Panel brings together environmental issues

Maintaining safe drinking water is one of the topics that EPAC will address.
By TIM YOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
AUSTINTOWN -- An effort has been initiated to bring Mahoning Valley environmental issues that are regional by nature under one umbrella.
The Austintown-based Eastgate Regional Council of Governments, a regional planning agency, has formed the Environmental Planning Advisory Committee, or EPAC, to make the Valley a more satisfying place to live and do business.
A collection of communities, resource agencies, regulatory agencies and organizations may address issues such as storm-water flooding, landfills, brownfields, urban revitalization, open space preservation and quality drinking water, said Kim Mascarella, Eastgate's director of environmental planning.
"Many of our communities are dealing with the same environmental issues but are dealing with them largely on their own," she added.
Environmental problems such as flooding and air and water quality are regional in scale and require regional discussions to work through the issues and realize positive results, Mascarella asserted.
Water quality
One of the issues that will be discussed is retaining safe drinking water sources such as Meander Reservoir and Mosquito Lake.
Meander's watershed covers a large area and includes parts of Milton Township to the west, Goshen and Green townships to the south and Austintown and Canfield townships to the east and southeast.
Mascarella pointed out that if tributaries to Meander are kept clean, the cost of treatment will be reduced and the reservoir will remain a viable water source.
One way to accomplish this is to provide what are termed riparian setbacks along tributaries in the watershed's undeveloped portions. In the case of Meander, most of the watershed is undeveloped.
When development moves in, Mascarella said, space should be provided between the streams and houses. In this way, the setback area will naturally filter the runoff of pollutants. It also would reduce flooding because storm water will be released slowly into the tributary.
Financial benefit
Setbacks, she noted, will increase property values because the risk of flooding would be reduced. Also, fewer bacteria would make their way to the reservoir through ground filtration.
"There is only so much technology to keep drinking water safe," she added.
Boardman Township has integrated such setbacks in its zoning regulations, but communities that have more green space should get involved, she added.
Developing brownfield sites is another issue that EPAC will likely address.
Mascarella said the Mahoning River Corridor of Opportunities exists to deal with the development of brownfields in Campbell, Struthers and Youngstown. But the issue isn't being addressed on a regional level to encompass such sites from Lowellville to Warren.
Through EPAC, she said, the communities would be able to "get a handle" on what contaminants are at the sites so funding for cleanup can be identified and the areas subdivided so they are more manageable for possible redevelopment.
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency already has taken an interest in EPAC, Mascarella said, noting that 14 members of the regulatory agency's district office in Twinsburg attended the committee's first meeting.
Trish Nuskievicz, flood-plain administrator and environmental planner with the Trumbull County Planning Commission, is an EPAC member.
Nuskievicz said there hasn't been a mechanism to serve as a clearinghouse for environmental information. "It's been fragmented," she said.
Nuskievicz called attention to developers who don't understand that by using wetland and riparian space to help control storm water, there is less need for expensive infrastructure to remove the water.
If an agency under EPAC has come up with a solution to solve an environmental problem, it can be shared, Nuskievicz said. "We won't have to reinvent the wheel."
yovich@vindy.com