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Mahoning commissioners support wetlands grants
YOUNGSTOWN
Mahoning County commissioners adopted resolutions Monday supporting two applications by the Boardman Township trustees for state wetlands preservation grants, under which the township would acquire undeveloped wooded wetlands from private landowners.
The Clean Ohio Conservation Program grants would come from the Ohio Public Works Commission.
The first application is for a $107,625 grant for the Lev Wetlands Preservation Project, with the landowner paying the remainder of the $143,500 project cost as a local share.
The Bruce Lev property, located north of Mathews Road and south of Nova Lane between Lemoyne Avenue and Interstate 680, is a series of 70 small lots totaling 19 acres in a residential neighborhood, the majority encompassing wetland and floodplain areas, which the township plans to leave in their natural state.
A public trailhead parking area is planned for a nearby lot on Nova Lane.
The township intends to eventually acquire all the area’s vacant lots.
This application is the first of several that would eventually preserve more than 48 acres of forested wetlands.
The other application is for a $100,00 grant toward the $150,000 Yellow Creek Preservation Project along Western Reserve Road near the Boardman-Poland township boundary.
Under this grant, the county sanitary engineer’s office would acquire 2.64 acres for a sanitary-sewer pumping station and provide the $50,000 local share, and Boardman Township would acquire the remaining 10.73 acres.
The land covered under this grant, which is owned by Ed Yasechko, includes Yellow Creek’s main channel and wetland and floodplain areas. Boardman intends to leave the land in its natural state to preserve the creekside corridor.
This proposed project is adjacent to 7.8 acres Boardman acquired through Clean Ohio several years ago.
“We’ll have the whole main stem of Yellow Creek preserved there,” Marilyn Kenner, Boardman’s assistant zoning inspector, told the commissioners.
“It’s important to preserve wetlands. It’s important that we don’t drain them. We need to preserve habitat” for wildlife, she said after the meeting. “It’s also a quality-of-life issue. ... It enhances the neighborhoods.”
The sanitary-sewer pump station would be built as part of the project that would abandon the New Middletown treatment plant and send its sewage to the Boardman treatment plant.