”
“On February 17, after all the rain and ice melt, the flooding was just a few inches from going over the bank at Lake Pioneer.”
“If you add 5 million gallons a day to that it is probably going to push that flooding up and make it worse. That is not a good situation.”
He also shared his feelings that AquaBounty is “painting a rosy picture” that there will be enough water. “You can do anything with a model, and they only did one model and they need more than that.”
The number one goal of this day was to promote getting the money for the USGS study to monitor and manage the aquifer.
THE YOUNG TURNED OUT AS WEL L… Seen here at the WC Alliance rally around the Williams County Courthouse are Reed Singer from Ney, Sara Kenyon from Connecticut and Grace Krill from Hicksville, who all came to help stand for what they believe in. Off to the right is Ray Strup sharing his concerns with another person at the rally.
Besides the Alliance members, there were others who joined the walk out front of the Courthouse, with Ray Strup being one of those. Strup shared his concerns about the water being dumped into the St. Joe River.
“I am a lifelong Williams County resident and the St. Joe River means a lot to me. I’ve got a lot of memories of fishing with my family members.”
“That is my river. I love that river. It is not just a drainage ditch. It has been a part of my life my whole life.,” he said.
“I still like to stop and look at the water quality and the wildlife. That river needs to be protected. I am concerned about the possibility of floods with that much water being dumped in there, but I am more concerned about the possibility of DNA being dumped in there.”
When told they guarantee it won’t be, he questioned if that could be 100% sure, and added, “What if it fails for any reason, what is the affect it would have to the species in that river and also what about it being the sole supply for drinking water for the city of Ft. Wayne. I would like to hear those things addressed.”
A little after 1 o’clock, those waiting in the hallway were invited in to the OMI meeting. There were many attending the meeting by Zoom, but present in person were the three officers, Hillsdale Commissioner Mark Wiley, WC Commissioner Terry Rummel and Branch County Administrator Bud Norman.
There are nine counties involved in OMI and five of the nine were present, with Fulton County Commissioner Jeff Rupp, Lenawee County Commissioner Jim Driskill and Defiance County Commissioner Dana Phipps present on Zoom.
Chairman Mark Wiley called the meeting to order explaining that this was an informational meeting, and that USGS were in the meeting via Zoom. They voted to approve the minutes of the January meeting.
He thanked the audience for coming and said, “This Council that we’ve formed, the OMI, is a body that is very interested in the Michindoh Aquifer and very interested in working with USGS to develop some history as far as water use and water withdrawal, water recharge, the boundaries of the aquifer and so that is what our main purpose is.”
“We in no way, shape, or form have a position of any of the permit at this point in time. That is up to each individual state’s responsibility, whether the permit is to be issued in the Michigan boundary or Ohio or Indiana.”
“Each state has their own permitting process. Here in Ohio the permitting process is through DNR (Department of Natural Resources) and in this particular case, as far as AquaBounty, it will then go to the Ohio EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). “
“The DNR permit should be issued by 5 p.m. this evening or press released in the morning. Just so everybody understands we are not part of the permitting process. We are here to be a part of garnering information that will help us all in the years to come.”
He turned it over to Rob Darner who is with USGS who reported that since the last meeting they had some “real time” wells instrumented and the week before last they did a water level synoptic in eleven counties in the area.”
“They are around 85 to 100 water levels now in those counties which will give them a snapshot of the water levels in the aquifer and will be helpful for groundwater modeling in the future. He said they will do some more development on getting maps done.
Dave Matthew with USGS also said that the work with Ohio EPA to collect and transmit data is going well. They are putting together “a framework of the geologic material of the subsurface” for these counties.
Howard Reeves from Michigan USGS office reported that they have spoken with EGLE (Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy) over the past few years and are working on putting together a flow model to understand how the system responds to pumping and new wells.
They are building on the data from Ohio, and just got approval a few weeks ago for funding, for part of $500,000.
Rummel asked Reeves to explain the process being used in Michigan, which he did. After gathering information, they are checking the boundaries of the Aquifer and he said the geologic boundaries are not firm.
Further discussion was held with Alex Riddle, whose position was not mentioned, showing some power point pictures from the previous meeting to show the modeling that was being spoken of.
When he completed his detailed, scientific explanation, Rummel asked if Michigan is planning to put in more wells. He said that does look like the plan from EGLE.
Wiley thanked him and invited Laura Campbell who is with the Michigan Farm Bureau and is the co-chair of the Michigan Water-use Advisory, to speak.
Campbell said that funding has been provided to do this work and with the lack of monitoring wells in Michigan, legislation is “working its way through legislature for installing wells and improving modeling, including the Michindoh Aquifer.”
Rummel asked if anyone from Indiana was present to give an update on what is happening there, but there was no one present for them. Campbell said she thinks they are going to go for a big initiative for the whole state.
Rummel also asked if Dave Matthew had a quote on “what it might cost to keep this going in the future.”
They discussed funding sources, dates when funding will “dry up” and Matthews said they have applied for some USGS matching funds for an additional year and that has been approved. It will cover the wells till September 2023.
Rummel stated, “We need your lead on what we need to be able to fund and keep this going so that my grandchildren don’t live in the same world that I live in, where I feel like we’re blindfolded and we’re guessing. We want them to have a lot better picture than what we have.”
The continuous information from year to year should help with that, Matthews said. “Once the ground water model is complete that will help as well with showing us where we will need official monitoring,” he added. The basic idea was that more information is needed.
It was determined that the next OMI meeting will be held on Monday, July 11, 2022 at 1 p.m. in Williams County again.
Wiley thanked everyone for coming and the meeting adjourned. The reporting of this meeting will be shared on the USGS link, www.usgs.gov. Later that night, the permit was released and hit social media immediately.
The AquaBounty permit was “Issued with Conditions.” The entire permit can be seen online at ohiodnr.gov, but the basic informative part said, “The Permit is expressly conditioned upon AquaBounty obtaining a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES)Permit from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (Ohio EPA) for its return of water back to the Lake Erie watershed as described in the Application.”
“That wastewater discharge from the aquaculture farm into the East Branch of the St. Joseph River just Northeast of the Village of Pioneer, falls under the jurisdiction and authority of the Ohio EPA, not ODNR (Ohio Department of Natural Resources).”
Other steps include “The Chief’s order requires AquaBounty to submit a Map of the Geographic Area and a Ground Water Monitoring Plan to the Chief for review and approval at least six months before commencing the withdrawal. The approved map and plan will be made available on this website.”
For further information or questions about the current status of the application, contact the Division’s Water Inventory and Planning Program Manager, Brad Lodge, at Bradley.Lodge@dnr.ohio.gov or 614-265-6727.
Rebecca can be reached at rebecca@thevillagereporter.com
