Menu

by Seth Teter

Pat Scherger has seen it all: snowplows dispatched in the summer to clear trash and debris from the road, cornstalks washed into a neighbor's living room and fish swept out into puddles in his fields.

In fact, this is what Scherger, a Seneca County Farm Bureau member, has come to expect each time a heavy rain comes his way.

Nearly 40 years ago Scherger began pushing for improvements to be made to Wolf Creek, a 20-mile waterway that splits his farm and ultimately empties into the Sandusky River. But since then, things have only gotten worse.

Scherger flipped through photographs of massive logjams and sandbars that span the creek. While improvements have been made to the creek's tributaries, nothing has been done to the main channel. Water flows so poorly, he said, that in a heavy rain, the Sandusky River actually pushes Wolf Creek upstream.

"There's always going to be flooding; we just want the natural flow," Scherger said.

But because Wolf Creek drains land in Hancock, Seneca and Sandusky counties, Scherger has to convince three sets of county commissioners to sign off on an improvement project – something he's been trying to do since 1967. Scherger said the project has been blocked due to misinformation and politics.

Beth Diesch, a project technician with the Seneca County Soil and Water Conservation District, said the latest attempt to pass an improvement project was supported by the SWCDs of all three counties and commissioners in Hancock and Seneca counties. However, Sandusky County commissioners rejected the proposal.

Both Diesch and Scherger believe that commissioners turned down the project because it would have made them unpopular among constituents. Particularly frustrating was the fact that Diesch had coordinated an extensive study of Wolf Creek made possible by the cooperation of landowners and a group of AmeriCorps volunteers.

"It's frustrating to see that cooperation end at politics," she said.

Diesch said downstream landowners have been misinformed about the impact improvements would have, such as increased flooding and erosion or they don't understand the importance of drainage.

"Just because your basement isn't flooded doesn't mean you don't need drainage," she said.

Diesch added that commissioners often vote based on the opinions and not on the facts.

"The process needs to be changed and it’s only going to get worse as we get fewer and fewer farmers that understand drainage," she said.

Scherger along with his neighbor Cliff Hartline have even been turned down by landowners when they offered their own time and equipment to remove logjams and sandbars from downstream properties.

To do his part, Scherger has implemented extensive conservation practices on his land. In 2002, he was recognized by the Natural Resources Conservation Service for planting nearly eight miles of grass buffers along Wolf Creek and its tributaries and for obtaining a permit to stabilize the creek's banks with riprap, a grouping of rocks. He said similar conservation practices could prevent erosion problems downstream.

"We're just trying to protect the property and help everybody," he said.

Larry Gearhardt, OFBF director of local affairs, is on a SWCD Rural Drainage Advisory Committee that will meet this year to review, clarify and update Ohio's drainage law.

He said under Ohio law, Scherger could take the issue to court, but theoretically, he would have to sue every downstream landowner that is negatively affecting his drainage. He agreed that politics too often plays a role in the decisions to implement drainage projects.

"When you're dealing with a multi-county ditch, that amplifies the problem," Gearhardt said.

At OFBF's annual meeting in December, delegates passed policy aimed at identifying allies in addressing drainage problems and making revisions to Ohio's drainage law.

Gearhardt said one solution might be to come up with a formula to better define the benefits of a drainage project. If the benefits of improved drainage outweigh the costs according to the formula, then county commissioners would not have the authority to deny the project. Another option may be to treat drainage ditches like a utility and charge landowners for their upkeep, but Gearhardt noted that would be a "drastic measure."

"Somehow we've got to get the politics out of this," he said.

Caption: Seneca County farmers Pat Scherger (l) and Cliff Hartline say drainage improvement projects should be based on facts, not politics.